Sara Chase (center) and John Zdrojeski (right) in The Great Gatsby. Sara Krulwich/the New York Times/Redux

Theatre

Alums Abound on Broadway’s Stages

Get to know these theater stars

Sara Chase

The Great Gatsby

In July 2024, Sara Chase (’05) made what she calls one of the hardest decisions of her life: stepping away from her originating role as Myrtle Wilson in the musical adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby in order to undergo the final rounds of chemotherapy for fallopian tube cancer. After a nearly three-month medical leave, Chase returned to the Broadway Theatre stage in October 2024.

“Working toward getting back to such a challenging role is something I am so grateful for,” she says. “It really helped keep me focused.”

Previously, Chase was perhaps best known for her memorable portrayal of Cyndee Pokorny—a young woman acclimating to modern life after being held captive in a bunker—in the Netflix comedy series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

“It is very hard and often unglamorous, but it is an absolute honor to get to step on that stage every night and get to perform,” she says. “It is also wild to know that something you had a hand in creating will now go on to have a life of its own throughout the world in different languages with different companies.”

John Zdrojeski

The Great Gatsby

Like many Americans, John Zdrojeski (’12) first read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s tragic novel The Great Gatsby in high school—just to “pass a test.” The second time Zdrojeski read Gatsby, he had just moved to New York City after graduating from BU and would read to calm himself down before auditions. That time, he says, he fell in love with the story. A decade later, Zdrojeski plays Tom Buchanan—the infamous foil to the title character—in the musical theater version of the story on Broadway, the actor’s first stage adaptation. Zdrojeski says he avoids dwelling too long on the gravity of playing such a recognizable villain in the iconic story. He says he has reread Gatsby twice more since he began working on the musical: “Having the book as a touchstone keeps me grounded.”

Tala Ashe

English

Landing the Tony-nominated role of Elham in English—the 2023 Pulitzer Prize–winning play about four Iranian adults who meet in a Tehran language school—was much more than a dream come true for Tala Ashe (’06). “Even in my wildest dreams I don’t think I could have fathomed getting to do a play like this as my Broadway debut,” she says. “It has been incredibly meaningful to be part of something that represents Iranians as relatable, nuanced human beings. That shouldn’t be a rarity—but unfortunately it is.” Ashe (formerly Ashrafi), who is Iranian-American, says the play grapples with identity, language, and assimilation in a powerful and hilarious way. “I feel my lived history and my ancestors with me every night on stage,” she adds.

Among Ashe’s many credits was a recurring role as television’s first Muslim-American superhero Zari Tomaz on the DC series Legends of Tomorrow, which aired for five seasons on the CW. Ashe says despite the clear impact English made off Broadway, she was thrilled the play would live on as a Broadway show.

“It truly has been the most surreal, incredible gift to get to share it with more people,” she says.

Amber Gray and Chelsea Yakura-Kurtz

Eureka Day

Two alums are leaving their mark on the Broadway comedy Eureka Day. Tony Award–nominated Amber Gray (’04), whose stage credits include Hadestown, Oklahoma!, and Here We Are, stars as Carina, a new parent at the private Eureka Day School in Berkeley, Calif., trying to navigate a mumps outbreak and the ensuing vaccination debate. (Jonathan Spector wrote the seemingly ripped-from-the-headlines script before the COVID-19 pandemic, and it premiered in Berkeley in 2018.)

Chelsea Yakura-Kurtz (BUTI’05, CFA’11) —with her long list of television and West Coast theater credits—makes her Broadway debut in Eureka Day as Meiko, a single mom at the school. Eureka Day wrapped up its first Broadway run in February 2025 after stints in Berkeley, off Broadway, and London.

Jordan Matthew Brown

The Book of Mormon

Jordan Matthew Brown (’16) was such a fan of The Book of Mormon when he was in high school he had to give up listening to the cast recording for fear he’d get too attached to the show—and then never get to do it. He was a senior at BU, having a slice of on Newbury Street, when he got the invitation to join the touring cast of the comedic musical, originally as a standby. He finished his latest run with The Book of Mormon in the co-leading role of Elder Cunningham on Broadway in January 2025.

“I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of the Mormon family for many years on and off now,” Brown says. “I’ve traveled with the show across the US, Canada, and Mexico. Playing Elder Cunningham full-time on Broadway just feels like something special. I think I cried all through the curtain call of my first performance of this run.”

CFA is where Brown first sang “Man Up,” his future character’s act-one finale. It’s also where he says he filled his toolbox with techniques he still uses as a professional actor, including the voice warm-ups he did before every performance of The Book of Mormon.

“CFA pushed me to go beyond my comfort zone and the box that I had put myself in,” says Brown, who followed his run on Mormon with an understudy role in As Time Goes By at Theater 154 off Broadway. “I was able to expand who I was and the work that I thought I could do.”