Backstage with Travis Ward-Osborne for 'Pretty Woman: The Musical'

Texas Performing Arts Broadway in Austin recently brought some Hollywood magic to the stage with the touring production of Pretty Woman: The Musical. During their stop in Austin, I was fortunate to speak with Travis Ward-Osborne, a talented actor who brought plenty of energy to the stage with dance moves for days and comedic lightheartedness.

Travis Ward-Osborn. Courtesy image.

Ward-Osborne was basically built for the stage, having attended Walnut Hill School for the Arts, a rather prestigious boarding school with a rigorous approach to theatre based on the methods of Russian theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski. From there, his education and abilities landed him at the University of Michigan where he earned his bachelor’s of fine arts. He’s been in New York City for the better part of a decade now, and is thriving as a creative talent, taking on roles in productions of Disney’s Aladdin, Holiday Inn, and the Miss Saigon revival. In Pretty Woman: The Musical, Ward-Osborn plays the Happy Man, a seemingly homeless optimist who always looks at the bright side, but he’s more of a narrative throughline for the show.

“He's kind of the fairy godfather of the show in a way. He pops up in a bunch of different places throughout the show,” Ward-Osborne explained with a laugh. “If you're familiar with the movie, Héctor Elizondo played the hotel manager in the movie, and they took a concept of having his character being more of a fairy godfather in the way that he plays a bunch of different characters in the show. So I play the hotel manager and I play a store manager, and I pop up in a couple different places as just a bit character. So it's very all over the place.”

Having seen the show, I can attest to this. While Carissa Gaughran and Adam Pascal are the focus of the show, there’s no shortage of Ward-Osborne on stage. You never know where he’ll pop up, or why, but his two most prominent roles are practical opposites of each other.

“So the two biggest [roles]are Happy Man and Mr. Thompson. Creatively, I would say the biggest thing that I do differently between the two is just physicality. Mr. Thompson is a manager of a very luxurious hotel, the Regent Beverly Wilshire, and so he has a very cordial way about him. He has a very put together way about him, whereas Happy Man is more of a man of the streets. He's very to-the-ground, he's very earthy and street wise. So the difference between the two — I really take it as mostly a physical difference. Then the physical difference kind of translates into vocal differences and the way that they interact with the other characters on stage. They're just two very different people. It's really, really fun and I find the role to be pretty forgiving in a lot of ways.”

The forgiving nature of the role plays into Ward-Osborne’s favor, being relatively new to the company. By the time the tour made its way to Texas, he had only a few weeks of rehearsals before taking the stage, but that didn’t hinder his performance in the least. 

“I had three weeks of rehearsal and then my first week of performances was in East Lansing, Michigan, then we had a two week layoff. When we started back, we were in Houston,” he outlined. “Three weeks of rehearsal sounds like a lot, but it's really not because they can only rehearse you on certain days because the company has two shows on Saturdays and Sundays, and they have travel days on Monday. So you can't rehearse on Saturday, Sunday, or Monday and they can't rehearse you on Tuesday because they're loading in the show. So really, you only have Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday for rehearsals, and they can only use a certain amount of hours within those three days to rehearse. So it's like maybe three to five hours a day for three weeks for three days each, which is why I'm glad that it's a forgiving role.”

Despite the seemingly crunched schedule, Ward-Osborne’s performance was spectacular. His background in the industry working as a swing — the person that learns multiple roles quickly to fill in on short notice — made taking on this role that much easier. Add to that, this is his first principal contract, and he brings a level of excitement to the role that audiences can truly appreciate.

If you remember the original film, things were pretty white, with likely less than five people of color across the entire 125-minute run-time. Theatre hasn’t been much better in the diversity department, but this company has taken steps in the right direction. 

“I will say that there is a lot of color on stage, which I'm happy about, and I think that if you loved the movie, you'll love the show. It's a fun show and it doesn't require a lot of thought. It's very fun and it's very energetic — you don't go in expecting life changing theater, “Ward-Osborne said. “There are a lot of people in leading roles and understudying leads who are at least mixed, if not, very specifically Black or Asian, and that is a good start. If you love the movie, you'll love the show, and Texas has been very receptive to the show. We sold out Houston for the whole week.”

Although it’s too late to see the show in Austin, Pretty Woman will be taking the stage at Dallas’s Music Hall at Fair Park Jan 24 - Feb 5 and the Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth from Feb 7 - Feb 12. Tickets are available here.