rising star
by Cynthia Marone
There are a couple theater stars who have caught Mason Olshavsky’s eye and ear, including Ben Platt and Jeremy Jordan. Mason himself has found a spot in the footlights throughout his years in the Council Rock School District, quickly jumping from ensemble to supporting player to lead. He’s even placed in the Top 10 of not one but two competitions that were casting a wide net to find fresh talent. Yet, the 19-year-old didn’t start out with theater on his mind or in his heart. “I’ve wanted to be a plastic surgeon,” the Newtown resident who currently calls Villanova University’s campus home said. “The goal is still to go to med school, but if the opportunity arises in the world of theater, being able to do that professionally for a career, I would absolutely drop everything and do that.”
Science is Mason’s first calling, and one the college freshman embraces as a biochemistry major. But to paraphrase theater phenomenon “Hamilton,” when it comes to a life treading the boards, Mason’s not going to throw away his shot and two online talent competitions have given him a way to rise up and get noticed. Between public votes and panels of Broadway and Hollywood talent, Mason’s video submissions have propelled him to the Top 10 of Playbill’s Search for a Star contest and Spot-On Arts Academy’s Give My Regards … A Competition Like No Other.
Playbill, the 136-year-old source for all things theater, ended its contest in August, but not before Mason claimed his spot by besting more than 2,500 hopefuls with his take on a song from Broadway’s “Dear Evan Hansen.” The online arts academy’s Give My Regards competition is in its third round, where Mason has floated to the top of an international pool of talent for a shot at the final six. These finalists, five of which will be decided by a panel of judges and one by audience popular vote that are expected to be announced in December, will perform at a concert in New York City at a yet-to-be-determined date. The grand prize winner will take the stage with the Pacific Symphony in California.
Mason admits he can be his harshest critic, so he was “shocked” when he hit semi-finalist status. “Advancing in the Spot-On contest, I was thrilled and actually very surprised because I realized, after watching every other contestants’ submissions, they are all so talented,” Mason, whose family includes his parents, stepfather, two brothers, two stepsiblings and a long-haired Chihuahua, said. “I am very excited and honored to move on.”
Mason’s childhood didn’t include regular trips to the theater. He classifies that more as a rare treat. He doesn’t recall family members clamoring to get on stage or relatives belting one out if given the chance. There were no private vocal lessons or theater camps as a kid. He doesn’t even recall gobbling up Disney musicals as a tot. He seemed to find his voice, so to speak, when he joined the choir at Sol Feinstone Elementary School in Newtown. “There was nothing really before that, besides guitar and piano lessons. But singing? I hadn’t really done anything until fifth grade. It was mandatory to be in choir for the whole grade, and I believe that was the first performance, the ‘Newsies’ solo,” Mason said of the school’s Spring Choral Concert.
Mason made his first conscious choice to be part of the theater world that same year. He joined a friend for the fifth-grade school musical, “Thoroughly Modern Millie Junior,” where he scored a role in the ensemble and got a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, no-lines part as a maitre’d. His next role as Rapunzel's Prince in “Into the Woods Junior” in sixth grade was higher profile.
Newtown Middle School gave him characters that were more prominent. In seventh grade, he was Combeferre in “Les Miserables” and in eighth grade, Levi in “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”
His feelings about performing began to solidify when he discovered Council Rock High School North’s Sock ’n’ Buskin Club, which produces a drama, comedy and musical each year. “At this point, I still think it was for fun. All my friends did the shows in middle school and even elementary school,” Mason, who plans to minor in theater at Villanova, said. “I accepted it was something I liked to do, and that I would keep doing, regardless if I was serious or not about it.”
He was only a freshman when he landed his first lead role as Dickon in “The Secret Garden.” He realized so much during that musical, he said. “Up until that point, I had no experience having more than a few lines in a role or being the center of a story,” Mason, who is a member of Villanova’s a cappella group the Supernovas and the Villanova Student Musical Theatre, said. “There was a feeling I had playing that role—I can’t even describe it. It sounds so cliché, but it really does do something to you and makes you have a craving for more.”
Mason shares the role with Platt, who played the character at the Lincoln Center 25th Anniversary Concert in 2016. Four years later, Mason would take “For Forever,” performed by Platt in “Dear Evan Hansen,” to both talent competitions with stunning results. “The song offers a lot of opportunity to not only sing but act. I thought it was the perfect song to perform,” Mason, who saw the play on Broadway with its original cast, said. “That role, Evan Hansen, that’s the one where I’m like ‘wow, if I can choose any role to play on Broadway today, it’d be that one.’”
Throughout his high school career, he seems to be getting closer to that dream. He has played leads in “The Diviners,” which was performed at the Pennsylvania State Thespian Conference and where he was bestowed the All Star Cast Award, and “The Great Gatsby.” He also kept up with his choir commitments at Council Rock North — Rhythm of the Rock, NorthVoice and Symphonic Choir — that included a solo for a virtual performance of the song “Tshotsholoza.”
Mason has a resume any actor would envy and one that was building to a senior year showstopper with Mason set to play FBI agent Carl Hanratty in “Catch Me If You Can,” but it all came to a crashing halt due to COVID-19. “There is one number in the show that is my favorite of all time of any musical ever, ‘Don’t Break the Rules.’ The night we were scheduled to rehearse that for the first time is when school was canceled,” Mason, who will perform in the Villanova Graduate Theatre Program’s production of "Songs for a New World," said. “Looking back on it now, I really wish we would have had that last hurrah.”
With the talent searches crowning him a contender, he may one day get to play that role, too, since he is already getting attention, auditions and mentors via the contests. Playbill is giving each person in its Top 10 an audition with Tony Award-winning directors and choreographers. Give My Regards has connected each of its Top 20 winners to a mentor — in Mason’s case, he worked with actor Chris Blem — who helped their contestant prepare for Round 3, where a panel of judges that included Kate Flannery of “The Office,” Anthony Rapp of “Rent” and “Star Trek: Discovery” and Tony winner Faith Prince, among others, voted on the Top 10.
Being in the final round of Give My Regards and having the eyes and ears of known actors, directors, choreographers and the like on him has given Mason a boost in a world that is at once familiar yet also foreign. Whether his future lies in medicine or musicals, it’s clear Mason is not going to throw away his shot. “If I move on to the Top 6, I would get to perform on stage in New York City, which would grant me some exposure,” he said. “The grand prize—that would be an absolute dream. Coming from a kid who’s only participated in school events and theater, it would be such a dream to perform for the first time outside of school on stage.”
To see Mason Olshavsky perform “For Forever” and/or to cast a vote for the Top 6 in Spot-On Arts Academy’s Give My Regards … A Competition Like No Other, visit https://www.spot-onartsacademy.com/contest.
Cynthia Marone is a freelance writer from Philadelphia.