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[0:00] Giles Terera: I often think actually that was my drama training, really. All the stuff that you learn about, you know, the different periods of history and all the time. That's one thing, but actually being prepared and being ready and being just available to that's kind of me just being curious, really. I just wanted to watch two great actors work and so but I was it was a good lesson to go ah just always be aware, always be prepared.

[0:30] Janine Scott: Welcome to the Black Business of Broadway, a podcast brought to you by the Broadway League and Black to Broadway. Here we highlight the stories, how to and successes of the black professionals and legends of Broadway. I'm your host, Janine Scott.

[0:54] Janine Scott: Our guest today is Olivier Award-winning actor, musician, and writer Giles Terera, who originated the role of Aaron Burr in the London production of Hamilton. Giles trained at Mount View Theatre School, now Mount View Academy, a theatre school. He has consistently worked at venues such as National Theatre, The Royal Shakespeare Theatre Company, and Shakespeare's Globe. Some of his credits include The Tempest, Avenue Q, Book of Mormon, just to name a few. Giles Terera has been appointed an MBE, which is a member of the Order of the British Empire in 2020 for his work and services to theater. His latest book, Hamilton and Me, an actor's journal, is available now. Thank you, Giles, for joining me today.

[1:48] Giles Terera: Janine, thank you for having me. It's great to be here.

[1:51] Janine Scott: Absolutely. I think you are my first official British guest.

[1:57] Giles Terera: Wow. I'm honored. I'm honored.

[1:59] Janine Scott: Hopefully not the last.

[2:01] Giles Terera: Hopefully not. Hopefully not. I feel like if I'm the first, I need to behave myself, which I'm not good at doing.

[2:09] Janine Scott: Oh no, don't do that. Nobody does that. I don't know what your expectations of the British are, but um, no, no, no, no. I'm glad to be here.

[2:16] Janine Scott: So am I correct in saying that your first play was the Wizard of Oz in your school?

[2:23] Giles Terera: Yes.

[2:24] Janine Scott: How do you know that?

[2:26] Giles Terera: Because we do research.

[2:28] Janine Scott: Okay, okay.

[2:29] Giles Terera: Yeah, that was my first. I mean, it's lots of people's first play, I guess, but it was my first play at school when I was about. I would have been it was our what we call primary school, which is from eight to eleven. So I probably went about nine or ten when I and who did you play?

[2:48] Giles Terera: I was the scarecrow. Yeah, I was the scarecrow. And I remember it was really fun. It was um I love doing it. My mum helped me make a costume with a little straw hat and uh I considering it was when I was I must have been about nine, I guess. And it was I loved doing it. I had such a good time.

[3:10] Janine Scott: Awesome. So is that when is that what sparked your your your love of theater? Or did that happen before?

[3:17] Giles Terera: Well, it must it must have happened before, but I don't know. I don't know if I like said oh my because it was basically just my mum. And I don't know whether I said, you know, the they're doing a play and I wanted I don't know how I ended up doing the show, and I don't know how I ended up getting the part of the scarecrow, although I think Nan's saying that maybe I went with a friend or something, and some somebody's coming back to I don't know, but I'm not quite sure how I ended up being in the play as the scarecrow, but I did, and uh that was the first thing I did, and I it just felt really natural playing in front of an audience. Uh-huh. I remember the feeling of being in front of an audience. I remember the feeling of like people laughing and responding.

[4:02] Giles Terera: Yeah. And that felt really cool and natural to me. So um I guess that was the beginning of. But I never really had a moment where I was like, I want to be an actor. Really? I never really no, I never really had that. It just was something I I just always was doing, and it just felt very natural. And so I I I never really had any of those moments where people go, Oh, I saw this person and I knew that's what I wanted to do. I never really had that. I wish I did, but um there was well no, when I much later when I got to uh before I came to drama school, which is when I was about 18, I remember seeing on television a p uh uh uh like it was an award show, and at the I caught the end of the award show, and there was a production of Guys and Dolls, which was on at the National Theatre at the time, it was a really famous production.

And the guy playing Nicy Nicy Johnson, they was that's what they were performing on this the end of this award show was sit down, you're rocking the boat. And I remember watching that and going, Wow, that's because it was this big black guy, and he looked amazing, and his voice was incredible, yeah. There was all this choreography going on, um, and I'd never heard anything like it, I'd never seen anything like it. So that was my only moment where I was like, wow, and then that was just before I left, I went to cut come to London to go to drama school because I lived just outside London.

[5:23] Giles Terera: Uh-huh. I grew up just outside London. And came to London, did three years of drama school, left and went to the National Theatre, and the first person who came across the room to me in my first air rehearsals was that same actor Clive Rowe. So it was uh and I always tease him and remind him about that because that that was the c you know that was he was my version of like that's my hero. Um so I've got that one moment, but lots of people went to the theatre to see, you know, Judy Dench or they went to see this person or that person, and that's what made them want to do it. But I never really had that. I just I was always kind of just performing.

[6:05] Janine Scott: Right.

[6:07] Giles Terera: Wow. So you fell into this career then.

[6:12] Giles Terera: Yeah, like like the proverbial scarecrow, I just stumbled it. Um I'm glad you got that.

[6:19] Janine Scott: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I uh yeah, I did. I I just I just was always doing it. Um I didn't know that it was something you could do as a profession. I think that's the big difference. I was always playing around the school, I was always doing funny voice, but throughout school and my upbringing, I was just that's what I did. I made my friends and my family laugh and did silly voices, and I was always making people laugh, like lots of actors do, you know. Um, but I didn't know you could do a career out of it until much much later when I went to go to drama school and tried to be, you know, do be pretend I'm Michael Jackson in the in the in the front room, living room, doing and that's what I was doing.

Um so uh in a way it was good because by the time I came to London to go to drama school and realized it was something you could do as a career, I was like, Oh, that's what I've always been doing, so it's very na it was very natural for me. It wasn't it wasn't like it came to me later on, or I was very shy as a kid.

[7:22] Giles Terera: I mean, I was shy as a kid, but I'd always been doing it. So it I was like I just up with myself in a way and was like, oh right, so that thing I've always been doing, that's what I'll do for my life. So or trying to try and do.

[7:35] Janine Scott: Right. Well, maybe well, maybe my daughter might have a career in acting.

[7:40] Giles Terera: How old is she? What where is she at in her journey?

[7:43] Janine Scott: Does she's 14.

[7:45] Giles Terera: She's 14 and uh and she uh is a uh she constantly reinvents who she is every day.

[7:54] Janine Scott: Hey, okay.

[7:56] Giles Terera: Well, that involves imagination and possibilities of imagination. So that can only be good in the young person.

[8:04] Janine Scott: Exactly, exactly. So you trained at Mountain View Theatre School, uh, which is now Mount View Academy of Theater of the Arts. Can you talk a little bit about how that prepared you for this career that you're currently having?

[8:18] Giles Terera: Okay, well, before that, oh I did a I did a two-year course in in what's called a B tech, which I'm not sure, that's maybe the British something of something. But um it was a B tech, and so that was directly after I left school, so that was from 16 to 18. It was a two-year course, and it was exactly the same um structurally as when I came to drama school. Obviously, I didn't know that at the time I was doing a B tech, but we had a couple of really good teachers, and you did a lot of um practical stuff. Uh it was really good. We did bits of dance, um we we had a kind of wide range of s of of plays and and dramas that we looked at. And then we it was we sang as well because I think initially it was like a music college.

[9:08] Giles Terera: Um so there was it was quite a good singing um department and there was also pianos and and and there was lots of um facilities. And that course was exactly the same when I came to London as drama school. So for me it was just a continuation of what I've been doing. So it was very kind of centered on discipline because the two big personalities in the on the course was Mary, the the choreographer, the dance, the dance teacher. So obviously you know that with dance comes discipline discipline, this means exactly, yes. And then Kirk, who was the sort of act teacher, and he was real he was like it was like being at school in a way. He was just it was all about discipline and technique.

[9:53] Giles Terera: And I think because it was a kind of working class area, the majority of the of the young people who came there, we were all working class. So it was that kind of mentality of like, right, you need to work hard, no matter what it is. You know, if you come with working class background, it's like you need to work hard and and that graft kind of pays off. So he kind of took that into it into ac into drama into the drama training. So it was really it was a great and I'm very like to a certain extent I'm disciplined, but I'm very like free and just you know, I like to have fun and like to do things and like to kind of try different things.

[10:32] Giles Terera: Whereas they kind of instilled a real sense of, okay, this is what you've got to focus on. W let's work really hard. Let's be focused and apply yourself to that, whether it's a choreography or whether it's this um a character or the situation or um whatever it happens to be that they that gave they gave me that sense of discipline. So then when I came to London to go to drama school, it was exactly the same. So for me it was uh it it that was probably what I took from drama school most is a sense of um my sense of discipline, which I'm now and when it comes to my work, I'm I'm I'm actually really disciplined disciplined.

[11:11] Giles Terera: Um but then also I'm really interested in like I I love theatre and I love um human beings and I love drama and and why I'm fascinated by why we do what we do and why people behave, you know, you're on the train or if you're in the tube, and you see two people having an argument, you know, a couple of it's like what are they arguing about? What they did what's going on there, what's happening? I'm fascinated by people, so it's easy to be kind of focused and and and disciplined when you're when it's something you really love.

[11:43] Giles Terera: So my and at the same time, I was the only when I started, I was the only black student in my year. It was in a way, it was I had really good teachers who took care of me because of that, and sort of said, Okay, well, well, you're going to we're gonna find stuff for you to do during this during these three years that's specific to you culturally.

[12:25] Giles Terera: Claudette Williams, her name is, and she said, "Okay, baby, listen, you're the only one here. We need to work, do some work, and you know, when you get to the National Theater, and when you get to the Royal Shakespeare Company, you're gonna have to have a voice, and it's gotta be your own voice." So she would teach me, I would say afterwards, and she would work on scenes with me. So she taught me about all of the Americans actually. I wish it was more but she taught me about James Baldwin and Langston Hughes and Toni Morrison and Alice Walker and Maya Angelou and all these people, and we would go over stuff, and she would play me their films and videos of them, and we worked a lot on August Wilson, and she would make me go over that stuff over and over and over again, which is great because then I, you know, however many years later, I was in an August Wilson play at the National Theatre.

We did Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. Yeah, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. Very well prepared for that. But like all good teachers, they help you to be not afraid of learning, not afraid of being curious, right, not afraid of being able to hear in August Wilson my own family. You know, when I read August Wilson, I was like, "This is my uncles. These people sound like my uncles, the way they behave, the way they communicate with each other. These are my aunts and uncles, and this is my family." And to not be afraid of that and to embrace that and be able to go, "Yeah, I recognize myself in this artist's work and this world that he's created." So she, you know, like all good teachers, they embolden you, and because I guess if you can connect, and you know when you're 18 years old and you've got your training or you go to New York in your training or wherever you are, of course you don't know who you are when you're 18 years old, but if you can connect to something of who you are right then, you've always got that grounding to carry with you.

[14:33] Giles Terera: Yes. So then if I go and do a Shakespeare play, I can hear myself in that play. Okay, if I go and do, I don't know, an Ibsen play, I can hear myself in that because all good artists, I guess, are interested in the common universal things that connect us all. I guess if you're an artist, you're writing, whether you're August Wilson or whether you're Ibsen, it's like they're only really interested in the kind of the fundamentals of human beings. So therefore, you don't necessarily have to be African American to be able to connect with an August Wilson play. Exactly, you can be Japanese and you can hear your own family in that. So yeah, Claudette gave me that. I had a lot of good teachers at drama school.

So it prepared me, but it's difficult because when you're at drama school, you are working on stuff all the time. So you're working on lots of different things. You're doing dance in the morning, and then after that, you're going to do singing, and then after that, you're gonna go do plays, and then after that, you're gonna do some movement stuff. Then you're gonna go and work on voice. So you're working all the time. Whereas then when you leave, and when I went into the profession, you were just doing one thing, which in one way was cool, but I found that there were lots of bits of myself that I were engaged in when I was training, and I was like, "Oh, I miss doing lots of different things at the same time."

Because then you can, you know, especially if you're doing a play, which is like three months in a run or at the National Theatre for a year or whatever, you're in that one thing for that space of time. So you have to, you know, over the number of years, you build up a kind of bag of different time periods and different people and different lives. And I, as I say, I'm curious, so I like to be in different worlds.

[16:45] Giles Terera: But at the same time, you know, I remember when I left drama school and went to work, it was at the National Theatre, and because this is actually a really good question, it's a great example of how drama school prepared me. Because we were at drama school, and you were taught if you were in that lesson that was, for instance, we were working on speeches. So you'd all be there in the class, 12 of you or whatever it was, and each person would get up and do their speech, and they would be critiqued, and you'd work on it some more, but you observed and watched everything. You were there for everything. So I was very used to being, as you know, students, you're there all the time, and you're watching and you're observing stuff.

So when I left drama school and went to the National Theatre, we were doing this production of the first production I was in was Troilus and Cressida, Shakespeare, okay, about his story about the Trojan War. It's not done very often, but it's a fantastic play. In fact, Sophie Okonedo was Cressida, one of our best actresses, wow, nominated, and there were some brilliant actors in it. So I was just eating it up because I was like, "These are amazing directors, these are amazing actors. I'm at the National Theatre. I'm seeing people do amazing work." So I was there all the time, even if I wasn't called. So I was only a spear carrier, and I was in one scene. Yeah, there was lots of fighting because it's about the Trojan War, but I was only in one scene.

But I was there all the time, and I didn't know. I just assumed you had to be there all the time because what we were doing at drama school. And they were doing this scene between Cressida and the other main character, Pandarus, her uncle, and then that was it, the two of them in this massive room at the National Theatre. And so Trevor Nunn, the director, was there and all the stage management and then these two actors and then me in the corner. And the assistant director at some point said, "Look, Trevor, who is gonna play this part? We're two weeks into rehearsals, and you haven't cast this part yet." There was a part at the beginning of the scene where a servant comes on and says, and Cressida says, "Oh, what's going on in the Trojan War?" and they have a little one-page scene where he says, "Oh, this is happening and that's happening," and then he goes, and then the main thing starts.

So she's like, "Who's gonna play this part? You haven't cast it yet?" And Trevor was like, "Oh god, God," and he wanted to get on with it. So he kind of just looked around and was like, "Giles, could you just read this just for a second while we're doing this thing?" So I was like, "Yeah, fine." And he gave me a little bit of what the theme was, basically what I just told you, that they're having this little gossip first thing in the morning about what's going on in the war that day. So I said, "Okay, fine." And then I did it, and then they did the rest of the scene, and that was it. So then I was like, "Okay, this part hasn't been cast yet." So, you know, long story short, I kind of made sure that I knew when they were gonna be rehearsing that scene again, and then was prepared and made sure I'd learned it.

And then the same thing happened; they still hadn't cast it. Like, "Who's gonna play this part? We still haven't cast it. Come on, who's gonna do it?" So then Trevor turned to me again and said, "Can you just please just do this, you know, just for now?" Can you do it? But I'd learned it, so by then I'd learned it. So I did the scene, and I remembered what he told me about the scene, and I did it, and then a couple of days later he came and said, "You know, would you relinquish the part of spear carrier for us, please?" And he put it in such a brilliant way, like I was saving the production, like saving the National Theatre. It's so brilliant. "Please would you consider performing? I know you're playing the spear carrier, but would you?"

And I said, "Yes, of course. Absolutely." So then that was it. I had a nice part at the beginning, and it was a funny part, and I often think actually that was my drama training, really. All the stuff that you learn about the different periods of history and all the tech, that's one thing, but actually being prepared and being ready and being just available to—that's kind of me just being curious, really. I just wanted to watch two great actors work, and so it was a good lesson to go, "Ah, just always be aware, always be prepared, always be available, and be open." So that was one way in which drama trained me. That's a major lesson though, to always be prepared, to always be ready, and that shows a lot about your work ethic.

[21:53] Giles Terera: You know, so fast forward to your 40th birthday, you get the call, and you're Aaron Burr. So yeah, I mean, but you say that, and that's exactly the same lesson. It is exactly the same lesson that I kind of followed because I had done a couple of musicals, and the thing with musicals in the West End is that it's different from you guys in the States because here we're contracted for a year. If you're in the West End, if you're in Les Mis or one of these big shows, The Lion King, it's contracted for 12 months. Okay. So at the end of that, you might renegotiate for another 12 months. So they're big chunks of time, and I did three of them, I think, and then that's three years went by. I did them back to back, and I always try and do parts that really excite me and really challenge me.

I never wanted to do just anything because it's there. But at the same time, as I'm sure you know, like in musical theatre, it's the same in film and it's the same in theatre, I guess, but certainly in musicals, there's a certain kind of role that we, as Black people, get to play. Yes. And you know, it's like if you do, if you do them, if you do, and we can do them, we can come on and we'll give you this, we'll bring the house down with this number, and everyone, you know, we'll be the character, the audience loves you, and it gets the laughs, and it's funny, and then someone else is the lead at the front carrying the show. So I was like, "Okay, I've done that a couple of times enough to know that that's gonna be it for me in terms of the characters."

They might be different, but actually the experience and what my talent is providing in this production is gonna kind of be the same model. So I was okay, well, I don't need to do that for a while. And I thought, "Well, I'm gonna, I'm just, if I do another show, great, and if I don't, great. But if I do another one, it's gonna be something which I really feel is special and that I'd really be able to kind of get my teeth into. It's not just gonna be like the funny comedy best friend. It's gonna have a character with real depth to it. And then, so yeah, that was definitely, and that was six years.

[24:23] Giles Terera: I waited there, six years went by, and then Hamilton came up. So it was definitely a case of that lesson learned of kind of going, just be open in the meantime. The last show I did was The Book of Mormon. No, it was Avenue Q, so I was like, okay, just be open, be ready. There may be another show which comes along and which has a part which is really exciting and something that I really want to get my teeth stuck into, and just be maybe open and prepared for that. And if it comes, great, and if it doesn't, I don't know, but maybe the timing might be right, might not be right, or whatever. But I was like, just be prepared. And so when Hamilton came along, I was very, very aware that that was that kind of role and that kind of project.

[25:16] Right. Um, yeah, so it was, um, I didn't know a lot about Hamilton before.

[25:22] Janine Scott: I was just gonna ask you, how much did you know? Because that's, you know, it's American history.

[25:27] Giles Terera: Yeah, I didn't know. I mean, it's somewhat, you know, quasi. Yeah, but Tommy, Tommy Gale always says, you know, one of the first things he said to me was like, listen, he said, we don't know a lot about these figures either. We know these are the guys on the dollar bills and stuff, but there's only so much we kind of know about them.

[25:44] Uh-huh. Um, so it was, he said it was a journey of exploration for them as well to kind of really dig under the surface and find out who these people were. And I think Lynn really draws his versions of those people, those men and women. He draws his version of them, so I always think it's like my version of Lynn's version of Aaron Burr I'm playing. Um, but I didn't know a lot about that period.

[26:10] I was actually fun when I auditioned for it, I think it was like the middle of 2016. So the show was on Broadway. It was Lynn, uh, and I saw it on Broadway. Lynn Manuel and Leslie Odom Jr. had just left. So it was at its kind of zenith in terms of like the craziness of that show.

[26:34] Yes. They had knocked that long been to the White House.

[26:36] Right.

[26:37] Giles Terera: Then that whole performance. So, but I for some reason was not really aware of it. I wasn't really aware of it. My agent said, there's a show you need to listen to for Hamilton. And I was like, well, I know that's hip hop, and are you sure they're gonna want me to do that? And he was like, just listen to it. So I put him off a couple of times actually, and then he said, listen, this show is coming, and Cameron wants to bring it over, and you need to, you need to. So I said, um, okay, well, which part? And he said, okay, Aaron Burr. And I was like, well, who's Aaron Burr?

[27:07] Who's Aaron Burr? Isn't the show called Hamilton?

[27:12] Giles Terera: I was like, that's where, you know, my musical theater brain was at. I was like, well, is it called Hamilton? Who's Aaron Burr? Is that like, is that like the kind of parts that I have been playing in the past kind of thing? And then when I listened to it, I was like, oh no, no, no, no, no, no. This man is, is in the way that Lynn draws him, is everything that I'm interested in, yeah, in terms of acting and performing and storytelling.

[27:36] Um, massive depth and richness to this character and complexity and, um, and lots of the things that people say about Aaron Burr in the play, people have kind of said about me. So I connected to him really quickly.

[27:55] Um, yeah, I knew immediately that there's something that I had to respond to. Um, and actually it was a very, um, it was a very kind of mysterious connection. So I didn't try and investigate it too much. I just knew that there was something about this journey that this character went on that I had to find out more about. And so it, um, yeah, but always be open and be prepared, but I didn't know, I didn't know too, but again, Lynn writes the piece so brilliantly that everything you need you get in the way that in his lyrics and certainly about the characters and then, you know, everything you need to know about the kind of politics of what's going on in the country at the time and how they're all functioning, you get, it's all kind of in the text.

[28:15] So, um, I guess the main thing that I was drawn to in his writing is again these human beings. He's, as a good writer, he's interested in like what is this human, what is, um, Angelica Schuyler like? What's her situation where she's in love and she can't be, and she also loves her sister? Like, that situation is an incredible situation.

[29:17] So, and he has that with so many of those characters that, um, that's the emotional journey and psychological journey that characters go on, spiritual journey in a way is what audiences really connect to. Um, you know, the politics of what's going on with the Virginians versus the New Yorkers is one thing, but actually it's only useful in so much as Alexander Hamilton has got something really passionate burning within him, and then Thomas Jefferson has got something equally as passionate burning within him. It's about what's going on within the two of those people.

[29:59] So again, a good, you know, any good drama, any good dramatist is interesting.

[30:06] Janine Scott: And so you wrote a book about this experience, Hamilton and Me.

[30:11] Giles Terera: Yeah, yeah. How did that come about? What inspired you to write this book?

[30:16] Giles Terera: Well, I didn't set out to write a book. I keep a work journal. I've always kept work journals. Right. You do as well, right? So you know how useful it is to like have your thoughts down at the end of each day to kind of work through and process stuff, which is difficult to make notes, of course, about what you're doing and where you're supposed to be and the moves and all of that character notes that you get. But I find it really useful, especially with somebody like Hamilton, where it's going a million miles an hour, the rehearsal process.

[30:50] And a lot to learn, there's a lot to retain. So for me, it was a useful technical thing of just making sure at the end of every day I can just, you know, note stuff down. One, so I can just remember everything, but also just it allows me to process. And Hamilton came with quite a lot of, um, you know, there was a lot of energy around it in terms of hype and all of that. So I was like, I need to have some kind of way of processing this because it could be quite overwhelming at times.

[31:05] Right. Managing audiences' expectations and all of that. So I kept a work journal throughout my time auditioning and then when we were rehearsing and then performing throughout the whole year. And then that was it. That was it.

[31:34] Um, and I had an idea about, um, a book which I was thinking in the back of my head I might write about theatre in general for young actors, young theatre makers. And I did the only thing I thought when I was doing Hamilton was, oh, maybe there might be a chapter in the book about musical theatre or acting through song, which I might be able to use something from Hamilton from whenever I come around to writing this book.

[32:00] So I just sort of had that lodged in my mind, but that was it really. And then I left the show at the beginning of 2018, and then at the beginning of 2020, lockdown happened. And so in lockdown, like lots of us, I was like, what idea can I do now that I've been sort of not doing? So I was like, I'm gonna do that book. That book about acting for young actors. I'm gonna do that.

[32:26] So I started making notes on that and structuring that, and then I was like, oh, let me use something from the Hamilton book, and I couldn't find my journal, so I dug it. It took me a while, and I found it, and then I hadn't looked at it since I was in the show, and I started to read it, and I was like, this is really interesting because it was because I wrote it all so quickly at the end of every day, or when I was on the train going home, or, you know, at lunchtime I dropped notes down and stuff, and it was written very, very quickly, and it kind of reminded me of what it was like being back in that experience.

[32:58] Right. Um, so I was like, I think this is kind of interesting. So I showed it to my literary agent, and she said, okay, she said, this is really good. Forget the other book. This is the book. This is it. Which is like this, everything you're talking about, about trying to communicate and have things that you can pass on to young actors of stuff you've learned is in this Hamilton journal, and it's you practically doing it, it's your experience of going through that process.

[33:31] So she said, well, what, and I was like, well, yeah, but if you will, anyone else understand it? Um, it makes sense to me. Uh, I showed it to a couple of other cast members, and they really, you know, they really enjoyed it.

[33:46] Um, so I was like, so I showed it to a couple of friends who weren't in the profession.

[33:50] Okay, and they said, no, no, no, we get this, we get what you're talking about, it makes sense, and it's good.

[33:58] So that was a couple of weeks. I was like, mm, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. And my agent was really strong on it. She said, you know, you have this, this is, there's something really interesting you could use with this book.

[34:09] So I said, let me show it to Lynn, and if Lynn gives it the thumbs up and thinks it's a good idea, then we'll do it. And I sent it to him.

[34:18] Um, and he, I'll never forget, he, I emailed, I said, I'm right, I want to maybe I've got this journal, I just emailed him and said, I've got this journal and was thinking about maybe trying to do it as, you know, publish it and stuff, and what do you think?

[34:34] So he said, okay, well send it to me. So I sent it to him, emailed it him back, and like two and a half hours later, he emailed back, and he was, he said, um, he said, okay, I've just read it, I've finished reading it.

[34:52] Um, I'm crying as I write this email. I finished reading it, and thank you very much for, um, documenting that experience and, and, and, um, uh, sort of preserving that experience.

[35:11] So after that, I thought, okay, well, this is, this is good, something that this is good, something we should do. So after that, then my agent went away and tried to get a, uh, a book deal, and that happened pretty quickly, the publishing deal, and then we just started trying to, um, I had to, you know, do a little introduction to it and structure it a little bit, um, and that was it, and then we spent a few months doing that, and I showed it to some other people, and they said this is a really interesting bit of that Hamilton experience which we haven't really seen before.

[35:11] So, um, so it basically, you know, is my experience of going through, um, the Hamilton experience, but primarily I suppose it's about me tackling a role and being involved in a production and trying to navigate my way to that. Um, and the response, so we published it in 2021 in the UK over here and kind of elsewhere in the world as well, and, um, and the response to it was, was really, has been really great. Um, I get, even up until today, I get students, um, young theater artists, you know, writing to me, messaging me and saying I've just finished the book, it reads really quickly as well, everyone always says I finished it in a weekend or I finished it in, you know, because I'm like, I quite like that because I, I'm a terrible reader, I'm dyslexic, and I'm such a bad reader.

[36:50] Giles Terera: So I wanted it all, you know. I was like the book, the initial book that I was thinking about writing. I was like, I want it to be very easy accessible, very easy for young students to write, you know, when you're carrying it in your bag on your way to classes and stuff. Something that's very easily digestible. So I'm glad that the journal also kind of worked out that way. It's not something which is very, you know, convoluted. It's a day-to-day experience of what it's like to try and audition for a role to try and then rehearse and try and to stay focused with all the kind of pressures that are going on around you, and then making that transition into the theatre, and then comes this huge wave of energy from the audience.

Right. And you know, you'd come out of the theater, and people would say, you know, I've been I've been I've had this ticket for a year, or I've been past recording for two and a half years, or whatever it was, and yeah, and that I know every song and I know every lyric, and there's a lot of that's a lot to kind of balance and carry. Right. So it sort of charts all of that really. But I think the main thing I would say is that the lesson that I took from that, I guess you're always trying to look for the lessons that you learn from things, and the lesson I took from that was that all of the things I've just said are the challenges of what the experience was. On one level, I'm sure it was the same in the original Brilliant American Company, where the company was that was a life-changing thing in itself, just to be surrounded by people who are, you know, who are like you, who look like you, yes, you don't have to explain things to, who you kind of have a shorthand with, you can just have fun.

That was one of the many positive things, but the challenges were really interesting because there were a number of points along the way where I was like, I did that. Wow. We did it. I remember the first time we sang the show through for the all the way through. We spent two weeks learning it and then all the creative team we sat down and we sang the whole show through. And I never forget the feeling of going, wow, we did that. Two weeks ago I was like my head was spinning going, how am I gonna learn this harmony? You know, how am I gonna get these counts? How am I gonna remember all these lyrics? And yet there we were we did the whole show. And along the way there were lots, you know, the first time we ran the set first half of the play because we learned the songs and the score for two weeks then we started to move.

So then the first time that we performed the first half in its entirety was again another kind of mountain victory then the first time we ran the whole show, you know, our final dress rehearsal it's like wow we made that then we go into the theater you have the sitz probe you're singing all the way through with the band then you have the first performance wow you've got all that energy you know 1500 people so along the way there are these kind of mountains that you kind of reach the top of and so I think I always think okay now moving forward and I say this to our company as well now moving forward if we've done that if we've got to Hamilton and we've climbed to the top of that and we managed to do it, then in whatever else we do, we know that we have it within us to kind of achieve and overcome more than we thought we had.

There were so many times where you're like, I'm never gonna be able to get this. You know, I'm not a dancer, and I'm like, I love dancing, and I always wanted to be a better dancer, but I'm not a trained dancer, and there's some amazing sick dancers in that show, and the choreography is so incredible. So I'm like, I loved being in that space, but I'm like, I'm not a dancer, and yet there you were. We did that run through, and I did it. I did what I needed to do. I didn't kill anyone, I didn't disgrace myself, I didn't fall off the stage. So it was it, you know, there were it. I was like, okay, what's what is my if I've if I've got through Hamilton and and put and because the thing is you don't it's a thing of not giving up.

It's like any show is difficult, isn't it? Every show is hard, and just the challenge of like you know, singing in front of people or going into an audition and having to sing the song, and it's that's scary, it's tough. But you keep you you remember you remember that you know 10-year-old who was the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, and who was doing it just because he loved doing it, just because he liked playing around and pretending to be other people and doing silly voices and singing. He wasn't worried about what the critics thought, or he wasn't worried about what the what awards were gonna be there or what the teachers were gonna think. You're just having fun. So I'm like, remember that, remember that and keep going.

Because all this all the pressures in the stuff of our work is just that, it's just a pressure. But the thing itself at its center is your love of telling stories, your love of transporting an audience to another world for a few moments and that can't really be, you know, you've got that for free you had that when you were a kid so that's not I can't go anywhere. The technical stuff is just the technical stuff but and that's just discipline as we you know as we said at the start but so Hamilton for me was a really good exercise and I keep going like I remember there was one morning where we had to we'd rehearse on Saturday because y'all y'all Americans like to rehearse on the Saturday and we don't really do that till maybe like the last few weeks.

Maybe because I think you have shorter rehearsal periods and stuff so maybe you you use all the time whereas we all take it the last two weeks remote rehearsal on a Saturday and one Saturday morning I was walking in and it was like I don't I I mean I'm I kind of I don't know if I've told anyone this but you know when you're at school and you've got a test or you or you've got a subject you don't like or even if there's someone bullying you or giving you shit or whatever that thing of like crawling to school yes yes unwillingly yeah exactly Shakespeare says that in that in that in that soliloquy of like crawling to school well I was that because I was I was like trying to put off being at work in this rehearsal space because I maybe we're doing a run through or something but I was sort of dreading being able to get them but you go come on come on come on come on it's fine it's fine to be apprehensive and it's fine to be anxious.

Right right that's that's okay. That's part of it. It's a big thing that we're doing. But um, and also, you know, if you're playing a character which is as rich as our N Burr is, it requires quite a lot of exposure to you know, he's got massive frailties and faults. And so that requires you have to be really honest with that emotionally. Yeah. So I was like, you know, it's okay to be nervous, it's okay to be anxious. I've been performing quite a long time at that point, but you know, it's okay. It's natural to be to feel like that. Just let it be there, keep going, get on with it, and at some point in the future, it'll just be a great memory. It'll be another day that was part of a beautiful experience.

The feeling won't be there. So I think, you know, if that if I can in if I can include some of that in this Hamilton book that allows other artists to apply it to their version of that Hamilton experience, then I think that's job done. Is that you can go whatever it is, whatever your version of Hamilton is, you can you can do it, keep going. Right. And it's worth it. Your what you are going to able be able to achieve and be able to share with others as a result of keeping going is worth it. So for me that was it that it was it was that which I tried to that was I guess what I was worried about not being available to a reader if you weren't in that experience. So when I was talking to people about it and showing it to them, they would say, No, no, no, no, this that's that's very available in the book.

It's like you work hard, you will push through, you keep going. Right. And um, you know, you you keep going and you keep going, and uh so hopefully if if people could people can get that from the book, then I'll be very very happy because I just I think you know we we I was very keenly aware that with Hamilton yes by the time I finished you've had this experience which has changed your life I've met people on that show I just today we still have our WhatsApp group we still we still speak and communicate um and support each other and that's great but what are we gonna do with this Hamilton experience like what are we gonna do with this platform that you have right right yeah the potential of it this thing has to connect with people right and I I'm always aware that it's like you need to you need to you need to do something positive with that um so again if if it if the book seems to be doing that then I I've been given a lot from Hamilton is basically what I'm saying a lot from that experience and it's nice to be able to share some of that with other people.

You know when you go and see the show I don't know about you but when you go and see the show when I saw it in New York I'd been practic I've been like preparing for the audition because I wasn't going to be in London when they auditioned in the 14th they're auditioning in the autumn and I wasn't going to be in London because I was on this world tour with the the Globe Shakespeare's Grove. So we happened to be in in new playing in New York and I my agent said okay you're gonna meet the the Hamilton people in New York and this is like in the summer. So it was way before they were auditioning so I went and met them and when I saw the show, they they sent me to see the show the day before I auditioned.

And I'd been practicing practicing these songs that they'd give me. When I saw that show, people have said this to me, like when I saw that show, I was completely flawed because I've been I've been living with it for two weeks. I've been listening to it over and over and over again, trying to learn these songs. But when I saw it, I was like, what is this? What am I even what am I even witnessing? This show is so perfect in its sort of delivery. Yes. Because when you listen to the music, you don't when you listen to that cast recording, you don't get what the people are doing on stage. There's 30 people on stage flinging themselves around at all times. Yes. Singing all the notes, all the songs.

Yes. And everyone is involved in the storytelling all the way through it. So I was like, this thing is so, but the chief thing I took away was this thing is such a perfectly formed show, piece of work. Somehow I that's what really moved me. I was like, Lynn is Lynn has come up like as an artist thing I know is that like artists were always like, you know, so um, we're a hard artist critics and we're unsatisfied with what we've done and all of that.

[48:39] Giles Terera: Yes. And you look at them and think, well, I could have done that differently, why didn't I do that? I could I was like, wow, for once an artist has created something which is perfect. Like, what would you change about Hamilton? I left and was like, there's nothing that you would change about that. Everything about that show, from the stories, the score, the music, the choreography, costumes, the staging just works. But then when I got to know Lynn and Tommy and Alex Lacamore and Andy Blancabuler and the creatives that put that show together, Lynn specifically, and talking to him, I saw that no no no no. This show took work. He went through multiple versions of this song of this lyric. You changed this round.

You have to, you know, it was it was like any other piece of art where you try and you chip away at it and you try different things, change things and move things, and certain things don't work, and then they don't work for a long time, and then finally something unlocks what that moment should be. All of that stuff I found really useful when I was then working on the show. So for me it's it was always really interesting in the book to allow people to see actually, yes, Hamilton is this extraordinary piece of work, but it took work to get there. Right. And it took, you know, a lot of difficult times and tough times in writing it, and uh and I think that's useful for young artists as well. When I when I talk to them, I'm like, Your version of Hamilton.

Lynn told the world he was gonna do a show about Alexander Hamilton and it was gonna be hip hop, and everyone laughed. Because that amazing that clip at the White House where he's performing it for the first time, and you cut to the Obamas, the president and the first lady, and they like they chuckle when he says I'm gonna do this thing. Okay. Up to six years later, whatever, and it is literally changing the way we think about theatre. So I'd say to young artists, like, yeah, Hamilton is is is uh is this amazing, extraordinary piece of work, but it's no different in its essence to your story that you want to tell. Right. You just have to do what Lynn did and kind of stick to your guns and roll your sleeves up and keep going and apply yourself and keep you know, be true to yourself and your ideas.

And you can you've got your version of that as well. So again, with the book, I'm like, if I can if I can assist and and contribute in a positive way to that kind of um discourse with with artists, then I'm very, very, very happy. And so far that's what seems to be happening, you know, the response from it.

[51:21] Janine Scott: So where can we get the book?

[51:24] Giles Terera: Like it just came out yesterday or the day before in in North American and Canada. Right, yeah. So you can get it anywhere. Um it's published by TCG. We do all the most amazing things. Amazon, anything else, yeah. You can get so you can get it everywhere. Um you can pick it up anywhere. And uh we if you're in New York, we've got some signed copies of Lynn, Lynn and me signed in in the uh drama bookshop. All right. And um so we're gonna be doing a couple of things um to sort of assist that. But people can pick it up anywhere. Um if you're elsewhere in the world, because I know you have listeners all over the world. Yeah, Google. Google it. It's at Nick Earn books, it's on most of my socials and stuff, and you can yeah, you can you can pick it up.

[52:09] Janine Scott: So are you coming to New York to promote it or yes?

[52:12] Giles Terera: I was there a couple of weeks ago, and I've got a play which I'm just about to do um uh a little short run here in in London in April, and then after that, I'm gonna be back in New York to do some stuff. Yeah, hopefully rope rope rope linen, and we'll do some we'll do some stuff to sort of promote it. But I think May or June I'll I'll try and do that.

[52:36] Janine Scott: Great. So before we wrap, we always ask our guests one question, and it is what one piece of advice you would like to share with the future black leaders of Broadway.

[52:50] Giles Terera: That's a really good question. Um don't say buy the book. We will buy the book, but also if y'all haven't got that book already, then I'm gonna be pissed. Listen, in 2020, there was um George Floyd was murdered, and after that, there was a letter that the African American theater community got together and sent to New York theater, the producers and the theater makers and the the theater establishment. And when I read that letter, which basically said listed all of the things which the community, African American theater community, has had to endure and put up with over the years, it listed many things, and lots of what of what we talked about earlier in terms of characters that we are allowed to play and how our talent is used and what we get back from the use of that talent.

But this letter was extraordinary because it listed a lot of these things, and then the second half of it was to say we will not accept this anymore, and this is what we will accept. This is how we'll be treated. This is these these are the way that this is the way that our talent is going to be used and shared and respected. And I was so inspired by that. And I immediately got on to everyone and was like here and was like, have you seen that letter that the African American community has written? That's what we need to do. Because they brought their shit together immediately. And immediately that happened. And I said, look, they might not get all of these things. Right. But they've put on that letter, but they are gonna get a lot of them.

And also they have um they've it's down and it's down in paper. It's down there in writing. So you so f a year from now, five years from now, you're gonna look back and say, Look, you agreed to this, you signed up to this, so therefore now where is the change? So I I'm inspired by the the um leaders in black musical theatre, and I would I would say just to to keep going because we're we're learning from you. Um I think you have a sense of that in the country anyway, with the civil rights movement of just the action, get it together, and then you go to Congress and you you say this is what's happening, or there's gonna be a boycott, or there's gonna be a mark, this some action is gonna be taken.

Right, right. And here it's different because our community is a lot younger here. The majority of our big community came over in in what we call the windrush generation, which is like mid-40s to the mid-50s, or or through through the sixties. So we have a kind of younger younger uh presence here. So we're learning. So so I I would uh I would encourage our leaders to go keep being uncompromising and keep keep um being as strong and proactive as you are, because everyone benefits. Here we are now in 2023, because of Hamilton, every single aspect of of um my um uh uh opportunities as an actor has changed. Yes, that's partly to do with the creatives who came up with that show, one of whom was African American port as well, brilliant costume designer, the best.

But certainly the work also that the company did, that original company did to say, listen, this is what we expect. Anyway, and the their brilliance, they're genius. Um everyone, you don't have Bridgetton without Hamilton, as far as I'm concerned. One of the biggest shows here in London is with in the last couple of years was six. You don't have that without Hamilton. Another amazing show, which I think has come over to New York is Anne Juliet. You don't have that without Hamilton. So the work that um Lesziod and Jr. and Lynn and Renee and Philippa did, um, and David, the work that that entire company did has such massive reverberations and benefits for so many people across the world. So I would say, you know, keep doing what you're doing, um and um because it's it's it's inspiring and it's uh it's it's doing such good things.

[57:23] Giles Terera: It's a difficult period, isn't it? That we're in. I don't know what you think, but this is a really tricky period that we're in because it's a moment of change, and that's always tricky. You've got to kind of do you've got to make a big noise, you've got to do things where people aren't comfortable, and there's you know, tears, and there's you know, it's it's not it's not an easy time to be in, a space to be in, but it's it's but neither is um marching in Montgomery, neither is is is refusing to to to go and sit at the back of the bus. So all of that's all of that stuff requires when you're at the forefront to kind of of change to kind of be in difficult position and um so I would I'm in a way that's what I would I would suggest to the future leaders but I would also say and I actually to answer your question I I would say as you the word is future you've and I've I've caught up with you there.

The word is future that you said is to remember what happened in this moment. I always say to our young people like find out who the people were who came before you because in a m I don't know what quite what it's like in America but here every up until 2020 and this big moment of change there was always a moment that where something flared up some casting thing or some production and we all make a made a big noise and then you know someone wrote about it in the papers and there was a conversation being had and then there were promises made about change and then nothing changed. And then 10 years later the same conversation happens again and then 10 years later nothing changes. And I and in those moments I'm like so every time it the conversation comes up don't think you're the first one to start that conversation because the ones who came before us had that conversation and they four you know and before them.

So I would say to our future leaders look back and make sure you know what progress was made when and and on on know on on the shoul on whose shoulders you stand and and use that to inform and infuse your moment of progress um and so I would say thank you to to to our current African American leaders and to the future African American leaders. I would say, you know no no know your history and know what has been achieved in the past and build on that.

[59:50] Janine Scott: Awesome. Well thank you so much for spending this time with me.

[59:55] Giles Terera: And I look forward to seeing you when you get here.

[59:58] Janine Scott: Yeah.

[59:59] Giles Terera: Get a book, and I want you to sign it.

[1:00:02] Janine Scott: Please, definitely, please, definitely, because all of this kind of stuff that we do online now, in one way, it's great because you're on the other side of the Atlantic. I'm here. But I also like sort of in-person stuff. It's always nice to kind of just you know connect absolutely.

[1:00:18] Janine Scott: I want to thank our guests and you, our listeners. You could have been doing anything else, but you chose to spend your time with me, and I am grateful. Be sure to subscribe at bpn.fm slash bv so you'll never miss an episode. While you're at it, tell a friend. I'm your host, Janine Scott, and we at the Broadway League hope you enjoyed this episode of the Black Business of Broadway.