We recently connected with Jake Schwartz and have shared our conversation below.

Jake, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you?

Back in February 2020, ya know right before the world ended – I was in a musical called Loserville. Yes, it’s as silly as it sounds. However, this was the first time I had ever been cast as a lead in a musical. Not to mention it was making its United States east coast debut, so it was a little bit of a big deal. I really wanted my older brother Josh there, but he had already planned a vacation that already had a deposit on it. While I was upset, I completely understood. And he told me the day I found out he couldn’t go – it was early December 2019 I think. I would send him the newspaper articles and any promotional material so he could “see it” so to speak, so he wouldn’t feel left out.
Well, on February 9th 2020 (the final performance) my family minus my brother was there. The show ended, I walked out to take a bow – and I looked to my right; I saw my older brother and his wife there. And let me tell you I started SOBBING. It just meant so much to me.
I found out later the entire family knew, and Josh drove somewhere between 4-6 hours that morning to get to the show on time. It just made me feel really cared about, and it’s one of my favorite memories in all of theatre.

Jake, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Well, I’m 25 years old and for the last 10 years I’ve worked as an actor in the Maryland theatre scene. I’ve worked from DC, to Baltimore, to Frederick, to Columbia. About 5 years ago I started directing in the area as well, and I’m currently directing my 6th full length musical. 3 years ago I worked as a teacher for PGCPS and BCPS, teaching theatre. And now, I’m figuring it all out again.

I got into theatre when I was only 11 years old – and I got into it by… wait for it… losing a bet against my middle school best friend. We were both super into Pokemon, and we brought our gameboys on the bus with us on a field trip. We fought each other in the game, and I lost so I had to do a dare. He dared me to join the drama club.

Now I was a 6th grader, and a self concious little guy – so I was nervous, but I think the teacher was just happy to have more than one guy in the club! Shoutout Joyce Baron, without her I wouldn’t have ever taken it seriously and figured out I actually really enjoyed theatre. After that I went to Carver Center for Arts and Tech where I was taught by the great Paul Diem, got my degree in Theatre Education at University of Maryland (I had to make my own major, which if I told that story it would take an extra twenty minutes), and started teaching right after college.

Well, I ended up getting pretty sick and losing a lot of weight cause of it – so it was pretty difficult moving around or doing really anything. Actually in a production of The Rocky Horror Show in 2022 I had to be helped offstage during a live performance because I was too weak to continue. Eventually it became enough of a problem where I had to leave my job in early 2023 and focus on recovery and regaining the weight. I can say a year later that I am (mostly) back to normal and I hope to continue on that track!

Since then I got to hop back into acting, portraying Josh Baskin in Big the Musical with Scottfield Theatre and Buddy the Elf in Elf the Musical with Third Wall Productions. Third Wall seemed to like me enough to bring me in to direct their next show, Heathers the Musical – opening on April 5th!

All of that being said – I’m honestly still trying to figure everything out. I’ve made a lot of friends in the area and I have been able to perform quite a bit over the last 10 years.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I think the biggest lesson I had to unlearn was that not everyone with more experience is always right.

I didn’t really fit in with a lot of other people for most of my life, I had extreme social anxiety and I was pretty socially awkward as well. That led to me not having the most friends growing up, and people would say some pretty mean things about me and my talent level.

The craziest thing is, it wasn’t just the kids who were unnecessarily mean. I will not be saying any names, but I auditioned for a show called Once Upon a Mattress. They had maybe 5 guys who auditioned and 10 male identifying roles, this was back in 2015 so I definetly still had a lot to learn. I got pulled aside after the audition by the director who tells me “you’re not cut out to be in a musical.” She also tells me I shouldn’t waste my time trying to be in them, and I was so sad. I had never done a musical before, and I really thought I could.

So I started practicing. I couldn’t afford voice lessons so I just did a bunch of free Youtube lessons. I couldn’t let her be right. And through a crazy series of events, next year my friend Mumbi took me to an audition with her and that same director was running it. I was cast as the male lead of the show, and the night we opened – she took a second to say that she was so grateful that I was there, like specifically me. I never talked to her about what she said the year prior, but apparently a friend of mine named Katy did – but the director had no recollection of saying that.

Since then I kind of took everyones opinions/feedback with a grain of salt. Sometimes it might be right, but not always.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

This is super easy – all of the friends you get to make.

I know that is such a corny answer, but as someone who grew up with little to no friends, I am astonished by how such a large chunk of the community is so friendly and caring of eachother (and people they don’t even know!)

Now don’t get me wrong – everyone has times where they’re off and in a bad headspace (myself included, there are days where I don’t want to talk to anyone – let alone someone I don’t know) but for the most part, there’s always some form of support and building each other up.

I want to share a new favorite memory that happened back in December. It was closing night of Elf the Musical. I spent 2 hours onstage out of 2 hours 20 minutes. The rehearsal process for that show was a lot, there were a lot of unexpected challenges that everyone had to get past. But we got pretty close over the process.

My character, Buddy (Will Ferrell in the movie), would throw a handful of scraps of paper in people’s face and yell “Snow!” cause ya know, he was an Elf and he was stupid. Closing night of theatre is usually called prank night, where you mess with people a little bit. So the entire show, I was expecting someone to throw “snow” in my face. But it never happened. So during curtain call, I was the last person to come out and I take the final bow. And as soon as I come back up I just hear everyone shout “Snow!” and our awesome crew member Mauryce dumps a whole trashbag filled with scraps of paper on me; while the cast threw handfuls at me. It’s hard to explain how I felt in that moment, but it was one of the most cared about I ever felt in my life. From a guy with really no friends, to someone an entire cast would give a memory like that too – I felt like the luckiest guy in the world.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @itsJakeSchwartz
• Other: You can purchase tickets to the show I’m directing, “Heathers the Musical” here! We run April 5th – 14th. https://www.onthestage.tickets/show/third-wall-productions/6500e506b813f00e3c4a9d2b

Image Credits
Machpe Photography