Jacob Gutierrez
From Peter: My first job out of undergrad was on Disney Cruise Line alongside Jacob’s Aladdin. Jacob kind of blew my mind from day one. He was committed, musical (he plays both piano and guitar), fit, a remarkably good dancer, generous, and funny. Jacob made that first contract remarkably easy. He traveled to Kat and I’s wedding after knowing us for less than a year. He was a person I hoped would be in my life for a long time.
And, luckily, he has been. You’ll get to hear Jacob take you on an unexpected journey of success, rehabbing an injury, quiet times, and, perhaps when he least expected it, a Broadway debut. Through it all, I admire how he looks for growth in himself and always ground himself with a myriad of healthy things, family most of all. He has a lot of wisdom, so we’ll pass it along to him.
Jacob, you are definitely a friend that makes us “Proud of [our] boy”. Could you introduce yourself to our readers?
Well, first of all, LOVE THE PUN. Second of all, that is incredibly kind of you, because I could GUSH back at how proud I am of both of you, Peter and Kat. I have always thought the world of the both of you, so to be asked to this in the first place is hella flattering. BUT! Hello, blog-iverse. I am Jacob Gutierrez, and I am currently in the (now long-running) Broadway show of Aladdin. Where I am in the ensemble every night, and I understudy Aladdin and Omar, both.
I grew up in Hays, KS, a small-western Kansas town, where theatre was kinda few and far between. I was a “sports kid” up until my sophomore year of high school, when I caught the “theatre bug.” It was kinda a two part-er: I first went to see the national tour of Wicked that fall with my choir, and at intermission—right after (now) Tony Award winner, Stephanie J. Block defied gravity—I walked into the lobby, looked at my mom, and said “I wanna do that.” About two months later, I did my first musical, Oliver! at my high school, where I played Fagin. And I was hooked.
I went to Oklahoma City University and majored in musical theatre. After graduation, I moved to New York, and booked my first gig, Disney Cruise Line—which is where I met the irreplaceable Peter AND Kat—and have basically been in and out of the city since then.
Oklahoma City University… Can you tell us how you ended up there and how it impacted your career?
I first heard of Oklahoma City University while at an audition for Music Theatre of Wichita, while I was in high school. While I was in the audition room, my mom was in the lobby, and was talking with another mother there, who happened to be the wife of the dean of the music school at OCU. After going home, I started looking it up, and found some big Broadway names, like Kristin Chenoweth and Kelli O’Hara, who both hailed OCU as their alma mater.
I went on to do a summer music program there after 11th grade, and after meeting some of the faculty and experiencing the campus, I auditioned my senior year, received a great scholarship, and decided it was the best fit for me. The fact that it was a Bachelor of Music degree also really appealed to me, as I had always been a musician first.
OCU connected me far better than I think I even know. While at OCU, I furthered my relationships with Music Theatre of Wichita, as they come to OCU every spring to audition students for their resident company. OCU also had a Spring Break Workshop in New York every spring, where we met Broadway coaches, directors, casting directors, choreographers. I attended every year while at college, and then upon arrival in New York City, I felt like I at least had a starting point to hit the ground running. Some of those very coaches have now become some of my dearest mentors in the business.
You spent significant time on cruise ships, like a lot of performers do. Can you talk about pros and cons?
Oh yes, I can. I did three contracts with Disney Cruise Line. Cruise ships are one of the most alluring contracts out there and with good reason. Having booked it right out of school, it was the best opportunity for me to create a nest egg of cash in the bank. You are covered with room and board, and make a pretty decent salary, and if you are wise about it, it’s so easy to set aside a huge chunk of change—which is what I did.
It also gave me a great escape from New York, to grow up a bit more. You learn the most while “on the job.” I learned what my limits are, how to maintain a healthy mind/body/spirit in the midst of work, and learned to say “no.”
(I’ll never forget when my parents and I were driving cross country for me to move into my first NY apartment, my mom asked me what I wanted to happen when I got to New York. My response was “I wanna book a job and leave for 9 months to a year.” And despite my mom’s subtle reaction of, “wait… WHY are we moving all your stuff there again?” she did support it, and that’s exactly what happened. And it was the biggest blessing ever.)
For me, the cruise ship was an incubator, of sorts. It was this isolated time I had where I began to really ask some tough questions of myself. And because I was so removed from it all (the business, family, land friends) it really made me ask a lot. I think what’s so beautiful about that, is that the questioning has never stopped. That was my first job out in the real world, and it spun this beautiful web of continually asking, seeking answers, reflecting, and taking time to grow. I began to really learn what my strengths were, and what people I found myself gravitating toward.
But in that very vein, the isolation is the thing that can be the hardest, or a huge con. For me, a fair amount of isolation was good, but after a while, it wasn’t the right thing for me. I needed to be back in New York. I needed to be surrounded by people who knew me outside of that floating city. I needed to be able to call my dad or my brother on a random Tuesday at 3:17 PM to just talk, and not have to worry about the “all aboard” time and my home floating away. While on a ship, a big term that circulates is “ship goggles.” Aka, you start seeing the world through the lens of this ship you’re living on. It can be really easy to lose perspective. That, ultimately is how I knew my time on ships was at its end.
Was there ever a moment where you felt like giving up? What did you do to get through that time?
I absolutely wanted to give up. I left my second Disney Cruise Line contract with a pretty terrible shoulder injury. I moved back to the city—in a sublet apartment with three guys who I didn’t know— and after a week there, had surgery on my shoulder. I spent that winter (and the following year) recovering from that horrendous shoulder surgery. I don’t think I ever cried as much as I did that first 6 months.
It was a very odd feeling. It felt like everything I had worked for through college, and right out of school, was “taken.” I couldn’t audition, I couldn’t work out. Two huge things that I feel like my identity clung to for a long time: “Jacob is an actor, a very FIT actor.” So all of that was stripped away. Yet again, soul searching. Identity crisis.
I had some pretty incredible people guide me through that time, though. 1. I clung to my friendship community and their support, love, and laughter. 2. I had a voice teacher who really put me in my place about nine months after surgery. I was still in a lot of pain, and really down in the dumps about it, moping around, saying my career was “taken from me,” and he shook me out of it and told me to stop, “you are CREATING this. Just stop! Your career is still there.” It was one of the greatest lessons of my life. 3. The physical therapists I had here in New York completely changed my perspective on the human body and what it’s capable of. Especially the power of the mind, and what it tells us. Y’ALL, YOUR BRAIN IS SO POWERFUL. 4. And of course, my family, was there for me. The rocks in my life. I have the most supportive parents, siblings, and siblings-in-law. I’m halfway across the country from them, but a phone call had never felt so close, than it did during that time.
So in the end, a greater blessing came because of it. I am so much smarter now, both mentally and physically. I am more in tune with my body. I know how to take care of myself, and how to maintain 8 shows on Broadway a week. Very grateful.
What is the most important thing you’ve done so far in your career?
Well, the achiever in me could say “I have bowed last on Broadway in a hit musical.” But that doesn’t necessarily ring as my truth.
I think of the people. I think the impact I can have on people each day is the most important. Most notably, my company members at Aladdin. The stage managers I talk to, the crew members I laugh with, the castmates I relate to in so many ways. A simple shared laugh (and there is so much laughter) can go a long way to spread joy. What we do is a gift. 200+ people come together for 3 (or 7) hours a day to create magic for 1700 people in the audience. We bring our joys, our struggles, our strengths, our weaknesses—our very full lives—we bring it all together for that time, and make something incredible happen at the New Amsterdam Theatre. If you come to see the show, you will see a company of happy, loving people. And I firmly believe it is evidenced on our stage.
And to be frank, in the midst of it, I fail. A lot. I can get so caught up in my stresses, my frustrations, my insecurities, that my impact is stifled. But, at the end of the day, I chalk it up to being a human, and I learn from it. After all, I’m fortunate enough to come back again, tomorrow, and try again.
Looking back, is there anything you would change about your path?
Oh man, change? Probably not. Because I think our paths are what makes us who we are. The good, the bad, the complex. But there will always be this small part of me that wonders what it would have been like to go to a huge state school, with a rockin’ basketball team, and I’d have bought season tickets in the student section to go to all the games at Allen Fieldhouse—wait, what?—Yes. Yes, I wonder what it would’ve been like to go to the University of Kansas. Rock Chalk Jayhawk. GO KU!
But I have a feeling my life would’ve been very different. (I’d be an engineer. Or a chiropractor. And live in Dallas. Ha.)
Are you at the top of your mountain?
No. I don’t think I’ll ever consider myself at the top of any mountain. Because 1. it’s incredibly lonely at the top and 2. I’m far too goal-oriented, future seeking, and a builder of my dreams. I think the moment I get complacent or stop challenging myself, that will be the day I’ll need to quit this business. Or, if I am ever at the top of a mountain, it just means that point is the bottom of the next mountain. Keep building.
I think I’ve achieved some success, sure, and I’m beyond grateful to have achieved that. But what is bizarre, is that even in the midst of this success, some days can still feel kinda low. Broadway does not equal happiness. I didn’t wake up the morning after my debut, and think to myself, “wow, life is complete! I’m good. Look at me.” Because the reality is, the next day, it’s a job; it’s normal. An incredible opportunity? Absolutely, but it’s only a fraction of life. Which is why I look inward and keep asking hard questions of myself. I dig deeper. I seek more answers about where I can find them. I keep dreaming. And I don’t settle.
But I think that’s the beautiful, challenging, puzzle we call life. We’ll never have it figured out. Or all the answers. But it’s ok. It makes us more and more curious, and reliant on far more than just ourselves. And thank God for that.
RAPID FIRE:
Favorite Broadway show: The Light in the Piazza. (But currently running show, Freestyle Love Supreme… seriously, go see it.)
Favorite TV show: I’m such a bad TV watcher. Dexter is the only series I’ve ever watched all the way through. But I have been known to binge a little Great British Baking Show. And I’ll still go back and watch The Office, too. That show was comedy gold.
Any other obsessions?: before and afters of any kind, Panda Express, nachos, log cabin Instagram accounts.
Religious or nah?: I am. I think faith plays a huge journey in all of this, and also believe it is so incredibly unique to each person. I literally could not do what I do without my faith. I pray protection and blessing over myself every night as the curtain rises, and we’re off.
Former side hustles: Product specialist for the national Mercedes-Benz team, MD for musical theatre school for kiddos in NY, waiter in midtown east.
Most stressful part of understudying on Broadway: The self-expectation to always give your 100% show, even if you’re thrown on last minute. Because the fact is, with doing 8 shows a week, some days, you just aren’t 100%, and that’s that. You can only do what you can do, and learn acceptance from that. But what’s hard, is that, because you don’t get to do it every day, you don’t get multiple chances a week to “go out there and ‘HaVe The BeSt sHoW eVeRr!’”
Any bad audition stories?: Oh gosh. YES. Which one? HAHA. I went through a time where I repeatedly (yes, on MULTIPLE occasions) entered audition rooms with my fly undone, unbeknownst to me. After singing, doing sides, sitting in a solid “manspread”—the whole shebang—with my fly GAPING open… I walked out, looked down, realized it, and just CACKLED laughing. ’Tis what it is. GIMME A CALLBACK!
Job you didn’t expect to book: Umm… Aladdin on Broadway. HA. I hadn’t auditioned for a musical for 6 months prior to the week I auditioned for Aladdin. I was burnt out. I let it go. In a sense, I let all the musical theatre world go. And then, I saw an ECC come up for it, and I went in. And during that same week, I auditioned for two other regional shows. The day I got the call for Aladdin, I got the call for Sky in a regional production of Mamma Mia, and Che in Evita.
Biggest beef with the business: When people don’t respect my time. In any capacity.
Social media handles: @jacobtgutierrez for both instagram and twitter. (do people still use twitter??)
Anything else you’d like to promote?: Be hungry to grow. Challenge yourself to dig deeper, always. Ask more of yourself. Seek Seek Seek. Seek answers, insight, wisdom, peace. Reflect. Because the learning never stops. We are on this ever-constant path to keep refining ourselves. Cherish that. Embrace that. Be open to that. Because most times, the obvious path is not so obvious.