Jordan Dodd ’25 shines in the spotlight in Songs for a New World.
Perhaps you’ve been taken aback by a sudden, beautifully sung rendition of Radiohead’s “Creep” while walking down Choate’s paths, or perhaps, as you made your way through the Paul Mellon Arts Center, you saw someone dropping into a jazz split. Likely, these groovy moves and pitch-perfect notes are courtesy of Jordan Dodd ’25.
Dodd is well-known in the Choate arts community as a jack-of-all-trades. He has acted in six Choate productions (Xanadu, Fringe Festival, Footloose, She Kills Monsters, Mamma Mia!, and Songs for a New World), stage-managed the fall musical, danced with Hip Hop and Step Squad, sang with Chamber Choir, and is the leader of the Melatones a cappella group.
Despite these successes, Dodd did not always know the arts would be his passion, and he used to have a very different perspective on it. “Fun fact: I actually hated theater so, so much. I didn’t like the attention of being watched.
It became overwhelming, and then for a while, theater was a dry spot for me,” Dodd said. It was not until his second grade production of The Lion King, in which he played Young Simba, that his love for the arts blossomed. There, he felt the support of the theater community and realized the feeling of performing far outweighed his fear of judgment.
Dodd also neither planned to attend Choate nor expected to find himself so involved in the the School’s arts community. Dodd was initially most excited about the science opportunities offered at Choate. However, after taking physics as a third-former, he realized that science was not the path for him. Now, Dodd is a member of the theater Arts Concentration program.
Dodd said his favorite part of theater is its community, which he described as accepting while consistently pushing him to improve. For Dodd, improvement involves constantly reminding himself of his artistic inspirations. “Whitney Houston has always been a symbol of hope and spunk for me,” he said. “She had this longevity that other people just did not have, so she’s always been my baseline.” Recently, some of his inspirations include Jordan Fisher, Daniel Caesar, and Reneé Rapp.
Dodd’s effortless performances onstage are a result of his hard work behind the scenes. “It’s trying to connect with your body,” he said. “When you are trying to find that high note to sing or get to an emotional or comedic place, it’s hard. It’s a lot of stamina.” Dodd explained that the energy he has on stage comes from a duty he has to the script.
Dodd hopes his legacy at Choate will inspire future theater students. “I want to be the person who defied all vocal challenges: the actor, singer, and dancer that they still talk about when I’m gone. I don’t want to leave a legacy where people think I am better than them, but one where I push the new generation of actors to be better than me,” he said.
