Derek Klena had a plan for the most ambitious merging yet of his two worlds: Broadway and baseball.
Months ago, Klena joined the Savannah Bananas, the barnstorming baseball club that has become nothing short of a sensation with its playful take on America’s pastime. Joining the club known for both choreography and curveballs meant Klena had to put his Tony-nominated theater career on hold. But that doesn’t mean the drama had to stop.
When a relief pitcher is summoned in the big leagues, his trip to the mound is often accompanied by a signature song. Yankees Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera helped create this trend when Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” blared through stadium speakers as he left the bullpen. A few days before the Bananas got ready to play at Yankee Stadium, Klena described his vision for an entrance: He’d come in from the Yankees bullpen, wearing a cloak and with a mask covering half of his face. He’d hold a lantern in one hand and a microphone in the other, singing his way onto the field. “The Phantom of the Opera” takes the mound.
The only issue he foresaw was figuring out a boat apparatus attached to a power scooter to transport him and best replicate the musical’s famous scene.
“We’ll get to see what this boat adventure turns into,” Klena, 34, said over breakfast a few days out from the Bananas games in New York. “If it’s going to be an epic failure or if we can actually pull it off. It might look like a class project and we’ll have to trash it.”
Klena’s decision to join the Bananas is a snapshot of shifts in modern entertainment and how traditions are being upended. The Bananas have only been around for about a decade but, using a fan-first concept and bits tailor-made for social media, they easily sell out stadiums and appeal to a demographic that traditional baseball has struggled to reach. The club has 11.5 million followers on TikTok, 4.2 million on Instagram and 2.5 million YouTube subscribers.
“Broadway has built its platform on being in the room to experience it,” said Klena, who has starred in many shows, including “Moulin Rouge!” and “Dogfight.” “You have to go to New York. You have go to the theater. There’s something super special about that, and that’s what’s made Broadway so niche and it’s been the secret to its success for a long time. But the digital world has changed the way that people view things and how fast they can get them.”
Klena is by no means giving up on theater and acting. He plans to audition for roles while with the Bananas as long as they fit into his demanding baseball schedule.
Growing up in Southern California, Klena’s childhood somewhat resembled that of Troy Bolton, the athlete-singer from “High School Musical” who struggled to balance his two devotions.
John Klena, his father, coached him in baseball throughout much of his childhood. His presence helped whenever Derek Klena had to leave a game early to make a play or show.
“I didn’t have a whole lot of free time growing up, because I was constantly doing a lot,” Klena said. “As I grew older, I started to resent the fact that my social life included my theater endeavors and sports endeavors. Looking back now, it was such a privilege to be able to do those things.”
In high school, John Klena could no longer be the buffer between coaches and directors. Derek Klena pursued theater outside of his schooling, and also pitched on the baseball team.
“I had a lot of traumatizing conversations with my coach about why I couldn’t make practice or why I was going to be late to things because I had theater or vice versa,” he said.
He chose UCLA for college, joining the theater program. He also walked on the baseball team, joining a stacked rotation featuring the future pro aces Gerrit Cole and Trevor Bauer.
Eventually he reached a crossroads that had been approaching since childhood.
“I realized that it was going to be a pretty steep uphill climb to make any sort of dent in that pitching lineup,” he said, adding: “I thought I could be more successful pursuing theater and acting.”
He entered a singing competition, landed an agent and received callbacks for auditions before landing a role in “Carrie: The Musical,” figuring he’d take a few months off from school.
“I’ve been out here now for about 14 years,” he said.
He met his future wife, Elycia Scriven, at UCLA. The pair moved to New York after Klena continued landing roles. He also joined the Broadway softball league and dominated.
Klena’s talents landed him the attention of the songwriting duo Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who cast him as the lead in “Dogfight,” a musical about three young Marines preparing to deploy to Vietnam. A few years later he received a Tony nomination for his performance in “Jagged Little Pill.” Last year, Pasek and Paul suggested Klena to Jesse Cole, the founder of the Bananas.
“We were like, ‘This could be your Troy moment,’” Paul said — “a chance to take both your passions, put them together and do them on a gigantic national stage.”
Klena grabbed a mitt and took his family for a bullpen session. He found that his fastball still touched the 80s on the radar gun.
“Everything is a risk,” he said of his decision. “And so why not take this risk on something that is going so well, it’s only growing, and it’s a proven concept, doing something that I know is built for me?”
JOINING THE BANANAS for their 2026 season, he found the team operates similar to a “Saturday Night Live” schedule. The Bananas and their opponents (with names like the Party Animals, Texas Tailgators or Loco Beach Coconuts) fly in from all corners of the country to whatever giant stadium they have sold out for the weekend.
Each series, anywhere from 30 to 40 percent of the coordinated skits — players dancing between pitches, the award-show-style entrances — are new, with the creative team trying to continually raise the bar.
The players and brain trust meet on Monday and structure the routines, a script goes out Thursday, rehearsal is on Friday and games are on Saturday and Sunday. All the while, competitive baseball is being played. (Yes, there are more than a few quirks, such as a player being called out if a fan catches a foul ball on the fly.) Some current Bananas are former minor leaguers.
Klena made his debut in February inside Florida State’s cavernous Doak S. Campbell Stadium. Before he threw his first pitch, he gave his first performance.
He sang and sauntered his way in from the outfield, part of a choreographed routine with his teammates to the song “Shut Up and Dance.” Klena’s background came in handy; the song was featured in “Moulin Rouge!” on Broadway, where he spent parts of three years in the cast. When he finished singing, he tossed the mic and took the mound. His in-ear monitors were still in place, causing a sensory overload as he pitched while hearing the stadium crowd of nearly 70,000 people.
Four pitches later, Klena walked off the mound, retiring his batter on a curveball and inducing a weak ground ball.
“The bigger the stadium, actually the less stressful it is because I feel like I’m under less of a microscope,” Klena said.
Klena had worried about how Broadway would react to his decision.
“I had heard coming up that he had the background of an athlete,” said Alex Timbers, who directed Klena in “Moulin Rouge!” “He’s a really good dancer. He’s moves really good, so he’s definitely someone who’s in touch with his physicality.”
Klena also wondered how players would receive him stepping into a competitive locker room after a layoff that began when Barack Obama’s second presidential election started.
The reactions, he said, have all been positive. In theater, Klena said, repetition is key and perfection is earned through multiple rehearsals and performances.
Klena hoped to reach a different, broader audience with the move and his Instagram following has surged from around 160,000 followers to more than 218,000 since he joined the Bananas.
“He is going to entertain over a million fans in person and also millions of people are seeing his video clips,” said Bananas founder Cole. “That’s something that is in many ways is different than Broadway. You can’t film inside the theater and they keep it as a special experience there which makes it really unique. And for us, we’re sharing everything.”
KLENA SCRAPPED the boat idea. But the Opera Ghost still emerged from the shadows.
The Yankee Stadium lights dimmed in the fourth inning. Klena exited the bullpen on foot, but with the instantly recognizable “Phantom” mask covering the right side of his face. He held a lantern in his right hand and a cloak flowed off his back as he strode to the infield, all as he belted the theme song from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical.
John Klena was in the stands to see his son. “I don’t know if you can see the ball coming back at you off the bat to save your life if you’re pitching with a mask on,” he speculated.
The first couple of warm-up tosses from the mound sailed high.
“It’s kind of the same, pitching and being a frontman in theater,” the elder Klena said after the game. “You’ve got all the pressure. Everyone is looking at you.”
Klena told himself to calm down on the mound. He found the strike zone, earning his first strikeout as a Banana and cheers from the crowd. Moments later he was performing an elaborate “Aladdin” sequence, which brought even more cheers.
“You’re thrown into the deep end every game and asked to do something that is crazy that you’ve rehearsed one time,” Klena said. “Theater is very rehearsed, it’s very meticulous. This has kind of conditioned me to be a little bit more open and a bit more free. It’s been a gift in that regard.”
Jonathan Abrams is a Times reporter who writes about the intersections of sports and culture and the changing cultural scenes in the South.
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