Why Water for Elephants Brought Kyle Selig Back to Broadway
as first reported by Broadway Direct here.
Kyle Selig wasn’t looking for his way back to Broadway. He had recently moved to Los Angeles with his wife (and former Mean Girls costar Erika Henningsen) to work on television and writing projects. However, when the chance to star as Jacob in Water for Elephants came his way, he knew he had to return to New York for the opportunity.
Kyle Selig on stage at Water for Elephants. Photo by Angela of York for Broadway Direct.
“I went to college with all of the PigPen Theatre Company boys,” he says of the team who composed the show’s score. “They were all seniors when I was a freshman. They actually asked me to sing some of these songs years ago when they were first developing it. So I’ve been singing ‘Anywhere’ [Jacob’s first song in the show] for years and years. When it came back around, I was like, ‘Oh my god, I just kind of have to do this, right? It’s perfect.’”
Hailing from Huntington Beach, California, Selig was first seen on a Broadway stage when he was just a teenager competing in the 2010 Jimmy Awards, which he went on to win. After graduating from Carnegie Mellon University, he starred in The Book of Mormon and, most notably, in the original Broadway cast of Mean Girls as Aaron Samuels.
With the exception of a brief two-week return to The Book of Mormon in 2022, Selig is back on Broadway for his first proper run since Mean Girls unexpectedly shuttered in March 2020. He joined the company of Water for Elephants on September 3, taking over the role of Jacob Jankowski from Grant Gustin. “The first night was very much like being shot out of a cannon,” he tells Broadway Direct in a conversation the week after his first show. “I blacked out for maybe the first 10 to 15 minutes and then came to somewhere in the middle of Act One and was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m back here in this familiar space.’”
Water for Elephants follows the recently orphaned Jacob Jankowski as he runs off with the Benzini Brothers Circus, discovering a sense of community and a newfound skill of caring for and training the circus’s show elephant.
“I think Jacob is one of these people who genuinely wants the best for others and wants to care for people, has this natural ability to care for people. So there’s something really wonderful about stepping into a brand-new company of people playing a role like that because, a) that’s just what Broadway is, it’s these casts taking care of each other at every turn, and b) it’s a gentle reminder to try to be that person in the world.”
The rehearsal schedule was new for Selig, as it’s his first time replacing a lead role in a company that has been performing it nightly for months. “It comes with a whole different territory just based on there’s really no way to put you in that situation until you are in that situation.” He describes the process as fast and furious, but was grateful to have the show’s leader, director Jessica Stone, by his side throughout.
“Jessica Stone made a point of being there for many of my rehearsals, which is, in my experience, just sort of rare, especially knowing that she is also mounting the Kimberly Akimbo tour at the same time. So she would show up for run-throughs downtown and then come over to the Imperial [Theatre] to check in with me. She was just very generous with her time and really allowed for, even though it was fast and furious, some aspect of process and discovery with what could be new about this.”
Also new to Selig this time around on Broadway is married life. He married Henningsen in 2022. They met while performing in Mean Girls, and both made the move back to New York as Selig began this job and ahead of a new TV job for her.
“This eight-show-a-week thing we’ve been out of for a while. And it’s not just that I’m no longer 22, and I don’t bend the way I used to. It’s also: Your life gets bigger the older you get. You collect more things. I have a wife now, I have a dog and now, I have to fit all of that into this eight-show-a-week schedule, and I don’t want to miss any of that. So it’s becomes this big juggling situation.”
Henningsen was there to cheer him on for his opening night, and Selig says she has been supportive throughout, “upping the slack where I could not, which is great because soon I’ll be the one picking up the slack. She’s working on a TV show, so I’m getting my feet, then I’ll go back to being the supportive partner.”
Jumping in alongside a company of theater veterans, including Isabelle McCalla, Gregg Edelman, and Paul Alexander Nolan, Selig couldn’t be more complimentary of the environment he has entered. “There’s something funny that happens with these Broadway shows sometimes, six months, eight months in. It’s not that you take your eye off the ball, but the Tonys are over, people have seen the show, you start to relax, you start to set into a groove. And because this show is so dangerous and there’s so much circus element to it, no one has taken their eye off the ball in any way. It is just as fresh, it is just as new, and just as committed as it was on opening night.”
As new audiences continue to come to Water for Elephants, Selig is excited for them to experience the community of the show. “I just want them to see this funny, adorable, cute little company that the show has brought together. It really is this huge Venn diagram of so many different art forms and styles and worlds. It’s something that I think is so worth seeing, because it’s different.”
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