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Award-winning actor and comedian Jason Alexander is making his way to the Bankhead Theater next week for an evening of conversation, quips and music.
Well-known for his role as George Costanza in the sitcom “Seinfeld”, Alexander has also starred on Broadway and in films such as “Pretty Woman”, “Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella” and “Shallow Hal”.
The man of many talents is also a director, producer, writer, children’s book author, award-winning magician, semi-pro poker player, and a social and political activist.
Everything — career and otherwise — is up for discussion in his show dubbed “As Long As You’re Asking – A Conversation with Jason Alexander”. The upcoming variation of this show features a moderated interview with Alexander and opportunities for the audience to ask questions of their own.
“What it is for me, more than anything else, is an opportunity to engage with people,” Alexander told the Pleasanton Weekly in a recent interview. “If something I say is impactful to them, great. If something I say is entertaining to them, great. But it goes both ways. It really is, for me, a conversation.”
Alexander envisioned the show about a decade ago, following feedback from his many keynote presentations.
Prior to each keynote, he recalls asking the invitees for direction on what to talk about.
“They just want to hear you speak…” Alexander remembers them saying, laughing at the recollection.
“…which is not even true in my own home,” he quipped.
So Alexander would prepare material to talk about and orate a speech that he said typically landed well. However, in the receptions that followed, he remembers audience members asking for additional material.
In response, he compiled common requests and questions into a list, which he typically distributes to audience members during non-moderated shows.
“That way, if it goes really well, I was very good — and if it goes badly, you picked the wrong things”, Alexander jokes to audiences. “But at least I won’t be blamed.”
While this version of the show is moderated, the audience will still have opportunities to ask questions of Alexander.
During the moderated section of the evening, Alexander is set to talk about his Broadway and theater influence, his time directing and producing, “Seinfeld” and possibly some personal interests, according to Livermore Valley Arts spokesperson Ruth Egherman.
As for the specific kind of comedy and music to expect at the show, Egherman said, “You will need a ticket to find out.”
Where the onstage storytelling begins is yet to be seen, but Alexander grew up in New Jersey with dreams of becoming a magician and Broadway actor.
He started performing during his youth in school and community theater, where he said he found a sense of community.
Given two working parents and half-siblings who were much older than himself, Alexander described himself as a latchkey kid.
“I was not a sports kid. I was not a popular kid and I didn’t have my thing — I didn’t have my community,” he said. “When I got pulled into my first theater production in a school, that group of kids were my people. I clicked with them.”
Also interested in magic, Alexander was enamored to discover that theater was its own illusion.
It was the early 1970s and 12-year-old Alexander was watching a preview of “Pippin” the musical.
“Oh my god, it’s all an illusion — nothing up there is real”, Alexander recalls thinking.
Nobody onstage is who they say they are, nor things the way they should be, he added.
“But look how this audience is so willing to embrace that illusion and look how this illusion actually excites them or affects them more than any magic trick I could ever do,” Alexander said. “Once I made that equation, that theater is an illusion, and it’s an illusion I do with people that I really like and enjoy … that was it.”
At 14 years old, the young actor took part in a pilot episode for a TV show. This opportunity arose out of his participation in a children’s theater group.Â
The pilot aired in New York on a Sunday morning and as part of the job, Alexander joined his first actors’ union. Out of the experience, Alexander also got an agent.Â
Still in his mid-teens, Alexander acted in commercials, which he said was a great experience.
While in college, the theater major was cast in his first Broadway show and film.
In theater, you know on a daily basis how you are impacting your audience, he said. But it wasn’t until the success of the sitcom “Seinfeld” in the ’90s that Alexander began receiving different feedback from people.
Well into “Seinfeld”, he started receiving comments that the show and his work on it helped people through hardships, like losing children or parents, illness and layoffs, he said.
“When I started hearing that, I allowed myself the possibility that what I was doing might be of service to other people, as opposed to just this fun thing I get to do to make a living — that it actually has a place in the world in a more meaningful way,” Alexander said.
In addition to his work on stage and screen, Alexander also participates in social and political activism.
He makes a point of taking care of the people in his many communities, whether friends, family, neighbors or working groups, he said.
“The community that I work with is large and diverse and within it are several kinds of communities that I am not necessarily part of. The LGBTQ community, none of those letters apply to me, but those are my friends and colleagues and so they are part of my community and so my activism extends to them,” Alexander said.
Additionally, he extends support to those with chronic health conditions during a time when “health care is not coming through”, he said.
“If everyone of us was able to participate in the healing of their personal communities, that, I think would cover the broad spectrum of social and political life,” Alexander added.
“As Long As You’re Asking – A Conversation with Jason Alexander” is set to begin at 8 p.m. next Friday (Sept. 5). The show is hosted as part of LVA’s longstanding Rae Dorough Speaker Series.
A return engagement in Livermore for Alexander, who headlined the Brilliance at the Bankhead gala in 2023, tickets and more information are available at livermorearts.org.
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