The Optimism, Joy, and Passion of Stephen Mark Lukas

The Broadway national tour of Funny Girl has finally hit California, in San Francisco until May 26^th, then at Orange County’s Segerstrom Hall from May 28^th to June 9^th. We were there on opening night for the show’s run at the Ahmanson in Los Angeles. We have never seen an Ahmanson audience respond so strongly with sincere admiration, holding the show due to unwavering applause and standing ovations, clearly appreciating the charm and tour de force of this classic musical. The show’s star, Katerina McCrimmon as Fanny Brice, knocks the familiar role out of the park, making the well-known hits “People” and “Don’t Rain On My Parade” all her own. A soaring moment of Act II is shared between Katerina’s Brice and the show’s leading man, Stephen Mark Lukas as Nick Arnstein. The song chills as the theater was filled with some of the most powerful vocals we have heard in a while. A theatre classic, this was a throwback to the Broadway stars of yesterday that were less remix and pop and more full-throated pathos – the audience leaped to its feet.

Stephen Mark Lukas fits the bill as the lead. Tall, muscular, and dashingly handsome, he has played the leading type in his Broadway and regional career in such roles as Gaston in Beauty and the Beast, Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls, Lancelot in Camelot, Lt. Cable in South Pacific, and Curly in Oklahoma! A boon for queer stage performers, he has earned critical acclaim for his portrayal of these straight characters, proving that we shouldn’t be limited by our sexuality. Acting is the craft, and acting should be the determining factor in being cast.

Though not raised in a particularly artistic house, Stephen’s father would bring home cast recordings and take the family from Maine to Broadway every year to experience musical theatre firsthand.

My dad would get the Wall Street Journal and look in the paper to see what got the best reviews, and then call Telecharge to get tickets six months ahead of time and we’d have the tickets sitting on the kitchen counter. That was sort of my theatrical education from an early age, just seeing how it kind of brought our family together. We would go every Veteran’s Day weekend and pack in like four or five shows. The Hal Prince production of Showboat was the first Broadway show I saw. I remember the overture starting and they lifted giant bales of cotton out of the orchestra pit, which was the first thing you saw, and it just transported me to this other world. And then I got to high school and college and realized, wow, this, this could be a job, and I could do this. It’s been that way ever since.

He did theatre in high school and playing Jack in Into the Woods (twice) really lit the acting spark. The musical remains one of his favorites to this day. Despite the athletic stature we see on stage (Funny Girl has a revealing bathrobe moment worth the ticket price alone), sports wasn’t really a part of Stephen’s formative years.

My parents signed me up for soccer, which was the first sport I ever tried to play. But they looked over at a certain point in the game, and I was picking dandelions and chasing butterflies. I just hadn’t done those things; I was kind of shy about it. I got older and I started swimming, I was a big swimmer in high school and started working out and getting more athletic, sort of on my own terms. But it was just never something I really wanted to do as a kid.

Going on to attend boarding school at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, where he would hone his singing skills, it became clear that his career path would be that in performance. He feels that Exeter was the perfect preparation for the next stage in his life, he was ready, he was hungry for it. He would go on to attend Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. On his first night in New York, he went to Stonewall and felt at peace, in his words, “I was like, I’m here. This is it. Let’s do this.”

He calls his time at NYU holistic, learning about himself as a performer, not just what Broadway show he should book next. Coming from a successful run in community and school theatre, audition life in the real world would come with some punches…and roller skates.

When I graduated from college, Xanadu was on Broadway with Cheyenne Jackson. They were casting the tour at the time, and they were looking for an understudy. I had seen it four times and thought, wow, I could do that role. I went in, sang the songs, they loved me. Did the scenes, they loved me. Then they were like, nothing to do now but rollerskating! I had never skated before in my life. I was like, how hard can it be? So, I bought a pair of roller skates and skated around the roof of my apartment building. (During the audition), at one point, I skated into the table where the director was sitting and I got up and I was like, “Do you need to see anything else?” And they’re like, “No, Steven, you’ve done enough.”

Though Stephen had come out in high school, and though musical theatre was seen as a safe space for queer performers, the environment during those early audition years was still very much a “don’t ask, don’t tell” era, especially for the type of roles Lukas was qualified for. Gay men just were not cast as leading men, that wasn’t the norm. Stephen was called in to audition for the pilot of Glee, his first TV audition ever. They flew him out to Los Angeles after his audition in New York; the role ultimately went to Cory Monteith.

I had a conversation with my agent after the fact, and he said to me, “We want you to be proud, but not so proud you don’t book the job.” And that was kind of a little warning. I said, “I really admire Cheyenne Jackson,” because, at the time, he was the only out, leading man that I knew of. He said, “Yeah, but Cheyenne Jackson isn’t a movie star.” And, and that just cut me to the quick, and I just remember feeling like, oh my God, what am I doing? Am I wasting my time doing this if I’m not going to be able to be myself? I have emails from casting directors going way back saying like, “Oh, Steven needs to butch it up.”

This is the thing though – it was never about my work. It was never about what I was doing in the scenes. It was never about my relationship with the leading lady. It was never about a kiss. The work was always solid. And I knew that it was about how I walk into the room, or how I talk to the casting director when I see them on the street, and that just always felt so unfair to me because they’re not asking that of anybody else. You’re not asking that of your straight actors.

If an actor is playing Macbeth, you’re not asking them to be Macbeth when you see them on the street, but you’re asking me to be Nick Arnstein when I walk into the room if I’m not doing the scene. That’s not fair. It created a lot of self-consciousness in me. Thankfully the business has changed a lot and the cast of Funny Girl is very young, and I’m happy to report that Gen Z does not have that. They’re like, this is me, and if you don’t like it, fuck you. That is refreshing. Now and again, sometimes you will get notes and you sense there’s a little bit of that still from producers and directors. At the end of the day, I’m an actor and if you don’t like my work, you don’t have to cast me but don’t tell me how I have to behave when I’m not on stage. That was the thing for me always growing up.

I think because of my stature and my height, I do get cast in these sort of hyper-masculine roles. So it is a skill I’ve had to develop, I’m not gonna lie, it is something that I’ve had to work on. But I think it just comes back to being true to the text. I’ll also say that for Funny Girl, the idea of masculinity is baked into the show, which is really what is the undoing of this character of Nick Arnstein. He feels so emasculated. So, there is my own struggle with, am I masculine enough for this that is really his struggle too. That’s what I found in Lancelot, in Gaston even to some extent, that the issue of masculinity in the world today is this question of even the men who the most hyper-masculine are being worried that they’re not man enough. That’s why we have these laws against trans people, people are being held to this standard that they don’t feel is fair. That is the story of these characters. I think my goal with them is always to find the vulnerability and to find out what does this person not have figured out. Most heroes in musicals start at a place of being insecure and become more secure as the story progresses. My characters are always the inverse of that. I don’t really play heroes; I play a lot of villains. I play people who are sort of tragic heroes who start at a certain place where they have everything figured out, and then they get kind of unraveled as the show goes on.

Stephen has had the opportunity to work on his character and settle into the role of Nick Arnstein. He understudied for Ramin Karimloo on Broadway, taking over the role for the last three weeks of the production run before hitting the road. For the revival, Nick’s solo dancing and singing number “Temporary Arrangement,” usually cut, was added back into the show, showing the full extent of Luka’s talents. Now, on the road, he is balancing his busy show life, maintaining a long-distance relationship with his fiance, and keeping his mental and physical health in check from his rigorous role.

Sleep has always been a challenge, being in different hotel rooms and different beds, the performance energy is different too. So really taking control, that’s been a big journey for me, has been really taking responsibility for my sleep, trying to limit screen time, trying to do all the things that everybody knows you should do and we never do. Staying close to my voice teacher. Asking for help when I need it, and really reaching out and saying like, hey, this isn’t working, can you help me? That’s a new experience for me. When I was a younger performer, I couldn’t do that. Book of Mormon was really hard, that score is really hard to sing, and I wasn’t at a point yet where I took ownership of that responsibility. I thought I had to have it all figured out. So that has been a big one, is just knowing myself as a performer better, what I need and asking for it has been a big part of this journey. Meditation is huge for me. I really try, at a certain point, to turn off politics. Just having a routine to exercise is so important for me. Really trying to just move and get exercise, get endorphins going.

Spending time with Stephen is a true delight. Not the imposing and brooding figure he is as Nick Arnstein, he is a gentle giant who exudes optimism, joy, and passion. You feel like you’ve known him forever and could literally talk about anything. Run, don’t walk to catch him (and his robe scene) on stage.

And his message to his fans?

If you really believe in yourself and you think that you have a skillset, don’t get waylaid by the people telling you you have to be anything other than what you are. Show up authentically and see what happens. It’s not gonna be what you think will happen, but if you show up authentically, something will happen. And that is more exciting, I think, than the sort of predetermined outcome that a lot of us want when we start out.

For Funny Girl tour dates, head to FunnyGirlonBroadway.com.

Follow Stephen on IG: @SMLukas