Joe Moses – Snape
Joe Moses has played Snape in all three Very Potter shows, as well as Nearly Headless Nick in A Very Potter Senior Year. Since leaving the University of Michigan, he appeared as Krayonder in StarKid’s 2011 show Starship, and has created and refined his own comedy show, The Joe Moses One-Man Showses, which he has performed at sold-out venues in cities across the United States, most recently at Los Angeles’ El Rey Theatre. He has also released a DVD billed as a best-of from his run of JMOMS comedy shows. He recently confirmed the filming of season 2 of his A Very Potter Musical Snape sketches, “The Potion Master’s Corner,” and has been nominated for a Shorty Award in the category of comedian. Joe Moses recently moved from New York City to Los Angeles.
When did you first hear that you were going to be doing A Very Potter Senior Year?
They’ve had the script written for literally years. We were at the end of A Very Potter Sequel and [the writers] were like, “We’re not going to do another one, this is the last one, that’s it,” and then, “…but if we were to do it, we have this idea.” When we premiered the screening of A Very Potter Sequel at Infinitus, literally the next day, Matt and Nick and Brian [Holden] got us all in a room and were like, “Alright, guys, here’s the plot of the third one.” We’re like, “Yay, there’s going to be a third one?!” and they were almost done with the script.
Obviously our Harry Potter ending up on Glee was sort of a roadblock to the show, just in terms of his schedule and in terms of what he was allowed to appear on. But once it started coming together, it came together really quickly. I would talk to the Lang brothers and everyone in Chicago periodically and I would tell them, “You know, if you ever want to do a third one just let me know,” so I’ve been saying that all along. I forget when it was exactly – we went up in August so it must have been somewhere in May, maybe ever later, when we got an email saying, “Hey everybody, LeakyCon and Very Potter Three,” from Nick Lang, “would you be interested in doing a third Very Potter at LeakyCon?” So I was like, “Yeah, of course, absolutely.” After that it just went really quickly. They sent us the script, they sent us the music as it came through ahead of time, and I was sort of in disbelief that it was actually happening.
Did you personally just have those few days of rehearsal in Chicago?
For me it was just that weekend and I was also sort of nuts because I was doing a Moses Showses there as well, so I had to prepare for that. It worked out because I wasn’t called for all the rehearsals – I also had to pull some StarKids away every now and then to work on [the Showses] so I felt bad about that. But they were really accommodating. Cons are always a little crazy for us – they’re crazy for everybody – because they’re like working vacations. We’re there with friends, we’re having fun, we definitely party a little bit, but fundamentally we had a job to do while we were there. Usually it’s a big performance in front of a lot of people so we don’t want to mess it up. So, we spend a lot of time working on it while we’re there. It’s a little intense. But to have something so brand new and so enormous to do in such a short amount of time… it was overwhelming.
How did it feel like, that weekend, everyone being there for this show which was such a big deal, and such an ending? What was it like being at the con, working on it on the fly in such an emotional moment?
It was surreal, at first. It’s always great to get back with everyone. I was living in New York at the time, now I live in LA, but in New York there are very few of the StarKids. Britney [Coleman] and Tyler [Brunsman] and Arielle [Goldman] and Corey [Dorris], and I don’t see them that regularly because everyone in New York is busy with different stuff. So it’s always a great time when I go back just to see these people that I haven’t seen in months. So that part of it was kind of surreal: to have everybody in there. Sometimes you go to cons and have five, six, seven, eight of us; but thirty of us, everybody was there. It felt like a college reunion, it was crazy. A really fun experience. But it was also a bit surreal that we went into the Hilton and I don’t think I came out of the Hilton for two days. I didn’t know what was going on.
It was intense, it was surreal, but it was quite a bit of fun and I will definitely say I didn’t really realise the impact it would have on me until it happened and I saw, at the end… I love the end, it’s so beautifully written. It really does tug on your heartstrings a little bit if you’ve been with the fandom from the beginning or it’s had a big impact on your life, if the story has had a big impact on your life; not even the StarKid story, the Harry Potter story. But for me, the StarKid story, and to see that have that beautiful ending on stage and everybody started tearing up and you could tell, Darren started tearing up, Walker did, everybody. I just couldn’t take it. It’s a lot.
Was there a certain moment when it truly hit you, “This is it, this is done now, we’ve done this and look at how it has changed our lives”?
Yeah, right when we came off stage, right at the end where Harry is saying his little speech to Albus Scarfy – that moment when Darren was talking about everything that happens, you know, you get to go to school now and you’re going to have these great memories and stuff. Holy shit. You know what, to varying degrees and whatever it may be, this has been our dream – almost all of us have wanted to be actors, working actors, professional actors since we were kids. And it really came true. And it’s definitely in no small part because of StarKid and that platform it gave us and just the way it allowed us to connect to all these people. It sunk in, like, yeah. This is cool, this is something unique, this is something special. I’m just honored to have been a part of it.
Did you ever expect things to turn into what they have become? Was there ever any hint?
No. I mean, not at all. It always happens when you’re least expecting it, right? It’s that old trick, if you want it, it’s never going to happen but if you’re not expecting it then it’ll take you by storm. I know things have happened before with people going viral online, and people have had many, many different experiences with that. I was actually profiled in CNN alongside Justin Bieber and Kate Upton and then there’s like… me in there for some reason. But for those people, they started online as well and they went way up and that launched them into their career.
For us, we started viral but we stayed within our realm of fandom. It definitely expanded but we haven’t changed that much. It’s crazy, but no. We never expected this to happen. Never. No. When we did figure out we had something cool I was like, “Guys, people will probably like this!” The traditional path will be if you do enough stuff here and people like it and you get enough popularity online then maybe you can take it to Chicago, off-Broadway New York… sort of like Potted Potter did.
It was always interesting to me that Potted Potter was allowed to run as a money-making show, when StarKid has always been so careful about legalities.
It really just depends on perception and how the people who control the property feel that you’re portraying the property. To be honest, I give them credit. I understand where they’re coming from. We’re not canon. We’re not even close to canon. The heart of Harry Potter is there, but in terms of who the people are… no. The language and the jokes and everything. I get where they’re coming from.
It has the soul, though.
It does, I definitely think it has heart and soul, but in terms of… what I think sometimes people forget is that StarKid started out, and still honestly is, quite – what’s the word for it? – not vulgar but quite tongue-in-cheek. Some of the jokes, and the content, it’s not aimed at children. It’s aimed at college students because that’s what we were. I think people appreciate that in general.
Then there’s this whole other aspect where some people only appreciate the songs and don’t really get all the jokes. Which is fine, everyone is welcome. But the people who really know StarKid know there’s that really biting wit that mostly comes from the writing, from the Lang brothers. It’s fun. I never would have expected it to end up this way. Nope, nope, nope. I kind of joke about that in my JMOMS show sometimes, where I’m like, “If you’d have told me three years ago that I would be standing in front of several hundred people in a black wig and a dress, falling out of a chair, and that would be my job for life,” I would not have thought that. Whatever. Actors. We’re nuts.
On his character Snape’s emotional ending monologue:
“It’s been the joke in our franchise that my character, Snape, has great redeeming qualities in the book but I really don’t. That was a good spot where he gets to kind of bring it all home, I was glad for that. Also particular to me, because I’ve taken this character and used it in so many different venues since then, in different ways and stuff, it’s something I’ve lived in for a long time and to put him back in context, finally. I’ve been taking him out of context for the last few years and to finally put him back in context where he belongs. It’s cool because it kind of felt like I’d taken all that with him, this journey he’d been on and he gets to come back and tell Harry about it. It was definitely cool.”
Was the vibe quite intense that day, and afterwards? What happened for all of you after the show finished? Did you interact much with the fans?
To be honest, we were quite wrapped up in each other. What did we do? We did that show, we went and changed and then basically went to the ball right after that. It was definitely a very cathartic release at the ball, to get it all out. “We’ve been crazy for the past three days, let’s get it all out!” So we were mostly wrapped up in each other. But it’s undeniable, you know, you could feel the impact it had on the fans and a change in dynamic too, because beforehand, everyone would see us and want to say hi, but they’d be like, “We know you’re working, so go do your thing, you’re working, go do that,” but when it was over we got to share with everybody what we had been feeling for the past couple of days. I could feel that sort of change in people and when they saw us again it was with a different frame of mind than before.
The performance took over four hours. Did you know how long the show was going to run for when you got on stage?
No. What you saw was the first time it had ever been run, ever. It wasn’t like we got to work on it and work on it and then we did a dress rehearsal and then we did that. That was the tech-through, stumble-through, dress rehearsal, opening night and closing night of the entire performance. It is familiar to me in the sense that when we did the first Harry Potter play, our dress rehearsal went kind of like that, for the first one. So it was kind of a throwback in that regard, where literally we had a four hour rehearsal scheduled to stumble through the whole thing and work it out because it was too long, there was too much music and we got the music the day before, and everyone’s busy, everyone’s sick. And we did it and we didn’t finish the show in four hours, the first Very Potter Musical, at school. We got to midnight and there was just nothing else we could do, like, “You guys have class tomorrow, so see ya, we’ll just… do it live.” And it ended up coming together! Opening night was tough, but it ended up all coming together. So this felt very much like that. It felt like a final tech rehearsal. It just happened to be in front of several thousand people!
What really blew you away about what the cast pulled off in this performance?
Chris Allen in general was hilarious, all those parts he did were hilarious. A.J. Holmes, in general. His musical ability on top of his acting ability, for that show particularly where he had such a big role, and he had to teach [the other songs] to people, and he pulled it off – A.J. was pretty incredible in that regard. The puppetry, mostly done by Nick, with Scarfy and Sortie but also with the basilisk – all that, I was really impressed by, and the costumes all coming together. And really just the music, that the music worked and people could learn the music so quickly and be able to pull it off. Some of them did a really fantastic job with their songs – Joey’s song was great, of course A.J.’s Gilderoy. Walker and Darren doing a duet was pretty sweet.
Here’s Joe’s take on how StarKid’s own story has been told through the ‘Very Potter’ shows:
“The story of the Very Potter franchise has always been kind of weirdly reflected of the story of StarKid, where we are. It’s just weird that way. The first one was at the end of our college experience, and it was also the end of Harry Potter’s struggle against Voldemort and those themes tied together nicely. The second one: going back in time and getting the most out of that period back in time and growing up, having to grow up almost retroactively, and that’s what we were doing right then too, we had just graduated college and we kind of got to go back to college for just a minute – we got to go back in time, and through working out our past, grow up and live in the future.
“And then there’s this long gap in the show, and there’s also a long gap in the Potter continuum that we’ve created, where people have changed when they get back to it. People have moved on, the idealism is not there anymore, they’ve all kind of grown up a bit and are about to have to move on past everything they’re ever known. Then they get there. I don’t know Senior Year as thoroughly as I know the first two because we didn’t work on it for as long, but it’s very much a story about Tom Riddle, as much as it is a story about Harry, and it’s a story about all of them taking everything that they’ve learned from the previous two and how the world’s moving on and coming to terms with it, and also being really happy with it. Being okay.
“That’s kind of like the ‘Okay is wonderful’ thing at the end… all that stuff that’s happened – Harry’s been to the peak of stardom of his own world and that’s sort of moved on, and Gilderoy’s there and he’s going to be at the peak of stardom, but he turns out to be not what everyone thought he was supposed to be, and the villain’s been defeated a long time ago. You’re not the underdog anymore, you’re the favorite, how do you deal with that? They work it all out and in the end they realize that it was all of that experience – the relationships they created, and the friendships that they had – it was that experience that was special, and it still is. I don’t know exactly how to phrase it, but it’s always mirrored us. The StarKid story has always mirrored the Potter story.
“I forget until I really think about it but that feeling was overwhelming – that sense of closure on it. When Voldemort gives the life lesson at the end… there’s always a little life lesson, at the end of the the first two, but in the last one it’s Voldemort! He gives the life lesson, ‘Harry Potter helped me through something,’ you know, ‘Harry Potter was this time in my life, and the people I have met because of that, the way it’s affected me, the way it’s changed me, I will never forget. But now I have to grow up.’ Man. It’s rough. But he’s okay – because you have to. And that’s cool, too.
“Compared with Justin Bieber we’re ancient, but we’re pretty young in terms of having a certain amount of success, and, within our group, a certain amount of celebrity, and having that happen really quickly. Which is not to say that a lot of us didn’t want that in life, at some point, or haven’t been trying to be actors… All of that aside, it did happen pretty quickly and it has been a process of learning how to navigate that successfully and taking it all and seeing the value in it and understanding the way it has positively affected us. I think the third one has all of that wrapped into it.”
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