‘Ace’ ace Sam Cordes is an unfettered pilot

By John Katsilometes

Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2015 | 2:34 p.m.

Earlier this summer while visiting his family in Kansas City, Sam Cordes was riding a bicycle through a neighborhood while talking on his cell phone. As one would expect, he lost his balance and toppled to the asphalt, instinctively using his left hand to brace his fall.

Cordes wound up breaking a small bone in his left wrist, and until just a few days ago was wearing a splint that extended up his left forearm. And this is the man who has been entrusted to carry an entire musical on his shoulders?

No worries.

“I’ve been in theater since I was 5 years old,” says Cordes, who today is 27 and the stage captain of “Ace,” an original Las Vegas musical being showcased at UNLV’s Judy Bayley Theater on Saturday and Sunday (show times are 1 p.m. each day; tickets are $30 and available at the UNLV College of Fine Arts box office, 702-895-2787 and UNLV.edu/nct). “I’ve just found a niche in the musical-theater world.”

Steadier in the portrayal of the central character than he is when riding a bike one-handed, Cordes and co-lead Tina Walsh hardly leave the stage in the musical co-written by “Ka” music director Richard Oberacker and his writing partner, Robert Taylor, a violinist with a stacked resume topped currently by his work in “Steve Wynn’s Showstoppers.”

Those two met more than a decade ago when working on the touring version of “Disney’s The Lion King,” and the musical’s launch point was 2003.

Directing is David H. Bell, famous for “Encores!” and his work on “New York Philharmonic Presents” in New York who is coming in from Chicago to work with the production. Bell is an Olivier Award nominee for “The Hot Mikado” in London’s West End.

And important from a civic-arts angle: Nevada Conservatory Theater is presenting “Ace,” and the performances serve as a benefit for NCT. Though just two shows are scheduled, a full orchestra filled with top Las Vegas musicians and jammed with vocal and acting talent backs the production.

Walsh (who has appeared in “Mamma Mia!” at Mandalay Bay and “Phantom” in Las Vegas and on tour) is the co-lead as Ruth, mother of Cordes’ character Danny Lucas, who spans three generations of fighter pilots over several decades and two world wars as he fills the gaps of his troubled past.

Niki Scalera (“Tarzan” and “Hairspray” on Broadway and “Peepshow” at Planet Hollywood) plays an earlier-generation Ruth. Devin Archer, from “Mamma Mia!” at Tropicana, plays the title character Ace, Lucas’ father. Nicole Kaplan of “Showstoppers” and Joey DeBenedetto (“Les Miserables” and a Las Vegas Academy grad) also are among the principal actors.

Cordes is certainly a new face in that lineup. He impressed Oberacker this spring during auditions for “Putnam County Spelling Bee” at Judy Bayley Theater, as Oberacker asked Cordes to sing after his audition for that musical.

“I was in audition mode for ‘Spelling Bee,’ so he saw me at my best. I was on top of my game that day,” Cordes says, chuckling. They met up a few weeks later, and Oberacker told Cordes that he was looking for “the lead in a brand-new musical, someone who could pull heavy duty, someone who could carry the show.”

A graduate student in the UNLV College of Fine Arts, Cordes is not unfamiliar with facing challenges to grow in his craft. Though he has been singing since he was a child, he never took vocal lessons until he was about to enter college.

“I was told I had all this natural talent but also had some bad habits I needed to get rid of,” he says. “I’ve always been comfortable playing characters, talking to audiences and learning how to find my way around musical theater. This is how I’ve always paid the bills.”

Oberacker had been looking for an actor with a youthful voice, Cordes says, maybe even immature and inexperienced.

“He kind of wanted a non-singer,” Cordes says. “He wanted a voice that sounded like a 21-year-old, and I kind of fit the role.”

But during early rehearsals at Oberacker’s home, Cordes made it obvious that he has the singing and acting acumen to hang with the likes of Walsh, Scalera and Fenton, who fairly made the windows shake in the Panorama Towers residence.

Cordes is used to being around powerful female singers, as he earned his undergraduate degree at Stevens College in Columbia, Mo. That’s the second-oldest women’s college in the U.S., but Cordes was permitted to enroll in the university’s theater program because the female performers needed males to fill out the productions’ casts.

“So I got to go to classes, go to do shows and get a degree in a three-year program,” Cordes says. “I was one of just a few boys, and I just got to do a ton of shows. Any role for a male, I could play.”

He also worked at Okoboji Summer Theater in Iowa, performing as many as nine shows in 10 weeks, so the tight timeframe to develop “Ace” has been manageable.

The show has undergone myriad adjustments and upgrades since debuting at Repertory Theater of St. Louis in Fall 2006. Versions of “Ace” also have been presented in the Old Globe in San Diego and Signature Theater in Arlington, Va. The dream is all too familiar: To one day book the show on Broadway or on a national tour.

Thus, the responsibility of leading this type of show — especially with the playwright actually leading rehearsals — is apparent. Oberacker has served as a valuable tutor for Cordes as he continues to advance his stage skills.

“He talks about floating above the notes rather than trying to hit the note,” Cordes says. “It’s a mental tool. If you try to hit that note at the end of the song, and hit it hard, it will hit you back. So you’re just trying to float on top of it, then just land on it softly.”

And that makes sense, as Sam Cordes seems out to prove that he’s had his last hard fall.

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWiththeDish.