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[0:00] Nella Vera: Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the fabulous 54 Below. Before we get started this evening, just a polite reminder. Please take this moment to silence your cell phones and also there is no flash photography, please. Welcome to the 54 Below podcast. I'm Nella Vera, the club's director of marketing. Our guest today is a New York City-based performer who has originated numerous principal roles in various Broadway productions, including such shows as The Wedding Singer, Grease, Honeymoon in Vegas, and more. He is a longtime member of the band, The Petersons, who have performed all over New York over the course of almost 20 years. On February 3rd, he returns to 54 Below with his solo show featuring all original music. The show's name is Ecolegas. Matt Saldivar, welcome to our podcast.

[0:53] Matt Saldivar: Thank you. We're so excited to have you at 54 Below. How are you doing?

[0:58] Nella Vera: Um, for everyone listening, we're taking this a couple of weeks before the holidays. I'm in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and it is snowing outside. I'm looking out my window, and there's a beautiful snowfall, and across the street is the Guthrie Theater, where I'm performing in A Christmas Carol, which is very much a holiday tradition. So that's the two years running, that's a holiday tradition for me.

[1:21] Matt Saldivar: Oh, that's so fun. You know, I I'm kind of obsessed with A Christmas Carol. I see it everywhere I can. It's my favorite Dickens novel. I've read it many times. So that just makes me so happy. And I haven't seen the Guthrie's, so one of these years I'm gonna have to go see it.

[1:36] Nella Vera: This is a new production that we built last year.

[1:40] Matt Saldivar: Oh great.

[1:42] Nella Vera: How fun. I'm sure people really appreciate it. Did you?

[1:46] Matt Saldivar: It's quite moving. Let me ask you about your show at 54 Below. Is this your first solo show with us?

[1:51] Matt Saldivar: This is my first solo show. It's titled Ecolegas. Um, what's your inspiration for the show?

[1:58] Matt Saldivar: Well, originally I was going to perform during Hispanic Heritage Month, but I had to push my concert because I got a job that I could not refuse. Fortunately, 54 Below is very accommodating and gave me a new date. But originally there was going to be a greater focus on the songs that I've written that are in Spanish. And so I fittingly had a subtitle there under my name that said Ecolegas, referring to friends of mine who I've played with before and who I expected to play with in October. And now those colegas will be playing with me in January with maybe a few less songs in Spanish.

[2:50] Nella Vera: That's so exciting. So you're singing your own music written in both English and Spanish. Um did you grow up in a household that spoke both languages?

[3:00] Matt Saldivar: Uh yes. I wasn't raised bilingual, but my father is from Mexico and my mother learned Spanish over the course of their marriage and I also learned Spanish over the course of my life. And so a lot of the songs that I wrote in Spanish were attempts to kind of get closer to that part of my family culture and to that part of myself. I also wrote a number of songs while I was doing a master's in Spanish at Middlebury College over the summers as a, um, in my thirties really. So every summer I would write a tune up there and perform it at the end of the summer in their cabaret, yeah.

[3:46] Nella Vera: Oh that's so fun. So do you write in English and translate to Spanish or do you write in Spanish from the get-go?

[3:54] Matt Saldivar: Well, I mean most of what I write I write in English, period. Um, but I write in Spanish as the original language so to speak.

[4:08] Matt Saldivar: Um fantastic it's a fun way to for me to explore language and imagery because the things that the words that I reach for or that come to me or the images that manifest in the songs, the ideas are a little more surprising to me and I'm a little more forgiving of them than I am in English. You know, you're always one is always so worried about ah somebody's already said that before or said it better. You know, for somehow because Spanish is my second language and kind of full of mystery still, um yeah there's just more to be discovered in that for me.

[4:08] Nella Vera: Yeah, I love that you did a master's. That's something that I've wanted to do, maybe not a master's but take more Spanish language classes. You know, Spanish was my first language and then I learned English and kind of English has taken over but sometimes I think in Spanish and sometimes I translate in my head in Spanish or I dream in Spanish which is weird.

[5:10] Matt Saldivar: Yeah but I have the vocabulary of an eight year old because that's how old I was when I came. So I would love to take, I think in college I took a Cervantes class, but I would love to do something like a master's or at least an extended period where I catch up to adult language rather than eight year old language.

[5:28] Nella Vera: So Matt, tell us who or what are some of your musical inspirations.

[5:33] Matt Saldivar: So I grew up with a group of really close-knit friends and we spent our summers playing frisbee in high school and college and one summer I said that we gotta find something else to do besides play frisbee. I said we should buy instruments and have a band. So that was the first band I ever played with. We learned classic rock songs mostly and so that was the original inspiration for me and a lot of what I write is still kind of born out of the classic rock vibe.

[6:04] Nella Vera: Were there any particular artists that you loved that you guys covered a lot?

[6:09] Matt Saldivar: Well we still play a lot of Neil Young. I still play with those guys and we play a lot of Neil Young, a lot of Rolling Stones now. You know, and I think you have one of them coming to join you on stage.

[6:21] Matt Saldivar: Yeah, yeah one of my childhood friends, we've been friends we like to say since the Ford administration, Mark Springer is gonna be playing guitar with me on, uh fantastic.

[6:21] Nella Vera: Yeah, so tell us about your band for the concert.

[6:21] Matt Saldivar: Well, you know, one never knows who's gonna show up for a number of reasons, but I'm hoping to have my friend Sean Knoll on saxophone or flute and the great actor and musician Rick Holmes on drums, hopefully my friend Josh Rua on multiple instruments and then my friend Mark on guitar. You know, the thing is that like I'm, I am and as I've said before more of an actor who sings than a great tenor of the musical theater of Broadway. But my interest in music has provided me with tremendous opportunities. Had I not spent all these years kind of writing my own music and like buying many guitars and sticking them under the sofa and you know just spending time in my room making melodies and sounds for my own satisfaction, for my own joy and out of my own longing, then I don't think that I would have had these opportunities to work with truly, truly great musicians in the theater, composers in the theater.

[7:18] Matt Saldivar: Um, I did a show with Randy Newman in Los Angeles singing his music and it was called Randy Newman's Harps and Angels that Jerry Zaks directed and it was just a song through kind of a song cycle I guess of his music. I met him and worked with him and I mean that's mind-bending to me that I would have ever ended up working with someone like that or I worked on an Elvis Costello musical and sang a solo like with Elvis Costello teaching it to me on the piano and I worked on Stephen Sondheim's last musical and you know with him in the room singing a solo for him. I mean like that's crazy.

[8:41] Matt Saldivar: Uh you know, I never thought of myself as that kind of person in the musical theater, but my love for music, my love of music gave me the chance to work with those people. So you know, whenever I'm strumming on my guitar and trying to write a little ditty, I think, well, you know, it's paid off. Maintaining your love and your relationship to music has paid off.

[9:06] Nella Vera: You know and so many shows now have a different sound or you know they're not so many are the same old sort of golden age musicals anymore. And there's plenty of rock and roll and contemporary sounds. In fact, I interviewed somebody a few months ago that said, you know, she's a legit soprano. She's like there's no more parts for legit sopranos in contemporary music.

[9:32] Matt Saldivar: Um and I just thought that's crazy.

[9:34] Nella Vera: Yeah.

[9:35] Matt Saldivar: It's so crazy to me. But you know it's great in the sense that other types of sounds are in our world now and um you're not the first actor who has a rock and roll heart, you know, like Mike and Norbert Leo Butz or Jared Spector, you know, who loves Springsteen but does a lot of musical theater. So I think it and it all serves you so well because you are able to be so versatile if somebody has a rock and roll show or you know an Elvis Costello show, you know they know who to call out of these actors who have this range of musical styles.

[9:54] Matt Saldivar: That's so great. In terms of your show, um so you said that you are you're inspired by rock and roll. Has that always been or did you ever have like different phases like a lot of people, you know, you fall into different types of phases like new age or is it most are you really a rock and roll guy or you know, are there some ballads in your show or?

[10:14] Matt Saldivar: There are a lot of ballads in my show. I mean, really, like frankly, like most of what I write has to do with love and longing. And you that is true for a great many writers throughout history.

[10:56] Nella Vera: Um, Taylor Swift, right?

[10:59] Matt Saldivar: Oh, absolutely, who's a tremendous songwriter. But that's really what I write about and you know people shouldn't be scared of that because it is that it's the feeling of love and longing that all human beings feel and like in Sufi poetry, you know, there's this concept that you know it's the desire to be rejoined to the beloved.

[11:38] Nella Vera: You have a strong background as a classical actor. Um I've actually I've seen you at the Public, at Classic Stage, at Tafana. I even saw the Much Ado at the Shakespeare Theater and something at Hudson Valley Shakespeare I think it was the Scottish play.

[11:54] Matt Saldivar: I have not performed at Hudson Valley.

[11:58] Nella Vera: Oh, okay.

[11:58] Matt Saldivar: So directly across the river and that's where I was Ian Garrison.

[12:03] Nella Vera: Okay, so but I did see you at the Shakespeare Theater in Much Ado, I think.

[12:06] Matt Saldivar: Yes, you did.

[12:07] Nella Vera: Don John?

[12:08] Matt Saldivar: Yes.

[12:08] Nella Vera: Okay. But so then I was really surprised when I saw you in a musical because I assumed you were Shakespeare guy. You know. How did you um did you train as a classical actor or as a musical actor or as a musician?

[12:21] Matt Saldivar: Uh I got my MFA in acting at NYU. And so, you know, I studied all kinds of things in that program, including what one would call a kind of classical training.

[12:37] Matt Saldivar: Um yeah, my experiences as a professional have been quite varied, and I'm really, really grateful for that. Um you know, I've done somewhere around 15 full professional productions of musicals. Yet I've done a lot of other kinds of theater, um, from some kind of really far out stuff and really, really off off and off off Broadway stuff that I've created, um, as well as you say, actual classical work, Shakespeare and Ben Jonson and classical adjacent, like the Bernhardt play, Bernhard Hamlet, St. Joan, too, right?

[13:41] Nella Vera: Yeah.

[13:42] Matt Saldivar: Yes, yeah, yeah, Shaw. And yeah, I'm just incredibly grateful to be able to have opportunities in those worlds, which for some people I've heard feel quite exclusive.

[13:55] Matt Saldivar: Yeah, I was gonna ask, you know, how you've managed to stay so versatile because so many actors, particularly the ones of our generation, tended to be pigeonholed into certain types or styles, and then once you were that, you were that. And when you look back at your career, you know, how do you think you managed, uh, you know, apart from talent and luck, um, you know, to be so versatile.

[14:20] Matt Saldivar: It's because I was given the opportunities to do that. You know, I was so giv I was afforded the education to be able to learn some skill sets that give me a chance to do it or give me like the credentials so to speak to do it so that I am considered for those roles or for those opportunities. Um so you know I'm really grateful to my education not not just because I learned some skill sets, but because those particular educations at Middlebury College and at NYU I feel um gave me some access and yeah I don't take that for granted, you know I'm really grateful for that.

[14:59] Matt Saldivar: Yeah I I also have a theory which I think pe actors who have musical abilities can do classics well. Something to do with the heightened language and being able to wrap your mouth around it and I've always you know because there's a musicality and a you know a rhythm takes a lot of breath takes a lot of breath.

[15:22] Matt Saldivar: Yeah and breathing is a big part of music obviously and not just singing you know I mean you know when people play an instrument it there's this kind of a breathing that goes along with it. And this you know these elongated breaths or you know quick um kind of pulses and uh and that's very very much a part of speaking those um complex long lines of classical text.

[15:47] Nella Vera: Yeah, yeah, I think that makes sense. Uh, when you look back at your career, are there any favorite roles that you can tell us about um or any I mean there's highlights, production highlights that you know that were special.

[16:05] Matt Saldivar: Well, I I it's that's really hard to say. Uh it as you know, as we've already discussed, I I've had a a real um a diverse uh set of experiences, and and that's the thing that I'm most grateful for. Uh you know, a combination uh kind of like legit dramatic role as that went hand in hand with being in a musical was I toured South Pacific uh in 2009 and 10 uh in the Lincoln Center production um playing Luther Billis, and that was a great great example of being in a great piece of musical theater where you just feel like you're also just in this great script with great story, very deep, very sophisticated. And um, you know, it's so as an actor um who loves music to be in that production was a a thrill. It was just a Cadillac production, beautifully, beautifully done. And uh stunning, absolutely stunning.

[17:18] Nella Vera: Yeah. Um you were also in one of my favorite shows of all time, Peter and the Star Catcher. Um more than any other show, I think that that show had stage movement that felt so tightly choreographed, and it was just really beautiful and moved like no other play that I've ever seen. Musicals, yes, but not plays. Can you talk a little bit about that and how you know what your experience was with that? Did they I don't remember it's been so long. Did they have a choreographer and a movement person?

[17:53] Matt Saldivar: Oh yeah. And uh he you you he is he is ubiquitous. Um he's a very special uh talent. And uh so he he was a great part of that, you know, and Alex Timbers was also a big part of creating that kind of uh uh intricate aesthetic, um, using human bodies as well as uh scenic elements, but uh yeah, as you say, high highly choreographed, um very specific.

[18:27] Matt Saldivar: Yeah, it's uh it was an amazing show. I was very very fortunate to be a part of that, to come into it.

[18:39] Nella Vera: You in addition to your work as an actor, you've been a longtime member of the Petersons, which the New York Times described as a hipster theater mock rock group with a devoted following. Can you talk more about the Petersons and how that came about and how you became involved with it?

[18:55] Matt Saldivar: Yeah, so the the way that I got involved with the Petersons is that uh two of my schoolmates uh started that band, uh Adam Stein and Kira Naughton, uh at uh two of my schoolmates from NYU and the graduate acting program. And so they came to me one day and said, uh, hey uh we're thinking of starting a band. Uh would you like to be in it? And I said, sure. And they said, Cool. Um can you play drums? And I said, uh yes, which is not entirely true, but uh, you know, I can play little drums. So I s I said yes. They're like, Great, you'll be the drummer. And then they came back and they said, Hey, um, we have this other friend uh who's a this great drummer. Uh we want to be in the band. So uh can you play uh uh lead guitar?

I'm not really a lead guitar player either, but I said yes. Yes, I'll play lead guitar. And they said, Great. And then they came back and they're like, hey, we've we found this other guy from Juilliard who's uh like a genius lead guitar player. Um uh would you can you play bass? Would you play bass? And I said yes. So uh for the second time in my life I ended up playing bass in a band because nobody else wanted to do it. No, because um just because I said yes.

[20:17] Matt Saldivar: And so um that band But you did play bass, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, a bit. Again, I'm I come out of like a punk rock rock and roll kind of place, you know. Um so that band became the Petersons and uh that was a theatrical outfit and we did basically like a situation comedy, like a serialized live uh narrative about this group of uh fictional uh folk from upstate New York who were in a band. And so we did it's kind of like sketch comedy and uh and improv uh as well as these sets of original music. Uh and we did many, many, many of those. I I don't know how many, but dozens uh of uh live shows around New York and uh did it for about really almost I don't know, eighteen years, uh something like that, sixteen years.

[21:13] Nella Vera: Oh my gosh. Wow.

[21:15] Matt Saldivar: Yeah.

[21:15] Nella Vera: And did it surprise you like how, you know, the longevity but also the the following that they developed that the band developed?

[21:24] Matt Saldivar: Yes, certainly. The longevity is the truly surprising part. But um th it's a it's a lovely uh group of people and we worked with a lot of friends. We'd have friends come in as guests and so it really kind of was a self fulfilling prophecy that it built this kind of little community around it. And um and so yeah I mean we stuck together I think because ultimately we really love each other. Um you know we had our we had our our uh m cliche uh band struggles uh because every band is a self fulfilling prophecy uh you know it's just the they're they're not they're not built to last uh generally speaking because it's they are chosen families and they come with all of the drama of of a family you know but you but they're not your family so you can split your own family if you want you know but you know what I mean.

[22:25] Nella Vera: Yeah totally totally um and then you know you're for this show at 54 really you're performing your own music. So how would you describe your music and your style and and this type of stuff that you like to write and perform?

[22:40] Matt Saldivar: Well I mean for starters when fifty four below asked me if I was interested in doing a show. I said yes. Uh for a number of reasons. One 'cause it's good to say us, generally speaking, and and because um, you know, I'm still kind of in a bit in that pandemic mindset where it's like I I just I just want to do things and make things and I don't want anything to stop me. And you know, so many of us struck you know fought through that that time, like doing whatever we could to stay creative. And so I wasn't about to I wasn't about to to hem and haw about the opportunity to do a show of 54 below. I was like, I'll be there and I'll bring some friends. Um and then the question was well what do I want to do for a show 54 below?

You know I've seen many many shows there. I've performed as uh a member of the Petersons there. I've performed with all kinds of kind of shows in concert, you know. And uh as part of series of you know composers um presenting their work collections of songs and whatnot. So I I've seen a a lot of stuff at 54 Below um and I have so many friends who've done the so done solo shows and and you know there's a lot of of musical theater and there there's a lot of American songbook and there's a lot of pop you know music like uh an evening of uh Lady Gaga yeah um and which is awesome and of and I would love to do like I would love to do all of those versions of a show. You know I would love to um there's so many writers that I love.

The reason that I wanted wanted to play my own music was because making my own music has been such a huge part of my life. It's been a very, very big part of my private life. Um much of the music that I played with the Petersons um was written by other members of the band. We all wrote. And so I had a collection of songs that I did with that band. But I've been writing music since the early nineties. Actually since the kind of yeah early nineties. And so those are very, very personal private endeavors that have been cring to me in terms of sustaining me as a creative person throughout my career. In my travels and in my relationships and um and so I I saw the opportunity to play an evening of my own material in a really high quality venue in an intimate venue and and I just didn't want to miss the opportunity to do that and to get friends to play with me and to invite friends to be with me and with each other in a room and to experience that.

I I say with great humility, you know, because I know that I'll be kind of the uh uh uh uh the focus of the event but but it really has a lot to do with just getting people together to um hopefully enjoy sound uh made by humans who are there to make sound for you um and that sound will contain some of my own personal meditations and thoughts and rhymes and melodies.

[26:21] Matt Saldivar: And um and so I hope that that will be a a beautiful thing. Uh and something that people will appreciate being together for.

[26:31] Nella Vera: Yeah, I think I think we will. You know, that that's the special part of an intimate venue is that you get to see an artist in a different way than you would on a s larger stage, and you get to kind of peek into their soul and their heart a little bit more.

[26:47] Nella Vera: So that's very exciting. And you know, we love all of our shows, but I I do find that the ones that are more personal like this, where people are performing their music often just really reveal so many things about you know this person that we're seeing on stage. So that's great. We're so excited. Thank you so much for taking some time to talk to me about it.

[27:08] Matt Saldivar: And I'm I'm I'm so honored and uh excited uh to be playing a 54 below on February 3rd. Thank you.

[27:16] Nella Vera: It was a real pleasure. Matt Saldivar makes his solo debut at 54 Below on February 3rd at 9.30 p.m. Limited tickets are still available, so grab yours now at 54below.com.

[27:32] Nella Vera: You've been listening to the 54 Below Podcast, part of the Broadway Podcast Network. Subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.