Chase Boertje is a young actor who is beginning to gain recognition for his talent and passion for performing. He has shown strong dedication to theater and enjoys connecting with audiences through acting and storytelling. His hard work and stage presence earned him a nomination for Broadway World’s Next On Stage, a competition that highlights rising performers in musical theater. This nomination is an important achievement and shows that Chase has great potential as he continues to learn, grow and pursue future opportunities in the performing arts.
Lancer Link: How did you find out that you were nominated?
Chase Boertje: For musical theater, we do this thing called prescreens when you’re trying to go to college for it. You kind of record a rough video of what you can do, and send it in. For this competition, they have you send in videos, and they basically have the public vote for you. And then if you get a certain number of votes, they cut the pool down into the top 20, and then the top 10. They just keep going for as long as you get selected.
LL: What does this nomination mean to you personally?
CB: Honestly, because this competition is so public-based, it was just nice to know that I had so many people supporting me. Which is huge in any industry, but I think specifically in theater, because you need that backing to kind of go out and get recognized. But it was just really special to me to know that so many people were supporting me.
LL: How do you prepare for a role before stepping on stage?
CB: Usually, you would analyze the script at a really deep level, kind of understanding who your character is and what they want, and then slowly you will give yourself actions that make sense with what emotions you feel work in a specific scenario. What I will do is I will go through the script, and I will get as many details about the character as a whole person as I can. And then you make choices, and a lot of the time you have to film yourself to know if it works.
LL: What’s the most challenging role you have played?
CB: Probably the first role I ever played. I was Miss Trunchbull from Matilda, which was for obvious reasons very far from who I was or who I am. It was just like you always want to bring a part of yourself to every role you play, so I think it was just like trying to find that connection there that made that kind of difficult, but it was a really fun role to play.
LL: What has been the most rewarding part of being involved in acting?
CB: It’s just seeing people be affected by our collective art, that’s kind of the goal for any live theater, to try to make people feel something.
