Jeremy Jordan on Floyd Collins and his Tony nomination

In the early 1990s, college students Adam Guettel and Tina Landau embarked on a wild idea: writing a musical based on the strange-but-true story of Floyd Collins, the Kentucky man who got stuck in a cave in 1925 trying to turn the cave into a tourist attraction. The topic was so intriguing because of what happened after he got stuck: the news story became one of the country's first "viral stories," reaching far and wide and creating such pandemonium that thousands would gather atop the entrance to the cave, hoping he would get rescued. After making it to an Off-Broadway theatre in 1996, the musical circled the Broadway industry for decades thanks to the clever concept by Landau and beautiful score by Adam Guettel, now a two-time Tony Award winner (and Landau is now a Tony-nominated director).

The musical has finally made it to Broadway and received six Tony Award nominations, including Best Revival of a Musical and Best Leading Actor in a Musical for Jeremy Jordan, our guest for the episode. We talk about what it's like to be nominated again, his path to the show, and his thoughts on why Floyd represents the best of him. Before the interview, host Alex Birsh (Playbill's C.O.O.) brings on a theatre friend to go into why the show resonated with him so much.

00:23 - Sneak Peek

01:47 - Interview with theatre friend Logan Culwell-Block

11:08 - Interview with Jeremy Jordan

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