For Jess Val Ortiz, Fame Came Online. The Dream Is Still Broadway.

Jess Val Ortiz has 10.8 million followers on TikTok, with millions more on Instagram and YouTube. She is Penn State-trained in musical theater, makes a living creating viral comedy sketches about many things including dating, family chaos, and the theater. She has built an independent career generations of performers before her could only dream of. She does not answer to gatekeepers nor need their approval. And yet, the thing she dreams of most? To be on Broadway, the oldest dream in show business.

From TikTok to Broadway Dreams

Ortiz, whose father is Puerto Rican and mother is Polish, belongs to the “Zillennial” generation that bridges Millennials and Gen Z, old enough to have seen Hamilton when it first opened, young enough to make it trend on TikTok. Across social platforms, thousands of theater creators are building massive audiences while still treating the Broadway stage as the ultimate prize, much like Viva Broadway, which for years has aimed to expand the theater’s reach to new Latino audiences.

This also raises a paradoxical question. If digital creators have been rejecting old historic institutions while building their own capital via audiences and platforms, why then are they still compelled by Broadway? Jess’s answer reveals what younger generations actually value about art, connection, and craft today.

For Ortiz, the callbacks she’s been receiving for major Broadway roles over the past year suggest she is close. Really close. ShowBizCafe spoke with her recently about why the stage still matters to her when millions are already watching, and what does authenticity mean when content is your full-time job.

(This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and length.)

Jess Val Ortiz in a Hamilton-inspired TikTok sketch (Instagram)

Why Broadway Still Matters for Creators

ShowBizCafe: You’re pretty much your own Broadway industry. Why do you even need Broadway? Can you explain that contradiction?

Jess Val Ortiz: Why do I even need Broadway? I feel like I truly was put on this earth to be on stage because I do not ever feel as happy as I feel like doing anything else. Like even when I make a viral video, it feels good, it feels cool, and I get to show my phone to my friends and be like, look at this. I just did that. And they are like, great. Awesome. But getting to tell a story with a community, with a cast, being able to sing on a stage and get to witness the audience experiencing this with me, there is no other feeling and experience that can compare… When I go and I sit in a Broadway theater and I feel those things that I feel within me, it is just not the things that I feel when I am on this, and I just do not think it ever will be.

What Authenticity Means in 2025

ShowBizCafe: You have said that this is your full-time job, but in most jobs people do not get to be their authentic selves. You do. How would you define authenticity today, when authenticity now is a full-time job?

Jess: “Ooh, that is a great question. I think it is just important to lead with what you are most passionate about and, you know, I have always been very passionate about theater and even growing up, until I graduated from college, like theater and art and singing and dancing, like that was my whole life. And so that feels very authentic to me… Now that my job is social media, it is still, because I am still acting, I am still singing, I am doing things that I love. It is just transferred over to my phone. And so it is still something that I love and something that I am working on… Working during COVID and working jobs that really humbled me and that I really did not like and you know, working for people that were really nasty to me and did not appreciate me for who I was, that felt inauthentic… Now that I get to do what I love every day feels very authentic and I am really, really, really honored to be able to say that.”

Do Followers Guarantee Broadway Success?

ShowBizCafe: When you walk in, do they go, “Jess Val Ortiz!” Is that what it is like for you now and does your followership actually help?

Jess: “When I go into an audition, my mind is never thinking oh, well, you know, I am just Val Ortiz and they are gonna know how many TikTok followers I have and they are gonna cast me. That is never what I am thinking through my head. I am like, I need to go in. I need to be present. I need to not act nervous even though I am. I need to focus on my technique. I am thinking about my singing lesson that I have with my voice teacher. I am thinking of all the things that I need to review before I go into that audition.”

Jess Val Ortiz (photo credit Sam Pickart).

How She Manages the Creator Life

ShowBizCafe: You post content every day. Is that sustainable?

Jess: “It can be extremely taxing on the brain, taxing on my mental health, which I am sure a lot of creators have dealt with… I have been doing this for five years straight now. The longest amount of time I have taken off from making content is a week. I am very strict about my bedtime. I am usually in bed between 10 and 10:30 every night. If I really want to truly get off my phone and clear my head, I will bike around the city… Before this, I worked three different restaurants during the pandemic. I worked a corporate nine-to-five job at an admissions office for an online university, and that was very soul-sucking. But on top of that, I was also trying to make content. Luckily I was able to quit those jobs that were not serving me anymore… I want to be an actress. I will dedicate myself to being an actor, putting the work in, not resting until all my dreams come true.”

Jess’s Ultimate Broadway Dream

ShowBizCafe: So what is the ultimate goal?

Jess: “I mean, the dream of all dreams is to be in Wicked. And also to be in Moulin Rouge. Those are two of my dream roles, to be Satine in Moulin Rouge and Elphaba in Wicked. And they are a big spectacle shows with an amazing ensemble and great characters and love and romance. And I think that those shows are so powerful, not because of one particular person in it, but because of what everyone brings to it. And so I am really excited for when that day comes.”

When Ortiz eventually lands a role on Broadway, she’ll represent a generation of creators who refuse to choose between digital and traditional success. They want both. And as #Theatertok helps Broadway reach new audiences through social media, performers like Ortiz will bring their own crowds with them – younger ticket buyers and an enormous social reach – the kind of cultural currency that keeps century-old institutions alive. The callbacks she’s been receiving, they suggest Broadway knows this too.