Are you still singing out your window on the Upper West Side?
No, I’m glad that finally ended. I was thinking, how am I going to end this? It was literally every day for two and a half months, and the crowds kept getting bigger. Finally, it worked itself out, as the universe does, which is nice.
What’s a recent moment that reminded you why you do theatre?
The fight scene in The Outsiders on Broadway. I’m getting chills just thinking about it. It was so beautifully done, and in a way that can only be done live. To sit in an audience and feel an audience all being awed by the same thing—that’s why we go to the theatre.
What mentor or teacher taught you the most about what you do, and what did they teach you?
One reason I was excited to do the show at La Jolla Playhouse is that I consider San Diego my theatrical home. I started acting at the San Diego Junior Theatre, which was run by Don and Bonnie Ward; I call them my theatre parents. They cast me in my first musical, as Conrad Birdie in Bye Bye Birdie. They gave me my foundation on how to be excellent; they gave me my work ethic. And Bonnie taught me to tap dance. I wouldn’t have done Jelly’s Last Jam without that.
What’s a piece of art you love that you feel doesn’t get talked about enough?
This is one of my favorite questions. Here’s what I think art is: everything that is beautiful that is not nature. Without art, we would be living in cinderblock houses, and there would be no art on the wall. Your car was designed by an artist. The clothes you are wearing were made by artists. And music that was previously only available to kings and emperors, we have at the tips of our ears. Art is so much around us that we take it for granted. People think, Oh, art is just the works of dead people hanging in museums. No, it’s everything around us—it’s the angels in the architecture, as Paul Simon said.
What music are you listening to these days?
I’m terribly addicted, as most musicians are, to Jacob Collier. He’s what Mozart would be if he had come back to the planet and had at his disposal all of the technological tools you can use now in music, and all of the knowledge that came before. He’s kind of like Savion Glover, taking the knowledge of all the old-school guys and turning that into something new.
If you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be?
I don’t know that I have advice. I have the most incredible life, and that incredible life is the amalgam of the journey that I’ve been on—not only the great, wonderful things that I’ve done, also the bad experiences, the terrible things I’ve done, my imperfections. So I would just say: Just breathe and keep doing what you’re doing. And stay curious.
If you didn’t work in the performing arts, what would you be doing?
I’d be a theoretical physicist. I don’t think it’s really far from what artists do. We live in our imagination and envision possibility—what could this be? Physicists have a way of expressing it in numbers, a talent I do not have, but ultimately, I think if you look far enough into it, we all meet in the same place where we’re basically looking for that theory of everything, that thing that connects us all.
Finish this sentence: It’s not theatre unless…
It’s bespoke entertainment happening only in the now and the here. It will never be repeated again.
