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While discussing his Broadway debut next month, Jamal Christopher Douglas recalled his earliest inspiration: a Folger’s commercial featuring tap dancing coffee drinkers.
“No matter what room it was playing on television, I would run to that room and start tap dancing — or what I thought was tap dancing back then — every single time,” said Douglas, 27, who grew up in Medford and graduated from Longwood High School.
“It was the cutest thing,” added his mother Patricia Douglas.
Two decades later, he is preparing to grace the stage of the Barrymore Theatre when “Paradise Square” launches on Broadway on March 15.
Douglas grew from entertaining family with dance routines on Thanksgiving to performing across the country as a well-rounded dancer, singer and actor.
Douglas was cast in the “Paradise Square” ensemble in 2018. The story unfolds in the Five Points area of Manhattan amidst the build up to the Draft Riots of 1863.
“It shows the blending and the merging of two cultures, which is the Irish culture and the African culture, which gave birth to tap dance, so it’s really a unique piece,” Jamal Christopher Douglas said of the musical’s plot. “There’s a lot of things we realize we don’t learn in school, in history class, and that I think is the point of theater. That’s what it should be. I wish there were more shows like that on Broadway.”
The Fresh Kid
After moving from Brooklyn to Medford with his mother and his brother Brian when he was 6 years old, Douglas studied dancing under Michelle Ferrarro at her Dance USA studio. It was Ferrarro’s guidance and entrepreneurial spirit that inspired Douglas to start his own dance company, Fresh Kidz.
Patricia Douglas then surrendered her home to become her son’s dance studio and drew on her show-stopping experience. Her father frequently took her to Broadway as a child, after they emigrated there from Jamaica, ushering in her time in the spotlight.
From elementary to junior high school, she acted and danced her way through such classics as “West Side Story,” “The Wizard of Oz,” and “Oliver.”
“When Jamal did his Fresh Kidz, he would call me downstairs and he would say, ‘Mommy, look at this,’ and I would critique,” she said. “I would say, ‘Okay, if this is a serious song, you can’t have a smile on your face.’ I would tell them, ‘Your facial expression needs to change.'”
When he wasn’t competing in Longwood dance-offs as a Fresh Kid, Jamal Christopher Douglas kept busy performing in musicals and other shows, playing the school marching band and serving as elected class president his junior and senior years at Longwood.
‘Just bring it’
In spite of a year-long set back after he tore a meniscus, Douglas was accepted into Pace University’s School of Performing Arts in 2013.
He performed in numerous shows as an undergraduate, from his stint as an ensemble member in “Once on This Island” to his role as the first Black incarnation of St. Jimmy in “American Idiot,” once it left Broadway. He even co-choreographed the university’s production of “Runaways.”
It was during these years Douglas said he learned a troupe must push through collective exhaustion and strive for great art.
“Just bring it,” he said. “You’re there for a reason, so now is the time to really be an artist and challenge yourself, push yourself, work hard, make mistakes. Don’t be afraid to fail in the rehearsal room. And practice hard because it will only fuel your performance when you get out there.”
‘A physical genius’
In the classroom, Alexandra Silbur, who instructed Douglas throughout a two-semester, freshmen-level acting course, said her student taught her as much as she taught him.
As she passed along her knowledge and experience to Douglas, he expanded his professor’s purview of measuring comprehension in academia.
Silbur described the young man as “fierce” with an “incredible spirit” and an “unkillable will to learn and to grow,” but these qualities did not come across in his written assignments. She then allowed for an alternative.
“Instead of completing a great, big five paragraph essay, he would turn in these beautiful voice memos to me that were so articulate and so deeply inspired,” Silbur said. “By the time we got to the second semester in my class, which focused entirely on physical acting, I really was able to see that I had a star on my hands.
“He is a physical genius, if you will,” she added of his dancing and acting prowess. “If that was something that was measurable and rewardable in a traditional school environment, he’d probably graduate first in his class.”
Since Douglas graduated in 2017, Silbur has kept “the Jamal theory” alive. She accepts voice memos, video submissions and even Tik Toks as completed assignments.
‘You will end up where you’re supposed to be’
Last month, John Gallagher, the director of music and fine arts at Longwood High School, invited Douglas to speak to music students as a successful figure who once sat in their seats.
Douglas remembered a similar experience when Jeanette Vecchione, an opera singer who graduated from Longwood, visited his class years back. He awed at her tales of performing around the world, and he hoped he could one day inspire the next generation of Longwood students.
“It was so surreal waking up that morning,” Douglas said. “One, because I forgot about how early we had to be up to be in school, that’s ungodly. But also, I couldn’t believe I was the person talking to the current student body. It’s full circle.”
When he stood before the student body, Douglas shared his journey from graduating Pace, to securing an agent and from finding a steady day job as a cycling instructor — which he treats as a performance itself — to continuing to learn and grow.
“Everyone says it’s not easy. Saying that it’s not easy is easier than actually experiencing it,” he said. “You’re going to have a lot of obstacles, but if you embrace them, you will be fine. As long as you put in the work and you are a nice person to work with and committed, you will end up where you’re supposed to be.”
