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[0:00] Matt Doyle: This is Matt Doyle, and you're listening to And The Award Goes To...

[0:05] Matt Doyle: It's a look back at Broadway's most magical night and all of the winners reminisce with delight. With their talents and brilliance they always impress, and the Tony goes to my special guest.

[0:22] Ilana Levine: Have you ever dreamed of winning a Tony Award? Did you ever practice your Tony acceptance speech in the bathroom mirror? Did you grow up watching the Tony Awards every year? Do you have a collection of Tony Award shows on VHS tape that you refuse to throw out? Well then this is the podcast for you. Every week I interview your favorite Tony Award winners, and together we go down memory lane as my guests share intimate and never before shared details about their Tony experience. By the end of every episode you're going to feel like YOU just won a Tony. Welcome to And The Tony Goes To... I'm your host, Ilana Levine. Welcome today's Tony winner, Matt Doyle.

[1:10] Matt Doyle: Oh my goodness, oh thank you so much. Thank you to the American Theatre Wing and the Broadway League and to all of the beautiful men in my category. My God, you brilliant, brilliant men. Thank you so much to my team, Erica Tuckman and Tim Marshall, and to everyone at the Jacobs Theatre—the staff, the crew, the stage management and my company. My beautiful family, we have been to hell and back together and I love you all so much. To Atai Benson, my wonderful Paul, and my real life Paul, Max Clayton, I love you. I don't know what I'd do without you, and you really do leave love notes all over the place, and I cannot believe what you put up with. Thank you so much to Marion Elliott and Chris Harper for your friendship and your guidance and your support over the years and changing my life.

Thank you to my earliest teachers, Marilyn, Judy, Britt, Eric, Richard, Beth. Thank you to my family, my sisters, Leah and Colleen, and my parents who believed in me pursuing my passion and believed in the arts and believed that the only way I would be happy is to live my life authentically. Thank you so much to George Firth and to Stephen Sondheim. Stephen, thank you for allowing your work to evolve and allowing more people to be seen in your genius. Thank you so much, I'm the next bride!

[2:19] Ilana Levine: Matt... It's so surreal. Tell me everything.

[2:26] Matt Doyle: I'm like convinced that that's like computer generated, you know, that that's not real. Someone made that for you for your birthday?

[2:34] Matt Doyle: I still... yeah, somebody made it for me. It's like one of those deep fakes, you know, and they put my face on someone else, and isn't that hilarious? It's still just so surreal and so strange to watch that because it feels so recent and does, like, in my consciousness. Like, I do know that that happened. I accept that as reality. I see the trophy and I know that that's real, but at the same time, I'm like, that, like, I don't remember any of that. Everybody thought I rehearsed that speech, which I'm very, like, thrilled that it went as well as it did. But I remember sitting in my seat right beforehand, and I had a list of names that I wanted to go through, and I was like, I'll hit these names throughout the speech.

I have to end with Sondheim. I have to say these names, you know, and I actually wasn't rehearsed at all. And right before they, like, said my name, I was like, oh my gosh, what if I just fall flat on my face? And I went up there. Something happened. I know I screamed I'm the next bride at the end, and then I ran off, and people were like, wow, you must have rehearsed that speech for days. I was like, no, I swear to God. That was like psychotic stream of consciousness, like, just everything coming out at once. I have no idea how that managed to be any way, shape, or form, you know, coherent at all.

[4:00] Matt Doyle: Coherent and articulate and emotional and kind of groundbreaking. It was all the things. The extraordinary, you know, thing about that show is how unbelievably fresh and current your production was. And I want to, you know, obviously the Sondheim of it all, right? Like, Sondheim was still alive when you began doing the show, and we had lost him, I believe, when you accepted your Tony that night. And I wonder if you can talk about—I mean, we're going to get into how you were cast in the show and your history of the show—but sort of working backwards, talk about the Sondheim of it all. Talk about that.

[4:46] Matt Doyle: Absolutely. You know, so we were pretty heavily involved with Sondheim in the first half of the process in 2020, and he was in the room with us constantly and making sure that his words were respected and making sure that it evolved in an appropriate way, in a way that he was comfortable with. But he was also so open to new ideas, and that's something that I really respected about him in his older age because I knew Sondheim during the Sweeney Todd Off-Broadway—the very, very teeny Sweeney that we did—and he was around a lot for that. And he loved that production so much. He embraced it so much because it was fresh and it was new, and people were listening to his words in a different way and excited by them again.

And I appreciated that he wasn't, you know, he didn't want his pieces to be museum pieces. And that's what was so exciting about him is he just appreciated creativity and art and people being inspired by what he had created and wanting to create more with it. And he was sharp and just so present when we were first working on it. And then when we came back from the pandemic, I think a lot of us knew that he was A, not healthy, but also we didn't want to get him sick. We were still so terrified of COVID at that time, and we certainly didn't want him to be exposed or out of his apartment in any way. We wanted him to be able to see the production again. And we had him there on the first preview.

He was elated. He said it was the most entertaining night of theatre he'd ever had in his life, and he just was so thrilled to see what it had become and said to me that night that that line, I'm the next bride, is the most important line in the show to him because of what it represents. It's not only his favourite exit line in a musical ever, but also now, coming from the perspective of a gay man, to hear that screamed and to hear it shouted to the rooftops, which is the only way he wanted it, was a really, I think, emotional experience for him. And then he passed just five days later. It was utterly—I think it was the hardest blow, obviously, throughout that entire process just because we had worked so hard to bring it back, and we were hanging on to it with so much emotion and passion. And to walk into that space, to present it to him, to have him love it, and then to lose that genius just a few days later was just really shocking. But I'm so, so grateful he got to see it.

[7:26] Matt Doyle: You know, when we think about Sondheim, his private life was really private. It wasn't something he shared a lot about. I think for most people, you know, didn't know he had a husband and sort of didn't know about that part of his life. And so, what a remarkable thing for him, who is so private, to sort of then embrace and just love the idea that his story could be shared in this way. And what a remarkable thing in one's lifetime to see this piece reinvent itself in this way and for him to get to see it. How did the conversation about the sort of switching Amy to Jamie—was that already a part of the production when they did it in London?

[8:21] Matt Doyle: It was a part of the production in London. So Jonathan Bailey of now Bridgerton fame and everything actually played the role out in the UK. But it was a tough conversation. It was the last piece of the puzzle in terms of the gender swaps. You know, Marianne really didn't want to lose another incredible female character in a very feminist production, and Sondheim also struggled with a lot of, I think, characters becoming gay in this piece because for so long he was just annoyed with the notion that so many people and scholars of his work had built around the idea that Bobby was gay—not that Bobby couldn't be gay. And they actually even tried it in a production once, but I think when so many people, if you've created something, yell at you and tell you that this is what you wrote when you in fact did not write that, it becomes a very frustrating and weird thing to hear.

So I know that he resisted tendencies to even make Bobby in this production a lesbian or a bisexual just because he was like, I just want to get rid of that notion—this bizarre theory that people have written as fact when there's no fact that it was never written that way. And I'm sure it just frustrated him from just a perspective of, no, I wrote this, you don't know what you're talking about. And I think there was some resistance of exploring the sexuality of these characters too much. And then he thought about it. There's actually public emails now of Marianne and Sondheim back and forth that they published in the New York Times, and you can see this whole discussion going back and forth.

He says, you know, I think that this could actually be show stopping and a really exciting way to add a really important thing into our piece, which is obviously homosexuality and gay men, and give a male actor a chance to have this show stopping moment. And that's exactly what it turned into. And it was actually, in the end, I think his way in because he realized that the commentary on gay marriage was really important to explore.

[10:38] Ilana Levine: Tell me how this job of Company came into your life.

[11:08] Matt Doyle: It was really interesting because I had been doing a lot of work in the theater, and I had just come off of a show. I was kind of in this place where I was like, "What’s next?" And then I got a call about this audition for Company, which was being directed by Marianne Elliott. I was really excited because I had seen the production in London and loved it.

[11:38] Matt Doyle: I went in for the audition, and I remember feeling really connected to the material. It was just one of those moments where everything clicked. I felt like I understood the character and what they were going for with this new interpretation.

[12:08] Matt Doyle: After a few rounds of auditions, I got the call that I was cast, and it was just such a surreal moment. I was thrilled to be a part of this iconic show and to work with such an incredible team.

[12:18] Matt Doyle: The process was really collaborative. Marianne was so open to ideas, and we had a lot of discussions about the character and the story. It felt like a true ensemble effort, which was really refreshing.

[12:28] Matt Doyle: I also loved how the gender-swapped aspect of the production brought new layers to the story. It made me think about the relationships in a different way, and I think that resonated with a lot of people.

[12:38] Matt Doyle: The rehearsal process was intense but so rewarding. We were all really invested in making this production something special, and I think that energy translated to the stage.

[12:48] Matt Doyle: When we finally opened, it was such an emotional experience. I remember standing backstage, feeling the buzz of the audience, and just knowing that we were about to share something really meaningful.

[12:58] Matt Doyle: It was a dream come true to be a part of Company, and I feel so grateful for the opportunity.

[13:08] Ilana Levine: Did you hear Matt Doyle is in New York?

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[21:18] Matt Doyle: Discovered so many layers and nuances and I just was in awe of her. She took everything with so much grace and held such dignity throughout that whole process. In my opinion, it was easily one of the best performances of last season. And then Patti, I had heard so many stories. We all have stories about Patti that we have before we even meet the woman. She lived up to every expectation I had of her and more in the best ways. I just absolutely adored her so much. She is my jam. I love someone who is blunt. I love someone who is unafraid. I love someone who makes mistakes and admits it and embraces them. And most importantly, I love someone who is there for the work and for the company. And that really surprised me with Patti.

I knew she'd be there for the work, but I didn't know what she would be like as an ensemble member. But the woman was moving chairs in her 70s with the rest of us. She was all about the ensemble work. She made sure that she was a part of every group number. It blew me away. I mean, she's about the company. And that was the first thing first. She was about being a company member. And that's why she said it all the time. That's why I do theater. And it was stunning. And I felt so taken care of by her and appreciated.

[22:46] Matt Doyle: You know, we are lucky. I don't know how it happened, but someone, whether I don't know how it happened, but your Tony nom morning and finding out your nomination, yeah, is filmed. And yes, yes, Max, my partner, I know. And I had no idea. I was like you.

[23:06] Ilana Levine: He knew that you were going to be nominated.

[23:09] Matt Doyle: I guess so. Oh, God. Could you imagine? I mean, I'm sure he would have deleted the video and never told me that he had done that. But like, he was pretty confident. Yeah.

[23:20] Ilana Levine: So the world can see what that felt like for you in real time. It's such an incredible thing to get to watch someone's dream come true on film. Yeah. But can we talk a little bit about the night itself? You won a bunch of awards. Also, not just the Tony for this part. So you had some idea of what it would feel like to have your name called. But there really is in our little piece of the planet, there really is nothing like the Tonys. It is just a different kind of award. And it's the award you knew about growing up. What was it like? So first of all, who were you able to bring with your Tony tickets? Who were you able to have both seated next to you or somewhere in the auditorium on that night?

[24:10] Matt Doyle: So seated next to me was my partner, Max. He came on my ticket. You get one. Yeah. Thanks, Tonys. And then my agent and manager actually bought seats next to me to be there with me, which was amazing. I had no idea. I knew they were going to be there. But I sat down next to them. I was like, you guys. They were like, yes, I thought you knew that. And yeah, and my parents were able to buy tickets. So shows at the very end, once they've sorted everyone out, shows usually get a pool and they do a lottery for those tickets. So we got those tickets in a pool. And I literally just walked up to our producers and I said, if you put my name in a lottery, I'm going to kill you. I was like, you give two tickets to my parents.

Thank you very much. I will pay for them. And let's get this taken care of. So luckily, my parents did get to come. They were only about, I think, like 20 rows back in the orchestra. I had no idea where they were seating. Otherwise, I would have yelled to them. I just kind of stared out at that massive, vast audience and was so overwhelmed. But I felt very, very grateful that I had so many people there.

[25:17] Ilana Levine: And did you have a tux already? Did someone dress you and Max for the night? What happened with that?

[25:27] Matt Doyle: So we actually went to Tom Ford and we both got our like absurd Tom Ford tuxes and they were wonderful to us there and took really good care of us. And I felt very, very appreciated. And I felt, you know, it was I said to myself, no matter what happens, I have no idea when this will ever happen again. This is everything I've dreamt of. I'm going to go big or go home because, come on, this is so wild. And for it to follow such a tragic and difficult time in all of our lives, I was like, this is the most positive, incredible just wave of excitement that I have to just embrace it and go full out. So we went full out. We got Tom Ford tuxes. We had a jeweler give us jewelry for the night. So we were wearing diamonds and everything.

I was like, this is so surreal. Describe sort of you hear your name. And it sounds like even when we were listening back to your speech just now that you have no like you floated somehow up to the stage or you were like angels carried you up there like no.

[26:44] Matt Doyle: Yeah. Yeah. Like no memory of getting from point A to point B.

[26:52] Matt Doyle: No, I really like I can't believe how fast it is when I watch it now. I'm like, oh, my gosh. I mean, it literally I think I proved to everyone that I am, in fact, Jamie, that was just me up on stage. I, you know, I remember that I did want to say I'm the next bride if it felt appropriate. And because it was, as I said, it was such an important line to Sondheim and so many people I think were still confused as to why I yelled that I'm like, well, it's for me. Before I let you go when you talk about sort of I just want to like circle back to young Matt for a second. When you said like, yeah, lifelong dream of it all. So can you just tell me, like, when was the moment in your childhood where it became clear that this was your dream?

[27:42] Matt Doyle: Yeah. When I was in middle school, I was really, really, really badly bullied. And, you know, it went a little beyond, I think, like, oh, I was I was badly bullied. I was thrown in dumpsters. I was knocked out unconscious. It was physical bullying and all sorts of things. And I found a community in theatre. And I found identity in theatre. And I really quickly latched on to it as a result, because in so many ways, it saved my life. It told me that I will be okay, as long as I stayed around these people, I was going to be okay. And I feel that even as an adult, even when there are moments where theatre is the last thing I want to do sometimes, you know, when you wake up, I still yeah, and I'll still come to work and be around the people and recognize, oh, this is why I'm here.

It's the collaboration. It's the work. It's being around this. It's being excited by these ideas and by other people's ideas and, and others talents and gifts. And I think it was right or right. As soon as I discovered it, I just, I made the statement, this is what I'm going to do. This is what I'm going to do. And then, you know, became more and more of a musical theatre fan as time passed and really started to understand the ins and outs of it and the Tonys and create became familiar with the idols that mattered to me. And Patti was certainly one of them. So yeah, what a beautiful full circle moment.

[29:15] Ilana Levine: Yeah. Not only to win a Tony, but to win a Tony in a show with Patti LuPone, right, like for it all to kind of.

[29:22] Matt Doyle: Oh, outrageous. I remember giving my musical theatre teacher who kind of pulled me out of that and introduced it all to me, a mixtape of Patti LuPone. And you remember when we all burned CDs, I did that for her. And I was like, I was like, Patti LuPone, she's really good. You should listen to her. And my teacher was like, Yeah, there's someone named Liza I want to tell you about. You might find her a lot of fun. Also, Judy, just a bunch of gals.

[29:55] Ilana Levine: Exactly. So if I ask you to kind of finish this sentence for me, to me, Matt Doyle company is.

[30:12] Matt Doyle: Breakthrough, a breakthrough. It's a breakthrough for me. I think I really relaxed into myself as an artist. And I know I've had a lot of friends tell me that as well. So it's a breakthrough because I think there were a lot of fears and angers and frustrations with the industry and all sorts of things that build over time, that I was able to really release in that because I trusted the piece and the work and the people around me. So that was that was a massive breakthrough for me just to be able to love what I was doing and trust that and have it turn into what it turned into. It's that's the only reason that I'm I got to stand on that stage and accept that Tony is because I trusted the piece and the people around me. So that was a breakthrough for me.

[31:03] Ilana Levine: Matt Doyle, thank you for being on and the award goes to today. What a pleasure to get to talk to you today.

[31:10] Matt Doyle: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so grateful. Thank you.

[31:15] Ilana Levine: And the Tony goes to is produced by Alan Seales for the Broadway Podcast Network. The music and lyrics for the theme song were written by Georgia Femusa. Theme song orchestration by Alexander Sage-Oyen. Episodes are edited by Derek Gunther. Thank you to Parody Bill for the graphics. And please don't forget to go to the iTunes show page and rate and review the show. Thanks for listening. Excerpt from the Tony Awards used with permission of Tony Awards Productions.