Let's Have a Look at…Jennifer Lee Crowl
“Jen Lee” to her buddies in the cast of “Young Frankenstein!”
It is not easy to overlook Jen Lee Crowl among the Transylvanians frolicking through Susan Stroman’s choreography in “Young Frankenstein.” Her enjoyment is contagious, and her inviting smile, crinkley eyes, and terrific long legs take the concentration of the viewer almost immediately. Watch for the redhead who carries a headless doll on stage in her role as the innkeeper’s daughter who has her eye on the village baker. By the end of Mel Brooks zany romp she has snagged him.
Crowl’s long-standing dream was to be in a show on Broadway and that dream was on hold until “Young Frankenstein” came calling. Before that she paid her dues in theme parks, the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall as a Rockette, several regional theater productions, and finally the first National tour of “The Producers,” and a chance to work with Susan Stroman. But the “Troika” (bus and tour) production of “Will Rogers Follies” was her first real taste of show biz.
Shuler Hensley, Sutton Foster, Robert Bart, Christopher Fitzgerald and Andrew Martin
Photo: Paul Kolnik
“You have to cut your teeth on something,” Crowl said, with a hearty laugh speaking about the “Troika” tour. “Believe me, I did not walk into my first audition in New York and be handed a job. I took the bus and truck offer, a non-equity production, and spent most of the time on the bus. When we got to stay for two nights in the same place, it was a bonanza. We could do our laundry.” Bus and truck tour gigs are very hard on dancers. Sleep is the cherished state, and that is usually on two empty seats together or space on the floor. Fortunately for Crowl her “bus buddy” liked the floor, and both survived well.
The audition for the first national tour of “The Producers” seemed just right for Crowl. She worked with a vocal coach, took her dance classes, and most important, she was confident. “I did my homework, talked with people in the show, sang a comic song and a ballad, told three light bulb jokes, and finished with a big split on the floor. How good is that!” she said. “I know that everyone at an audition is cute, lovely, charming, and can dance. Being really prepared has always been a huge requirement for me, and this time it won me the job.”
Most dancers while on tour wait for a replacement call, someone in the Broadway cast leaves and producers go to the tour company for a replacement. “I didn’t care if it was for two weeks,” she said. “Waiting in the minor leagues for a call up is frustrating. Give me anything, just let me walk through the stage door in a Broadway theater and say “I made it.’”
Then her ambitions were interrupted. Her strong belief that she could control her life didn’t work out that way. Her father living alone in Pennsylvania had a major stroke. She immediately gave up all thoughts of a Broadway career and headed home to be his caretaker. Her husband, musician Chris Rinaman, patient and willing to support her dream of dancing on Broadway over the years, was at her side. For the following seven months she was overseer in her father’s long and arduous rehabilitation. “I thought perhaps this was the big signal that all this Broadway stuff was over -- settle down and get a life,” she admitted. “I didn’t want to give up, but my father was a priority issue.” She took him from bed, to wheelchair, to a one-pronged cane in about seven months, probably an achievement most nurses and would have trouble duplicating. When a job offer for a Las Vegas production of “The Producers” came her way. Her father, by now on the road to recovery was ready to travel. She packed up, and off they went.
The Company of "Young Frankenstein"
Photo: Paul Kolnik
“I got wind of casting for ‘Young Frankenstein’ while in Las Vegas, and just knew I was right for this show. I prepared to fly in for the day, but after a phone call to the New York casting agent I heard the familiar refrain -- ‘we have finished casting, but we will keep you on file.’” Crowl’s persona is defined by not taking “no” for an answer, guiding her father’s recovery is living proof. Not to be daunted she went to New York for one day in March 2007 to audition, and received in person her final “thank-you, very much from the casting director. “I finally put it to rest,” she said. “I had done everything I could do, so I went back to Las Vegas, put on my ‘Producers’ costumes, and got back on stage.”
About three weeks later a call came in on her cell phone at 7:45 in the morning. A New York number, Crowl thought to herself, “my dentist calling to make an appointment for a check-up.” Half asleep, she recognized the voice of Tara Rubin, casting director for ’Frankenstein’ offering her a job. She was in a state of disbelief. Time to pack up her Dad and move back to New York to her home, her husband, and a Broadway show -- no, not a Broadway show, a successful Broadway show.
She had persevered thinking she had exhausted all possibilities. “This is something for dancers to understand,” she added. “Never think –never.” Her husband and her father would be going to actually see Crowl on Broadway, share in the realization of her dream – walking through the stage door of a Broadway house, down the stairs to her dressing room, to put on her red wig as the innkeeper’s daughter and sing, dance, and laugh with her ensemble mates in “Young Frankenstein.”