Last night Nico attended the Pop-Culture Trivia Game Show at the 2016 Vulture Festival held at Milk Studios. Also in attendance were Nico’s Younger cast family, Miriam Shor, Debi Mazar and Dan Amboyer. Check out a few great images from the event now over on the gallery.

Tortorella heads the cast of Jordan Jaffe’s new play, which is presented by Black Lab Theatre at Ars Nova.

What do television stars with theater backgrounds look for during their hiatus? The opportunity to do a stage production, of course. Nico Tortorella, better known as Josh, the hunky tattoo artist dating Sutton Foster’s Liza on TV Land’s Younger, is no different. With some free time this spring, Tortorella found himself able to sink his teeth into his first love, live performing, in a play that he believes fits his personality like a glove.

The work is Jordan Jaffe’s Crude, running through May 21 in a production of Black Lab Theatre at Ars Nova’s Theatre 511. In it, Tortorella plays Jaime, a child of privilege from Houston whose life is thrown into turmoil when his family’s company takes part in the worst oil spill the world has ever seen.

But playing the madness that ensues is proving to be a most rewarding theater experience for him. Luckily, he got in some live-theater practice back in February, when he flexed his tap-dancing muscles with Foster during her concert in Baltimore.

In your words, tell me about Crude and your character, Jamie.

The show, in a nutshell, is about a rich, white, privileged oil kid from Houston. He is recently married, and the show opens with him and his wife, in a somewhat normal relationship, and then all hell breaks loose. My family’s company has an oil spill off the Gulf Coast, the largest oil spill in the history of the planet. Jamie immediately loses his s**t and tries to get all of his money out of the bank. As the show unfolds, his best friend comes over to try and come up with a plan to spin the oil spill for a national commercial. And it’s all downhill from there.

Do you have a background in theater?

I grew up onstage in Chicago. It’s been a while, but this is like a homecoming for me. I’ve been saying for years that there’s something about film and television, there is not that immediate gratification that you get on a stage. There is an engagement that just doesn’t happen when there’s a camera in your face. It’s not just the relationship with the audience; it is a fully living and breathing machine. In terms of film and TV, it’s a computer. It’s set up in a way that’s all about the light and the angle. It’s almost like the art of the camera comes first, and then the performance comes after.

What was it about Crude that interested you as a performer?

I haven’t been onstage in ten years, outside of a little tap-dance stunt with Sutton Foster in Baltimore. I’ve been looking for the right show. It’s pretty hard to navigate through a film and television schedule, to fit the stage into it. This opportunity jumped at me. I had the time to do it, and Jordan has a way of writing the way that I speak. It was a no-brainer. I said yes instantly, and I have two weeks until I go into season three of Younger, so it was perfect.

Tell me about tap dancing with Sutton.

Oh my god, it was incredible. At ten in the morning, I was still in bed, and she sends me a text message saying, “Hey, do you know how to tap dance?” We’re super tight outside of work, and I was like, “What are you thinking?” She was like, “Well, I’m performing and there’s this number that could be awesome if you and I did it together.” I was like, “Yes, I tap dance. Let’s do it.” No questions asked. When Sutton asks you to perform with her, you say yes. That’s like a little girl’s dream. And some guys, too.

So I find a tap-dance coach and take lessons. I have tap danced a little growing up. It wasn’t my forte by any means. But I thought, “I did musical theater, so I could pick it up quick.” It was a lot harder than what I thought it was going to be. I went through the wringer with it. We had a joint rehearsal with her choreographer in Los Angeles, and I come to find out that it was actually somewhat my audition. And I got the job. She was blown away. It was magic, just watching her. I had seen Violet, but I’ve never seen her dance around the stage like that before. It will certainly not be the last time you see Sutton and me onstage together.

What are your dreams for the third season of Younger?

I want to break the pattern that Josh and Liza have had of breaking up and getting back together. If we’re going to do either one, we should do it for a whole season and really see what that means for both of us. If that means we’re broken up, I want to see what Josh’s storyline looks like outside of the show, outside of the core of the four women. I think there’s room for that. The way [creator] Darren [Starr] writes, it’s so character-specific and has time for everybody. If we’re going to separate these two, we have to show what they’re up to outside of it.

Do you and Sutton dream of musicals you could star in together?

I mean, we have definitely talked about it. I would love to do a new musical with her. There’s something so beautiful about new work, and to see two people that the world kind of knows in something new would just be fantastic.

Source: Theatre Mania

Nico Tortorella is a very funny guy, and while he hasnt had a chance to show off his comedic chops in television shows like The Following (its about serial killers!) or Younger (a comedy sure, but hes the romantic interest, rather than the comedic sidekick) he finally gets a chance to make us laugh in Jordan Jaffes very dark, very funny Crude. Tortorella stars as Jaime Kurtz, a former-nonfiction-filmmaker-turned-oil-company-PR-executive, who during a catastrophic oil spill must decide whether he wants to follow his heart, or his need of societal approval. The play takes place entirely in Jaimes living room, where like a tragic king he must come to terms with the dissatisfaction of the people around him. His environmentalist wife (Eliza Hurberth) thinks hes working with the enemy, his best friend and co-worker (W. Tre Davis) wants him to reclaim his life and have more fun, and even a wisecracking drug dealer (Jos Joaqun Prez) makes an appearance that will have unexpected repercussions.

Onstage, Tortorella makes use of the space in an inventive, lived-in way, his timing is spot on, and his reactions sometimes say more than some of Jaffes best quips. When I tell him how funny I found him, he suggests that the show I attended was the best show weve done, it was the best one so far, and I have a feeling that as the play continues (its running at Ars Nova through May 21), his performance will keep getting better. Heres the rest of my conversation with Nico Tortorella:

What made you want to star in Crude?

Itd been ten years since Id done anything onstage and Id been talking for a while about getting back onstage, looking for the right projects, which is always difficult when youre navigating through film and television schedules. The time opened up and this play kinda fell in my lap, so it was a no-brainer. Jordan Jaffe has a way of writing the way that I speak, so I saw so much of myself in the script – the good parts, not the bad parts – so I leaped at the opportunity.

Jaime left behind a job in the arts to pursue the traditional path. Did people ever try to discourage you from being an actor and suggested you did something safe instead?

It was never a question for me. I knew since I was a little kid that this was what I was going to be doing. Sure, people told me no because it would be impossible. I remember my own family being ten years old in the back of my moms car, and my mom and my aunt telling me how hard it was going to be. I was just hysterical, screaming and crying saying I didnt care how hard it would be, I said this is going to be my life, and its going to be amazing.

Crude is a comedy which is the last thing you think of when you think about oil spills. Were you guys ever afraid you would cross a line that would offend people?

The gallery has been updated with a few stage pictures from the play ‘Crude’. The photos were taken by photographer Jenny Anderson so full credit goes to Jenny for her amazing shots.

Have you been to see it yet? If not, don’t worry you can still buy tickets. Check out the following link HERE! for more information on dates and to purchase your tickets.

I have updated the gallery with a few extra images of Nico and Bethany when they attended The Hollywood Reporter’s ’35 Most Powerful People In Media’ event back in April. Check out the images now by visiting the link below.

Nico Tortorella is known as one of the stars of the TV Land hit show Younger, but this spring, hes taking on a different role as the lead in Crude, the new play by Jordan Jaffe premiering at Ars Nova in New York City. After spending time on TV in various shows including The Beautiful Life on the CW and The Following on Fox, as well as acting in films like Scream 4, he says he was drawn to Crude because after a ten year absence from the stage, he was hungry to be back in front of a live audience.

I grew up on stage in Chicago, he said, so this is more of a homecoming for me rather than something new Im trying. I kinda feel like Im a real actor for the first time in a long time.

Jamie, his character in Crude, is a far cry from Josh, the laid back tattoo artist he plays on Younger, something he revels in being a part of bringing to life.

Since its a new play, he explains, there was a lot of room in terms of being creatively involved with the character and building the character. I wasnt stepping into someone elses role so I got to create a lot for myself.

The privilege of creating a new role for the stage is something that isnt lost on Tortorella. With the dearth of new works making it to larger commercial theatre audiences, he hopes more artists will invest in new works so those stories will continue to be told.

I think New York City is the theatre capital of the world and if new work cant be shown here, it wont be shown anywhere. I think if we can get good actors, some of which may also be names, to open up new plays like this, it will only help the progression of new theatre.

Hes aware that having a fan-base from Younger has provided him with an opportunity to spread the news about Crude to a wider audience who may not be as clued in to the theatre scene beyond the big Broadway shows.

I know my involvement with Crude is part of why its being talked about more than it would have been otherwise, and Im more than happy to talk about it. New works are important.

After Crude ends its run on May 21, he heads into filming season three of Younger, a show that has challenged him in a different way than creating his character for the stage has.

Not knowing where the story lines are going and not having a full wrap of these characters is tough, he says of the script-by-script episodic nature of TV shows. It can change on the drop of dime, and usually does, which is how TV works and I understand that, but thats the most difficult part of the process for me. But Im so grateful for the show and all its given me.

The success of Younger has brought a wealth of opportunities for him and he regularly brings his nearly 200K Instagram followers along for the ride. Social media has become the go-to method of connecting artists and art-lovers, something some have struggled with adapting to, but not Nico.

As long as Ive been an actor, the social media outlets have been available. Ive always been fully encompassed in all of those worlds and as my career grew, it just made more sense to continue utilizing them. I think Instagram has changed the game for so many up-and-comers. It links people up in a way that never existed before. It used to be Ill have my manager call your manager, but now you can just message someone directly about a shoot or a gig and make it happen the next day.

Tortorellas Instagram feed is a heady mixture of behind-the-scenes glimpses at his show, his friends, photographer features and a myriad of Fashion Week-ready outfits and looks. He credits his mother, who he describes as an 80s disco queen, with his initial love of fashion.

She owned a bar growing up I would help her with her hair, makeup and outfit when shed get ready to go to work each night. It was part of our thing. We would blast Diana Ross and get ready before she went to the bar. I like feeling good and looking good. Fashion is the quickest way to make that happen.

He has reason to feel good. In 2016 so far, hes performed with his TV costar Sutton Foster and the Baltimore Symphony, season two of Younger aired and hes starring in a brand new play in New York. Beyond the upcoming third season of Younger, Tortorella is also developing his own show and has his sights set on being a part of a new Broadway musical one day.

So what keeps him going when hes not on set?

My favorite thing in the world is to walk into a grocery store or a restaurant and have these short relationships with people working there. The interaction with them is so brief and it disappears immediately when you leave, but it is so meaningful in that moment. People smile and laugh and feel good, so I carry that with me all the time, wherever I go. Its infectious and makes a difference. Imagine what the world would look like if we all did that.

He adds that being a part of the process of bringing Crude to the stage and working with his cast mates has kept him inspired daily.

Doing this show, I feel like I am in a conservatory studying with these Julliard actors. Its more than anything I could have ever asked for.

Crude runs until May 21st and tickets are available at www.arsnovanyc.com

Source: Bleep Mag