Kansas City actor finds national spotlight with Disney musical parody promoting masks
There is one line in Noah Lindquist’s viral Disney parody that made him pause before he recorded the video.
Should he include it? People will figure out the word behind that bleep.
But some things must be said, especially during a pandemic that has killed more than 220,000 Americans, especially when some people continue to turn up their noses at science and refuse to wear a mask.
So he left it, and that one line pretty much sums up the message behind “Wear a Mask,” his parody of the showstopping “Be Our Guest” from “Beauty and the Beast.” It goes like this:
“Never seen folks so dramatic
“Over a f***ing piece of fabric.”
“I was hesitant to put the expletive in that phrase,” said Lindquist, a recent Kansas State University music graduate who grew up in a musical theater family in Topeka and has appeared on several Kansas City stages.
“I thought, ‘Oh, maybe I should just say a stupid piece of fabric.’ And then I thought, no, we are seven months into this mess, and you’re still complaining about wearing some effing fabric around your face?”
Lindquist’s video has been viewed millions of times on social media since he posted it Saturday on YouTube. It had racked up more than 1.7 million views on YouTube alone by Thursday, where one commenter called it “the anthem 2020 needed.”
The video is a scene from the animated movie, recast with lyrics by Lindquist into 2 minutes and 14 seconds of the charming candelabra, Lumiere, and the sweet teapot, Mrs. Potts, taking direct aim at anti-maskers, including the infamous “Karen” whiners.
“Try not to be so grouchy,
“Have some faith in Fauci.”
The video has struck a chord as the public discourse over the need to wear masks remains heated and political. On Wednesday, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly announced plans to once again pursue a statewide mask mandate.
A slew of marquee names from the entertainment world have tweeted it over the last few days. That’s priceless attention for a budding actor/singer who was just getting started in Kansas City musical theater when COVID-19 shut down everything in March.
The video has been shared by Tony winner Audra McDonald, Lea Salonga — the singing voice of Jasmine in Disney’s animated “Aladdin” — and Dan Stevens, who played the Beast in the live-action version of “Beauty and the Beast.”
It got a turbo boost from Twitter kingmakers Rex Chapman and “Star Trek” actor George Takei.
Lindquist knew he had viral gold when he “noticed celebrities were sharing it or retweeting it.”
Then tabloid giant TMZ gave it the click-bait treatment, declaring, “don’t know how Disney feels about it, but it’s pretty awesome.”
A trip to New York
Lindquist, who is 24, grew up in a musical family. “We’ve all done theater productions. I’m the only one who’s pursuing theater professionally,” he said.
His parents, Megan and Dan Lindquist, are known in Topeka’s theater circles. For years, Topekans have heard Dan Lindquist’s voice in local TV jingles.
His company, Twilight Productions, makes jingles, which explains the recording studio in the family home where the younger Lindquist recorded “Wear a Mask.”
“They’re a very theatrical family. They do all these little Christmas jingles and post them,” said family friend and vocal teacher Ashley Young of Topeka, who sings in the video with Lindquist. “They’re an adorable family.”
When he was six weeks old, Lindquist said, “my mom was in a community theater production in Topeka and she brought me to every single rehearsal. So just even as an infant I was surrounded by musical people.”
Lindquist’s older and younger brother got theater minors at K-State. Lindquist graduated from there in December 2018 with a bachelor’s degree in music, with an emphasis in musical theater.
At K-State he appeared in productions of “Sweeney Todd,” “Into the Woods” and “Oklahoma!” He was the cross-dressing Dr. Frank-N-Furter in “The Rocky Horror Show.”
After graduation he moved in with his brother and sister-in-law in the Northland to launch his career in Kansas City, and “I was lucky enough to get work very consistently,” he said.
He got a job as a barista at The Roasterie in Children’s Mercy Hospital to pay the bills, but said he lost that gig after the pandemic hit.
He got his first local role in “Newsies” the summer before his final semester at K-State, a co-production of The Coterie and the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City. He then appeared in “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” “Pippin,” “Billy Elliot,” “Ragtime” at various local theaters and, most recently, in the Kansas City Repertory Theatre production of “Fun Home.”
He headed to New York in mid-February to spend a month auditioning for shows, kind of a trial run while trying to decide whether to move there full time.
In New York he saw a lot of Noah Lindquists — young, talented singer-actors chasing dreams.
“The audition process was really eye-opening. … It truly humbles you and opens your eyes to a much bigger world than you ever thought you knew,” he said.
“Sometimes, in a smaller community, you’re getting all this consistent work and it’s great. And then you get to a much larger community and you think, ‘OK, there are 50 guys in this room who look like me and sing just as well, if not better, than I do.”
He didn’t get any offers. Theaters started shutting down while he was there.
His parents, worried that he might get stuck in New York, asked him to come home early. To avoid potentially exposing his sister-in-law in Kansas City, who works in health care, he moved home to Topeka, where he’s been the last seven months working at Juli’s Coffee and Bistro near the state capitol.
“I’ve been working, saving money, trying to do little projects like you saw with the ‘Wear a Mask’ video, little projects that became big projects,” he said.
Writing lyrics on a cellphone
A few weeks ago he was watching “Beauty and the Beast” on Disney+ with his mom when she asked him to rewind the “Be Our Guest” number. They both love that song.
So it was in his head one day at work. The coffee shop sells handmade masks, and as he watched someone buy one he started singing to himself.
Wear a mask! Wear a mask!
Light bulb!
Over his lunch break he whipped out the notes app on his cellphone and in about 20 minutes wrote the entire first verse of “Wear a Mask.”
“Be Our Guest” was written by lyricist Howard Ashman, with music by Alan Menken, Oscar winners who also wrote the lyrics and music for “The Little Mermaid” and “Aladdin.”
Lindquist’s version begins like this:
“Wear a mask, wear a mask
Is this really much to ask?
Tie some fabric ‘round your face
Oh, it’s the simplest of tasks!”
“After I wrote those words, I knew I had to write another verse, I had to write another verse, I had to write a big closer. And I knew I had to record it,” said Lindquist.
He needed a singing partner, and he thought of Young, who has recorded jingles with his father. He had seen her perform in musicals at Topeka Civic Theatre.
He needed her for what he called the “cherry on top,” the stratospheric high note that shoots out of a choral crescendo like a rocket at the end of the song.
“He sent me a message that basically said he remembered seeing me in ‘Spamalot’ and ‘Mary Poppins’ and I had sung some high notes, so his question was: Do you currently have a strong high C?’” Young said.
“And I said yeah, I think I still have it because … pandemic … I haven’t done anything in a while.”
He sent her a rough track of the song, and when she got to the studio she had to ask: Who is singing Mrs. Potts?
That’s me, Lindquist said.
“I get random people on Instagram saying ‘Your Mrs. Potts was perfect,’” said Young. “No, no, that was all Noah. He did all the solos, and I just came in and added to the ensemble sound.”
“The last bit of that is just us two. I’ve seen comments on YouTube, people saying, ‘Well, I bet the choir wasn’t socially distancing and wearing masks,’” said Young.
“We just recorded 30 tracks to make it sound big. I think that’s a really cool part of it that I don’t think a lot of people know.”
It’s personal
Even though the video’s message is right there in the title, Lindquist said that around Topeka, for the most part, he sees people heeding the scientific advice and wearing masks.
“But every now and then there you see somebody in the store or the gym without a mask … and I just think, why aren’t you wearing a mask?” he said.
“Or I think why isn’t somebody enforcing this? I think that’s an even bigger problem. People who have authority are not enforcing these mask rules, and that’s what’s causing this to linger on, or contributing to the problem.”
Young has a more personal take on the lyrics she sang. She has multiple sclerosis, which puts her at high risk for suffering serious consequences should she get infected.
That trip to the Lindquist home to record the video was a rare outing.
“I don’t go out very often, to be honest,” said Young, who works for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas.
“But when I do it’s very frustrating to see people either maskless or under the nose mask-wearing. And I have a kiddo, so it’s just really important to keep myself and my family safe during this time and I just wish more people would take it more seriously.
“And like the lyrics say, it’s just so simple. It’s not that big of a deal, just do it.
“I love that something good came out of 2020 with this parody, and hopefully people listen. I don’t know.”
Calling Randy Rainbow
People have asked Lindquist if he’s heard any feedback from Disney. He has not.
“Originally … like the legalities of the video, I didn’t really give any of it a thought,” he said. “Because I thought, ‘OK, my friends are gonna see this, maybe they’ll share it. Maybe it will get a few thousand views or something, because that would be cool.’
“I never imagined it would reach this level. So now people are asking, ‘Well are you worried about Disney coming in and making you take it down?’
“At this point they probably already know about it and if they wanted me to take it down, they would have already contacted me.”
“I even thought, you know what, if the Walt Disney company ordered me to take this video down isn’t that the ultimate form of flattery? Like, oh my God, Disney told ME to take my video down. That would be so cool.”
He wasn’t set up to enjoy the fruits of his fame on Twitter until after hordes of people began tweeting out the video. People were tagging him, but it went to an old Twitter account he had set up in high school. He couldn’t remember the password.
“So I just made a new Twitter account and started infiltrating all the comments and saying this is my video, I made this,” said Lindquist, whose new account is @noahlindquist96. He’s on Instagram, too: noah.lindquist.
“I am heavily considering getting a TikTok now. We’ll see what happens.”
Right now, he’s just enjoying the glow of going viral, trying to figure out how to make more of this lightning-in-a-bottle moment.
To the suggestion that he might catch the attention of someone else making a name with funny videos on YouTube — comedian Randy Rainbow —Lindquist said, “We love Randy Rainbow!”
Even if nobody is talking about his video next week, “that’s fine,” said Lindquist. “Because it’s still cool to have that happen to you, and nobody can ever take that away from you.
“But there is an opportunity there. I’ve had a huge gain in my social media following, so I’ve started to think, now what do I do? Do I keep making more videos?”
To which Lindquist’s millions of new fans are sure to say, be our guest.
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