When Jeanne Voehl starts crying about halfway through our interview, her 12-year-old son, Max, puts his hand on his mom’s left shoulder and pats it gently.
In a lighthearted tone that’s both a jarring and funny contrast to the emotional weight of his mom’s words, he leans into her and softly says, “There, there, don’t cry now, we’re almost through.”
His mom laughs a little, wraps her arm around him and gives him a hug.
But she doesn’t stop crying.
Voehl is reflecting on when Max was in New York several months ago, far along in the audition process for the new musical adaptation of “Wonder.”
Based on R.J. Palacio’s popular middle-grade novel and New York Times bestseller — and the 2017 film with Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson — “Wonder” tells the story of Auggie Pullman, a boy with facial differences who ventures into a school hall for the first time at the start of seventh grade.
In a creative twist, Auggie, who conceals his face in an astronaut helmet when things get too overwhelming, also finds comfort in an imaginary friend named Moon Boy. This invisible, grown-up astronaut is absent from both the novel and movie; but in the musical, he expresses much of Auggie’s inner dialogue through song.
Auggie’s reliance on Moon Boy is so strong that it isn’t until near the end of the musical — when he has gained enough confidence to stand taller and face his bullies head-on — that he finally performs a solo of his own.
The song “Stare” is the second to last number in “Wonder,” and it’s the first time the audience really gets to hear Auggie sing.
His voice packs a punch as he dares the bullies to “Go ahead and stare.”
Max had to sing this song over and over again during an audition callback. And as she stood in the hallway outside the room, hearing her son sing those words, Jeanne Voehl got emotional.
Because in many ways, Auggie’s story is Max’s story.
‘He is a wonder’
At the start of “Wonder,” Auggie talks about all the ways he’s an ordinary kid. He likes mint chocolate ice cream. He likes playing Minecraft.
But does an ordinary kid, he asks, have 27 hospital wristbands from surgeries? Or make kids run away from him in fear on the playground?
Max can empathize with Auggie. He was born with severe bilateral cleft lip and palate — a diagnosis that’s led to 13 surgeries in 12 years. At the start of fourth grade, he missed almost four months of school on a medical leave of absence. He’s got another surgery on the horizon.
So Voehl had worries that her son auditioning for the part of Auggie would hit too close to home. But she and Max flew from their home in Bountiful, Utah, to New York City for a callback anyway. And it was there, as he sang “Stare” over and over, taking direction from the creative team, that Voehl felt some of her hesitation start to dissipate.
“He was 11 years old, and to stand in front of a room with complete strangers, and to stand there and sing, ‘I love me exactly as I am,’” Voehl says, her voice beginning to crack. “I stood in that hallway and my heart genuinely believed and meant it that if this process went no further, that for him to stand there and sing those words, that was enough.
“I hoped that he heard those words and felt them in his heart,” she continues. “Because he’s incredible. He is a wonder. And I just wanted that to be drilled into his heart forever.”
As she finishes talking, blinking through her tears, she looks over at Max and starts to laugh.
He’s sitting there calmly, smiling back at her.
Max’s optimism, his humor in this situation, seems to be a comfort to his mom.
He gave her this same kind of assurance when he left that callback jumping up and down with excitement. If he could go through with it, then so could she, Voehl thought.
Three weeks later, Max got the part.
“Wonder” had its world premiere at Harvard University’s American Repertory Theater on Dec. 9 and runs through mid-February. Now, more than 2,000 miles away from home, Max shares the role of Auggie with Garrett McNally, helping to tell a story that mirrors his own.
Saying ‘yes’
On a Saturday in early January, about an hour after a sold-out matinee, Max is standing on the brightly colored stage where he plays Auggie two times a week.
Behind him is part of the set from Auggie’s bedroom. Stars on the turquoise wall reflect the character’s love of space. A Minecraft poster also decorates the wall, along with a small bulletin board that has those 27 hospital wristbands attached to it. A “Star Wars” poster hangs on the bedroom door.
Max hangs out in this theater nine to 10 hours a day, six days a week, balancing online tutoring with his performances. While he’s typically in the matinee, he has to stay for the evening performance in case he needs to fill in for McNally. Most nights, he doesn’t get home until after 10.
He’s been away from his home in Utah, his close family of five split up in the process, since rehearsals started up in New York in late October. He’s been gone for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. He turned 12 on Jan. 6.
He misses home, but he’s not ready to be done with “Wonder.”
“It is still as fun and as incredible as it was the first show I did,” he says to me with a wide smile on the stage, with his mom by his side, after a performance on Jan. 10.
Max’s palpable excitement from being on stage and his passion for telling this story is contagious — and it’s the reason Jeanne Voehl had a change of heart after she initially told her son he couldn’t try out for “Wonder.”
As the mom of three recalls, when she and Max first learned about the new musical last April, “it started off as not a great day.”
That morning, a fistula in Max’s mouth opened up — an issue doctors had previously told Voehl would warrant an immediate doctor’s visit should it happen. So they headed in for an urgent consultation at Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City, where Max learned he would need another surgery — his 14th.
It all felt pretty bleak, so Voehl was surprised when the craniofacial orthodontist entered the room somewhat cheerfully.
The doctor proceeded to tell them she had received an email about a musical adaptation of “Wonder.” The creative team was looking for kids with craniofacial differences to audition for the role of Auggie, and she knew Max was involved in theater and thought he could be a good fit.
Voehl immediately said no.
She knew her son loved the theater — for about five years now he had been involved with local productions at Backstage Performing Arts in Centerville. But potentially starring in a production of “Wonder” was nothing like being an ensemble member in “The Jungle Book.”
“I was worried that all of this would hit too close to home,” she recalls while sitting in a room backstage at the American Repertory Theater. “Because in so many ways this is the life that we’ve lived for the last 12 years. ... I was worried that it would be too much. It’s not all pleasant, wonderful memories, and I wanted to protect my child.”
Voehl actually read “Wonder” right after Max was born. She hasn’t looked at it since. And no one in her family has seen the movie — the trailer was more than enough.
“It was really hard to read the book, because while it has such a positive message and such a great journey for Auggie, at that point, Max’s future, I didn’t know what it would look like,” she says. “It was very scary enough on its own, and then to read that book and to read about the things that Auggie went through, it terrified me. Nobody wants that for their tiny little baby.”
“And now I’m here!” Max quickly interjects. His mom smiles and wraps her arm around him.
Voehl never stood a chance against this kind of optimism.
When his mom said no in the doctor’s office, Max turned and looked at her.
“How cool would it be to be part of something that teaches kindness, and tells people that we just want to be treated like everyone else?” Voehl recalls him telling her.
“And I was like, ‘What am I supposed to say to that?”
“Yes,” Max whispers to her during our interview. “You can say ‘yes.’”
The authenticity of ‘Wonder’
Shortly after Max landed the role of Auggie, Voehl heard the script all the way through for the first time at a table read.
It almost knocked the wind out of her.
She was sitting in the back of the room, and started scooting her chair a little to get out of Max’s line of vision. She was emotional, and didn’t want her son to notice.
But Max started scooting his chair, too.
And then Voehl started getting text messages.
“Are you OK?”
“I love you.”
“You can leave if it’s too much.”
“This is just the epitome of who Max is,” she says. “And I was like, ‘If you can live this, and sit here and do this, I can do it, too.’”
Max had actually never read “Wonder” until he landed the role of Auggie. When he was in the third grade, his class was going to read it around the time he was scheduled to undergo a big surgery. The teacher reached out to Max’s family and ultimately decided to pick a different book for the students.
When Max finally did read it, he did so in just two nights.
“I cried a lot,” he says. “It’s such a good book but it’s such a terrible book.”
The musical’s intentional decision to cast kids with craniofacial differences in the lead role — a representation absent from the film — Voehl says, helps to shine a light on the kinds of ups and downs Max has navigated in his life.
“This show, it does all the things that you want it to do,” she says. “It makes you laugh, it makes you cry, you want to dance in your seat. You get angry, you feel hopeful. It has such an emotional journey, and it really is very authentic.”
‘That’s why we’re doing this’
Early on in the musical, Auggie’s mom drops her son off at school for the first time.
“Please, God, let them be kind to him,” she says as she walks away.
Jeanne Voehl knows this fear. She’s felt the anxiety that comes with a situation like this that’s out of your control.
During Auggie’s difficult first day of school, a classmate, Julian, finds out about his love of “Star Wars” and turns it against him, asking if his favorite character is Darth Sidious (referring to the fearsome face of the phantom menace).
At the end of that day, when a distraught Auggie cuts off his long-grown Padawan “Star Wars” braid, his mom cradles him in his bed and sings.
“I hope you know, you are beautiful/brighter than a sky full of stars/oh Auggie, what a wonder you are.”
Voehl says she couldn’t have written a better song if she tried.
She still gets emotional when she hears Alison Luff sing it each night — and she’s not alone. During this Saturday matinee in January, several people sitting in front of me are brushing away tears as Auggie’s mom comforts and sings to her son.
As Auggie continues to adjust to school, many of his classmates also have adjustments of their own to make.
On school picture day, Auggie hides in the back of his class to avoid being in the photo. His friend, Jack, encourages him to be part of it, putting his arm around him and standing close by.
“I hope his face doesn’t break the camera,” another classmate says right before the camera snaps.
Later on in the musical, when Halloween arrives, Auggie is visibly excited. It’s his favorite day of the year — the one day he can wear a mask and look just like everyone else.
This is one of the most upbeat moments of the musical, with all of the kids in their costumes — Auggie included — dancing and singing together at the school. But as soon as the dance is over, Auggie, hidden under his Bleeding Scream costume, hears his best friend Jack succumb to peer pressure and say something mean about his face to the other kids who have been making fun of him.
Auggie doesn’t like Halloween anymore.
The tension escalates into a “war” during the second half of the musical — a division between the classmates who become friends with Auggie and the others who keep their distance.
As the battle progresses, some kids start to put themselves in Auggie’s shoes and change the way they see. Auggie starts to stand a little taller, a little prouder. And near the end, backed by an army of friends, he confronts some taunting from a group of older kids head-on and performs “Stare” — the song that won Max’s mom over during that callback several months ago.
After the curtain closes to a standing ovation, Max exits the stage door and enters the lobby of the theater. His entire family, including his older brother, Luke, and 9-year-old sister, Harper, is waiting to hug him. They’ve been in Massachusetts for the week celebrating their brother’s 12th birthday.
“I’ve really been missing them a lot,” Max says.
For the next 15 minutes or so, he signs autographs in the lobby. A family from Idaho has traveled all the way to this theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to see “Wonder.” A daughter in the family has a craniofacial difference. She holds a “Wonder” poster and stands beside Max for a photo. The family asks Jeanne Voehl if they can reach out to her on social media.
Moments like this, Voehl says, make all the sacrifice it has taken for Max to star in “Wonder” — leaving behind home, family and regular day-to-day life — worthwhile.
“To have someone walk up to me after to talk about how it affected them, that it was their story, too, and that they just are so proud that this is out here and want everyone to see it ... that’s why we’re here, that’s why we’re doing this,” she says.
‘Back to normal life’
Since its 1980 founding, the American Repertory Theater, which stands north of the Charles River in Harvard Square, has become a Broadway incubator of sorts, originating productions including “Waitress,” “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess” and “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812.”
Now, “Wonder” has taken center stage in the 550-seat venue. Several performances have been sold out or close to it. Max and Jeanne Voehl hope people will continue to fill the theater throughout the musical’s run — which was recently extended to Feb. 15 — mainly because they’ve experienced firsthand the power in telling this story.
It’s been especially healing for Jeanne Voehl, who only slightly jokes that she doesn’t want to burn the book anymore.
This past summer she actually ended up sitting next to Palacio during a presentation of the musical, which wound up being somewhat cathartic for her.
“I very awkwardly ended up telling her that I hated her book when I read it,” Voehl says with a laugh.
The hate, she reiterates, stemmed from her own fears for Max’s future.
“For me personally … you would do and give anything to make your kid’s journey easier, and especially if there’s a known obstacle that you know they’re going to have to deal with. ... To not have any power or way to alleviate that is a big burden to carry," she says.
For the last 12 years, the Voehl family has navigated the ups and downs together. But it’s often Jeanne Voehl who stays with her son at the hospital, or takes him to urgent doctor’s appointments, or stays with him all the way across the country so he can star in a brand-new musical for a few months.
Seeing her own son bring to life a story she hid away for so many years has been an unexpected full circle moment. The unpleasant memories of agonizing surgeries are starting to fade as the spotlight shines bright on Max.
“I really feel like for me, that those dark memories ... have been tampered down now, and that I will look back and think about this,” she says. “To be able to shift lanes and go down this incredible, incredible road, and to share this part of it with Max, it feels very fulfilling.”
When Voehl first learned of her son’s diagnosis during a routine ultrasound, the doctor provided some advice that has continued to stay with her: Don’t let it define him. Let it be just a chapter in his book — not the full story.
While she’s tried hard to do that for the last 12 years, it’s really Max — with his humor and warmth and optimism — who’s made that possible.
“It has encompassed a lot of our lives for the last 12 years, but it’s not every minute, it’s not every day,” she says. “The majority of the time, Max is just my little Max.”
Now, as our interview comes to an end, Max is sitting backstage thinking about returning to Utah and getting “back to normal life.”
He knows he has a surgery waiting for him. But in this moment, he’s thinking about finishing sixth grade. And after playing Auggie, he’s not too worried about the following school year.
“I’ve already done 7th grade like 50 times,” he says.
