Cincinnati theater fans likely recall Todd Almond. A 1999 grad of the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, he dazzled audiences at Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati (ETC) in memorable productions in the early 2000s. He took on the title role of a genderqueer East German singer of a fictional rock band in John Cameron Mitchell’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch; he reprised that role there in 2018. He also played the German transvestite who survived the Nazis in ETC’s 2005 staging of I Am My Own Wife.
Almond is now based in New York City, where his multifaceted career makes it a challenge to encapsulate his career. In a New York Times feature earlier this year, when asked how he fills in a form asking what he does for a living, he said, “Every freaking time, I write ‘writer,’ and then I cringe. Or I write ‘actor’ — actor! — and I throw up. Or I write ‘musician,’ and I think, ‘You’re not a musician. You would be fired in a minute.’” In truth, he’s all of those things, but prefers not to be pinned down. When asked a similar question in a recent CityBeat interview, he said he still struggles to answer.
Almond has complicated things with his recent creative outlet, a new book that’s both a personal memoir and an almost-journalistic account of his experience as a performer in Slow Train Coming: Bob Dylan’s Girl from the North Country and Broadway’s Rebirth. With a title from a Dylan tune, it’s based on his experience performing in a show that used the Nobel Prize-winning songwriter’s songs in an unorthodox way. It’s not a musical in any traditional sense. In fact, it’s fundamentally a play by noteworthy Irish novelist and playwright Conor McPherson (whose shows have been performed at numerous Cincinnati theaters).
Just as Almond struggles to categorize his own career, this show defied traditional forms. It was definitely not a jukebox musical with a collection of Dylan’s best-known songs. “It’s a piece of theater that has a lot of music in it,” he said. “Just for the sake of ease in conversation, I say I was in a musical called Girl from the North Country, but … it doesn’t quite line up with the rules of what is a musical.”
Set in Dylan’s hometown of Duluth, Minnesota, in the ‘30s, a decade before the songwriter was born, Girl from the North Country features hard-luck characters out of work, out of homes, out of hope, living in a cramped boardinghouse during the depths of the Depression. They support one another emotionally, and their emotions are represented by Dylan’s songs, not advancing the plot but offering texture to scenes. In a recent CityBeat interview, Almond said he and other actors thought of the show “almost as a church service, where there were readings, there were homilies, there’s humanity and then there’s hymns. These hymns come in that have absolutely nothing to do with what we were just talking about, but they are just us letting God talk to us for a minute.” He came to think of Dylan’s music as, in a sense, the voice of God.
Speaking with CityBeat, Almond said he and many of the performers felt their songs, often sung straight out to the audience, were different. “The scenes were reality, and the music was tone. Or mystery. Or edge. Something like inserting a major color, like the wind is suddenly blowing.” Definitely not the typical storytelling employed by most musicals.
Almond cited a personal example from the show. As Elias Burke, he played a neurodivergent, childlike man who lives with his parents in the boardinghouse. He dies unexpectedly, then makes a final appearance wearing a white, almost ghostlike, suit, and sings Dylan’s “Duquesne Whistle” in a rousing, Gospel-styled performance. Almond explained his thoughts about how McPherson constructed his play. “The best thing he could do in this dark revelation is to have an extremely happy, inviting moment, actually an extra gut punch for the audience.” For many who saw the show, Almond’s performance was a memorable highlight.
Girl from the North Country, starring Almond as Elias, will air on CET, Cincinnati’s PBS station, at various times on May 23-26. Check your local listings to learn more.
His book is an impressive compendium of numerous comments from performers and others involved in its original London 2017 production and its remounting with an American cast in New York City that included Almond. It was Off Broadway at the Public Theater in 2018; in 2020, it moved to Broadway’s Belasco Theatre but was cut short when it opened just a week later when the COVID pandemic entirely shut down Broadway. After a lengthy delay, it reopened in late 2021, only to suffer several pandemic-caused shutdowns and reopenings. Almond’s recounting blends his personal journey with the ins and outs of producing a Broadway show, especially what goes on backstage and in dressing rooms. It’s a fascinating, behind-the-scenes chronicle.
Almond harkens back to Cincinnati, which, despite his Nebraska roots, he thinks of as his artistic hometown. “I love the people there and the audiences. I loved working with Lynn Meyers at Ensemble Theatre; she shaped me.” It surely laid a foundation for his striking performance in Girl from the North Country. How he and his book should be categorized is immaterial. It’s one that theater fans should read.
Slow Train Coming: Bob Dylan’s Girl from the North Country and Broadway’s Rebirth by Todd Almond can be purchased by visiting bloomsbury.com.
This story is featured in CityBeat’s April 16 print edition.
This article appears in Apr 16-29, 2025.