A performer who splits his time between New York and L.A. will be back the state he considers home as the new Michael Jackson musical “MJ” makes its Iowa debut next week.
Actor, singer and dancer Josh Dawson was born in Atlanta but moved to Cedar Rapids with his parents at age two. While he lived in Iowa through middle school before his folks moved again, Dawson credits his years here for all he learned about the importance of kindness and hard work.
“No matter where I go, I’ve been to 32 different countries, I’ve lived all over the world, you just can’t take the Iowa out of me,” Dawson says. “I love cornfields and I love when that sky comes over the plains. It’s just so peaceful and I always try to get back to my Iowa roots. It grounds me and humbles me.”
Dawson has a dual role in the touring Broadway production of MJ, playing both one of Jackson’s brothers and celebrated producer and songwriter Quincy Jones.
“The brother that I play, Tito Jackson, was also the musician of the family, and so I’m a musician, I’m in a band and I get to sort of live out my full self onstage,” Dawson says. “It’s so wonderful.” Dawson says he also feels he shares a lot in common with Jones, as he feels he’s being called to center his artistry around other artists who he can help to achieve the next level.
The storyline follows the King of Pop for just a few days around the making of the 1992 Dangerous World Tour. Dawson says he has great respect for Jackson, who died in 2009.
“The way that he saw art was in a very different way than most people, and he just was a master of his craft,” Dawson says. “We kind of have the inside look and a behind-the-scenes look into this amazing tour that was wildly successful, and in it, we sprinkle some flashbacks of his life.”
The musical’s soundtrack is a wide sampling of Jackson’s long history as a performer, and Dawson says it’s timeless and transcends generations, like the Beatles or Elvis. Dawson says music is a uniting, universal truth in a world that’s very divided.
“We just love good music. We love to be able to escape and just listen and dance,” Dawson says. “I know that the show is going to be able to provide that for people, just a moment of breath. There’s so much going on in the world, for three hours, I know that people can tune that out and just enjoy the sounds, the sights, the colors, the dancing.”
MJ will open at the Des Moines Civic Center on Tuesday, running through May 5th.
Hear Matt Kelley’s full interview with Josh Dawson below: