Community Corner

Whiz Kid: Jonathan Mousset Sings, Talks Theater at Brandon Idol (VIDEO)

A graduating senior at Howard W. Blake High School of the Arts in Tampa, Jonathan Mousset has appeared on both the Hillsborough County school and community theater stage and plans to study musical theater at Florida State University.

Jonathan Mousset is a whiz at acting his age — or not — as the part requires, and nowhere is that more apparent than when he’s standing on stage with a song in his heart and a microphone in his hand.

"Each show is special. Each show is special to the audience," Mousset said. "You're doing it for them. It's a relationship you have, the performer and the audience. It's that relationship that I love."

Brandon Patch caught up with Mousset at the at the Brandon Elks Lodge on April 30. There, the 17-year-old graduating senior of the magnet school performing arts program at Blake High School talked about his future and his past, and especially how that journey led to his burning desire to make his mark on a Broadway stage.

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“I was nine-years-old and we were in the car," Mousset said. "My mother heard me sing and said, ‘You have a pretty decent voice,’ and she put me in the Cathedral Choir in Albany, New York,” Mousset recalled. “That’s where I got most of my training.”

In the fifth grade, he added, "I played Simba in 'The Lion King' and that's when people knew I could sing."

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Mousset said he moved to the Tampa Bay area when he was in middle school, and joined the school chorus — but then it was cut, and he didn't sing for three years.

And then he met a girl.

“I was actually going to go to Wharton High School,” he said. “She was really upset. We were dating at the end of eighth grade and she was going to Blake. I said, ‘Hey, I can sing? Why don’t I audition for Blake, for musical theater?’ ”

Young love faded but his passion for musical theater blossomed and now Mousset is certain about his art: "I feel like I was destined to do this," he said.

No stranger to the Greater Brandon community theater stage, Mousset has had leading roles in Take 2 The Stage’s production of "Children's Letters to God” and Brandon Youth Theater’s production of "Oklahoma!” Mousset starred as well in “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” directed by Frenkel at Music Showcase, with the Florida Academy of Performing Arts.

He played Tevye in the Blake production of “Fiddler on the Roof.”

In 2010, Mousset won the Brandon Idol Teen contest.

A year later, Mousset channeled his inner Rat Pack with a spirited and soulful rendition of “Come Fly With Me,” as a 2011 Brandon Idol adult contestant. He sang a song made popular by Frank Sinatra, in 1957. (The moniker “Rat Pack” refers to Sinatra, Joey Bishop, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and Dean Martin.)

“I did not expect the Rat Pack,” Brandon Idol judge Larry Becker told Mousset after his competition performance. “It was great, it was very cool and you’re way too young to know about that. All those guys are gone and you brought them back for me.”

“You had a lot of charisma,” added Idol judge Cyndi Edwards.

Being on stage, Mousset said in an interview, “is a magical feeling, as cliché as that sounds.”

“Once you get into the character you become it," he said, "and you live it on stage.”

Mousset plans to attend Florida State University, where he’s been accepted into the highly competitive musical theater program. His goal is to become the "triple threat," known in musical theater as the person who can act, sing and dance.

“I’m a singer-actor, and I move.” Mousset said.

His career goal?

"Broadway actor," he said. “Definitely."


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