Damian Humbley on Winning Laughs (and Surviving an Onstage Accident) in London's Lend Me a Tenor Musical

It was six years ago that Damian Humbley, not long in London from his native Australia, was cast alongside Ruthie Henshall in the replacement cast of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Woman in White. Since then, the 32-year-old has amply demonstrated one of the best sets of pipes in the business. Audiences at the Gielgud Theatre can hear for themselves at the musical adaptation of Lend Me a Tenor, in which Humbley plays Max, a timorous assistant who finds himself singing the title role in Verdi’s Otello in Ohio in 1934. Broadway.com spoke to Humbley not long after an accident he suffered one night near the end of the first act, which found him bleeding copiously without losing control or stopping the performance. How to stay the course when you’ve cut both hands and your left arm on a glass bottle? Humbley shares all.

Tell us about your onstage accident. I was there, and the audience watched you clutch your hand as the sleeve of your white shirt got more and more red.
Basically, Michael [Matus, Humbley’s co-star] made a bad throw and I made a bad catch, and before I knew it, there was a piece of glass sticking out of my left hand. Kind of everything went wrong from there. The first thing on my mind was the detailed work in the costumes, and I didn’t want to get blood all over the set! [Laughs.] But I knew it wasn’t bad because my heart rate was up. There was one line I missed as a result, where I put something in the wrong order, but it’s a testament to how much this company trusts one another that we all pulled through—though the look on a few of my colleagues’ faces as [the first act] was continuing was pretty priceless.

During the protracted intermission, the audience wondered whether you would return in Act Two or whether they would put on your understudy or even cancel.
A first-aid lady came up to my dressing room and stopped the bleeding. But as dramatic as it probably looked, I knew I was OK. The only reason I went to A&E [the hospital emergency room] after was that the company demanded I go for insurance purposes and to get a couple of x-rays to see if I had done any nerve damage, which I hadn’t.

I noticed you were keeping fans apprised of events on Twitter.
Yes, I thought that people might look there. The thing is, everyone loves stories about the underdog who comes through at the end, and what was great was that the audience got back into it so quickly.

In a strange way, the accident suited the action of the show! I hope you told the ER team that stitched you up to come see you in it.
The surgeon said he would; hopefully, he’ll stick to that [laughs]. I think they’ll probably remember me since most of the people in A&E on a Friday night tend to be there for other reasons, like drunken assaults and stupid behavior.

You’ve actually had a pretty amazing run of success in London, don’t you think?
Absolutely! I landed here on March 12, 2005, and on April 26 I got the offer to do The Woman in White. I literally typed up a letter that said, “I’d be interested in this part [Walter Hartwright, the show’s young male romantic lead] and would love to be seen by you guys,” and by the third audition, there I was with [director] Trevor Nunn. It was incredible. I also realized that I was very, very lucky. As much as your skill set matters, timing matters, too, and it all worked out very well.

What was it that brought you to London to begin with?
A girl! [Laughs] I came over because of a girl who wanted to come to London: Australia has a lovely theater community, but it’s not as big or as international as here. She’s since gone back, and that relationship ended, but I’ve stayed on. I wanted to be a lawyer at one stage, but my mother said to me that I should keep up my acting and my singing. It was scary at the time, being on the plane for a good 30 hours, to see if I could work at this in London with family so far away. But in retrospect, with 20/20 vision, it was fine.

It sounds as if you’ve taken to heart the sentiments of the inspirational duet from Lend Me a Tenor: “Be Yourself.”
It’s the age-old thing we’re always told: don’t listen to anyone else. Be who you are; be yourself. Everything Tito [Merelli, the indisposed opera singer for whom Max ends up substituting as Otello] is saying in that song is absolutely true: You can’t go out and change anyone’s opinion. All you can do is be yourself and trust that you are enough.

Are you excited about originating a musical role?
It’s been lovely to be on the ground level with this, and with such a good bunch of people. We did a workshop and then an out-of-town run in Plymouth [in southern England], so you end up with material that changes and that gets written for you: It melds into what you do and what they want.

Did you know Ken Ludwig’s original play?
I hadn’t seen it, and didn’t read it until we got to Plymouth. [The musical has different writers.] It seemed to me that the story that’s meant to be told with this is really through the musical—even though it is also a great play.

Well, it’s nice to bring music into a story set in the world of opera.
Yes, and that’s another thing our show has going for it: You actually hopefully believe that in vocal terms Max could have an Otello in him. In the play, there’s no real evidence of that.

Like so many Australian performers, you seem to have no trouble going from an English accent to an American one, or whatever the role requires.
I’ve done some good American parts here: The Last Five Years at the Menier, the tour of Little Shop of Horrors, playing Seymour, and now Max. But I think Australians generally are at an advantage in that area because we get so much American and British TV programming back home that the accents are just kind of there; the American accent came to me with very little work, largely to do with just hearing it all the time. Also Alexandra Silber [the American performer now on Broadway in Master Class] and I had a relationship for four years. That helped, as well [laughs].

Producers must love the fact that it clearly takes a lot for you to miss, or to abandon, a show.
The only times I miss are if the voice isn’t working, since it’s like running any sort of race where you have to see how the body feels and the muscles work. Otherwise, I’m there!