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When George Salazar returned to New York City following a run with the national tour of Spring Awakening, daily life was no longer the "Bitch of Living." Shortly after his return, the fresh-faced twentysomething University of Florida grad scored an audition for the Broadway revival of Godpsell, and after a three-month rollercoaster ride of callbacks, landed his first job on Broadway.

Life really began to take off after being placed in a room with Stephen Schwartz, whose musical Wicked paved the way for Salazar's Broadway dreams. Feeling "blessed," he says, sounds totally cliché — however, he can't stop pinching himself when he thinks of being part of the "Beautiful City" that is Godspell.

	Salazar in Godspell.
	photo by Jeremy Daniel

You're making your Broadway debut. How does it feel to be doing that?
GS: If it were any other show, I would be just as stoked and excited, but there's something about doing this show as my first... I get to just be myself. These audiences are coming in and seeing George as George. There's something really crazy about that and I'm super, super, super grateful. And, [the show has] totally changed my life. I had an interview with the Associated Press and I talked about how a few months ago I was serving shrimp at a restaurant since coming back from tour. [Laughs.] This has kind of been unreal. I know it sounds really cliché to be like, "I feel so blessed" and "I feel so grateful," but I really do. There's just one surprise after the next. Not only is this such an awesome show to be doing with such an incredible cast, but appearing on "The Letterman Show," and we're lined up to do "The View" next month, and we're flying out to Chicago to do "The Rosie Show" as well — it's so overwhelming and amazing at the same time. My parents are so proud, and that's such a huge thing for me. I'm literally having the time of my life doing this show with these people.

Can you describe your audition process? You had told me a little bit about your callback after your opening night performance — you had to create a piece for your audition?
GS: I got the call[back] the night before the audition. We've all gone through that where you have an audition tomorrow at four [and you have to] sing a song — 16-bars of something — and the sides are included. Okay, great. This time around, they said, "Sing a song of your choice and prepare a parable in a creative, fun way and tell the story as if you're talking to children, adults, blind people [and] deaf people. Find a creative and innovative way to do it."

I was freaking out at work, trying to figure out what to do, and I actually didn't decide on what I was going to do until two hours before the audition. I went in and did some impressions and was myself. From that, I went on to get called back four times over three months. I joked that it was like a really unhealthy relationship. [Laughs.] It was like, "Come, we want to see you!" And, then it was like, "Okay, we're going to see other people"... "Okay, come back, we want to see you again." When [I was offered the job], I was with my good friend Elizabeth, and I broke down and was just crying and sweating and an all-around mess. I will remember every second of that day for as long as I live. It was crazy, but the audition process, itself, was insane because the callbacks were [done as] group parables. Instead of it being just George telling a story, it was a group of five people that I've never met before with 25 minutes to put this [parable] together. It really tested how well we worked with others. I think that was really an important process for establishing this cast that we have. We all get along so well. There's so much creativity flowing. It's so much energy, and I don't think that they could've found that had they not done the group parable and the improv stuff. It was very nerve-wracking at first, but it was good.