This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Alan Seales: Welcome back to The Theatre Podcast. Intimate personal conversations with the industry's biggest names. I'm your host, Alan Seales, and this episode is with SpongeBob himself, Ethan Slater. He loves to write as much as he loves to perform. That actually surprised me how he went into that as kind of needing to be both on stage and behind the curtain to keep himself whole. Admittedly, he caught some amazing breaks auditioning for and then starting to work on SpongeBob while still in college. I didn't realize he was that young when he started, but it was a seven-year road to get the show onto Broadway. And then as we all know, this led to his Tony nomination for his Broadway debut, which is extremely rare.

When the pandemic hit, he actually took some time off of performing. We haven't seen him online much lately, but now he's coming back. He focused on his own mental health. He's doing a whole lot more now, including the upcoming concert on May 24th for the Town Hall Signature Series, Broadway By The Year. He's going to be performing virtually with a bunch of other big names, and of course, we talk about that. But find me online on Instagram and Twitter at Theatre underscore Podcast or on Facebook.com slash Official Theatre Podcast. Leave a rating, leave a review, wherever you are listening now. Everybody, please enjoy this episode now with Ethan Slater.

[1:31] Alan Seales: Today's guest made his Broadway debut in the title role of SpongeBob SquarePants, The Musical, which earned him a Tony nomination and a Drama Desk Award win. He is a star of stage and screen with TV credits that include Instinct, Law & Order, and Fosse/Verdon. He's now part of a phenomenal lineup of people performing in the Town Hall Signature Series, Broadway By The Year, as part of the May 24th concert all about the Andrew Lloyd Webber years. Ethan Slater, welcome to the Theatre Podcast.

[1:57] Ethan Slater: Oh, thank you for having me. I'm so glad to be here.

[2:02] Alan Seales: Thank you. Thank you so much. I am excited to talk about this Town Hall Signature Series, like Broadway By The Year. It's interesting to me how they group it up. So April 26th is the Cole Porter years. May 10th is the second concert, the Kander and Ebb years. May 24th is the Andrew Lloyd Webber years. So talk me through actually how you got involved with this, because I want to know if, like, did you get to pick which years you get to sing about, or were they just like, here's what you're going to do?

[2:27] Ethan Slater: I mean, I did. Fortunately, I did get to pick, although, you know, what an amazing group to pick from. You sort of can't go wrong. But I got an email from Scott Siegel, who's I had done one of the Town Hall concerts before, and, you know, he generously reached out to re-invite me to be a part of it again, and said, we have these three things coming up. It's super exciting. You know, what calls out to you? And to be honest, there are reasons why I could have justified any of those three calling out to me. But whenever anyone asks me what my favorite musical is, my answer is always Jesus Christ Superstar, just because I can't. It's just like, you know, been the thing, my go-to, that movie. It's just like my go-to.

I don't know why. I just love it. And so that was why I was like, well, you know, maybe the Andrew Lloyd Webber one, or as you said earlier, All About Webber, which it somehow seems like the perfect acronym. And so, yeah, so then we were like, well, what songs would work? And we started the conversation there sort of on the creative side of it. And I'm really excited about it. I mean, we were just talking about the cast list of each of these nights, and it's just stacked on stacked.

[3:45] Alan Seales: Right. Well, you're alongside Max von Essen and Liz Calloway, Ally Ewald, and like the slew of other people. Do you, like it's the Andrew Lloyd Webber year, it's All About Webber. Did you decide which song you're going to sing, or are you just, are you like, I'm going to do Jesus Christ Superstar, or did they give you a whole list of things? Like, I want to know what to expect, because I want to be adequately prepared.

[4:14] Ethan Slater: Totally. That's so smart of you, because you don't want to be surprised by that, because it's going to be overwhelming to begin with. You know, of course, I'm not actually doing a Jesus Christ Superstar song. I was like, hey, here's like five songs that I think would be super fun. And we talked about why each one, and we ended up going with two. I'm singing a song from Sunset Boulevard, and I'm singing a song from Joseph, which is another one of those, you know, growing up going to Jewish day school. I watched Joseph in like early classes all the time just to be like, see, like the Bible makes it into pop culture. And we didn't watch Jesus Christ Superstar for that version of it, but we did watch Joseph. So that's going to be super fun. And I get to like play both sides of me in these two songs that I'm doing, which is going to be super fun.

[5:06] Alan Seales: That's a lot of fun. And I mean, for me, I guess like what I know you most from, and what I think a lot of people probably know you from is SpongeBob, of course. And that's, that was very goofy. And I imagine you just walking around like with your hands doing the flipper thing that SpongeBob does, right? But obviously that is a comedic role. Is that more of what you are, have been drawn to? Or like is this, do you use this sort of thing along with any other performance opportunity to showcase different sides? Or is there like, I guess my question is, do you have a lane that you like to stick in? Or is it just, I want to perform?

[5:43] Ethan Slater: Yeah, it's such a good question, because I think that there's so many ways to go about a career as an actor, as a performer, which is, you know, you find the thing that you really love to do and you sort of like go, you know, like whole hog into it. And I love that. But I also do feel like there's so many versions of acting that I want to be doing. There's so many versions of storytelling that I want to be doing. Probably one of the biggest parts and passions of my career is writing. And so I, you know, that's a whole other angle of storytelling. I, when I was in college, you know, I was fortunate enough to start working on SpongeBob when I was in college. But, you know, at the time I didn't think that I was A, going to ever be doing musical theater, or B, that I was going to be doing comedy quite in this way.

I always loved physical comedy. It was my favorite thing to watch. It was my favorite thing to sort of like pretend to do, to like emulate, and like just like do in the living room. But I never thought I was quite good enough at it. You know, everybody that I was watching was so much better than I ever thought I could be. So to be able to have my first thing be a big physical comedy musical was like, that was a huge surprise. So yeah, I would say that I think that I'm not trying to stay in that as my lane. I really love the idea of having broad character experiences, broad opportunities to dive into different genres and different, you know, psyches.

[7:15] Alan Seales: When you say writing, do you mean, I originally thought you meant songwriting, but it sounds like you mean like full book lyrics writing? Or is it like just outside of songs completely?

[7:25] Ethan Slater: Yeah, I do songwriting, and I love that. And I do a lot of sort of screenwriting and playwriting. So I do, you know, there's musicals that I've been working on where I'm doing in various iterations, book, music, lyrics. But then I also do things that are totally that where the music is just part of the landscape. It's not a musical. So it's sort of all over the place.

[7:50] Alan Seales: Well, what do you really see yourself doing? I mean, you're still, I think you just turned 30, if I don't know if I'm allowed to say that.

[7:55] Ethan Slater: I've got a couple years. I got a couple years till then.

[8:00] Alan Seales: Yeah, so you're still young, right? Like in this grand scheme of Broadway careers in life, you're still very young. I'm 40. So, you know, if you're, if you haven't 30 yet, you haven't even, you haven't even started living yet.

[8:13] Ethan Slater: You're still young, too. Look at that.

[8:16] Alan Seales: I feel that way. But while at the same time, I look at other 40 year olds, and I'm like, well, damn it. They did way more than I have at this point. I got to kick the game up. But, you know, for me, I look back at someone like you, late 20s now, who you just said you were working at SpongeBob in college, come out of college, and then all of a sudden, the show you've been working on makes it to Broadway. Luck number one. Then you get a freaking Tony nom for this performance. Luck number two. And I feel like me knowing who I was in my late 20s, I would have been like, well, I got it made. The rest of this career is just going to fall in place for me. Tony nom means automatic awesome. And then, obviously, that's not how it is.

Add on top of a global pandemic, everything that's going on with that and the industry being shut down. And I guess what I'm trying to say is two parts. One, how are you handling all this? What have you been doing to maintain your sanity? And two, did you have to adjust your expectations after SpongeBob made it to Broadway, then got the Tony nom?

[9:29] Ethan Slater: Yeah. I mean, there are so many good parts of that question in there. I mean, yes, on one side of things, I was like, whoa, it's all going up. It's never going to change. It's always going to be this. But I think I'd also, I was lucky enough to start working on SpongeBob when I was in college, but we never knew that it was going to happen. And it was years of development. It was like I worked on it for seven years. So it was years of development where it was just ups and downs the whole way through. And so I got a taste of how you can think that you've got it made. And then three years later, you're still not on Broadway. And of course, no bones about it, I've had some really huge breaks and really unbelievably lucky breaks.

The only reason that I was seen for SpongeBob was because I had applied to a summer apprenticeship program to be like an intern, basically. And I had to audition for that. They liked my audition, called me in for a Shakespeare show. One of the most amazing casting directors ever, Erica Jensen over at Clary Casting, saw me and said to her colleague Paul, hey, he auditioned for this Shakespeare show. He's the right shape. You should see if he wants to do SpongeBob. And so they called me in to audition for that. So all of these things lined up in a way that I couldn't have made happen if I tried. And so I'm aware on the one end of the super luck of it, and on the other end of how it almost didn't happen.

And then, yeah, after SpongeBob closed, I did a string of TV things. I had some writing stuff that was really taking off. And it was going sort of well, but slowly. And it was hard, and it wasn't quite the same level and pace that SpongeBob had been. And then I was incredibly excited because I had booked this film that I was going to do. And then I was going to do Assassins, a classic stage. And I was going to show like, hey, I'm not just bright-eyed SpongeBob, but I can also play Lee Harvey Oswald and play guitar on stage while I'm doing this stuff, and surrounded by just the most outrageous.

[11:43] Ethan Slater: The most intimidating thing ever. And of course, the pandemic shut it down. And I had to sort of go through that again, go through that sort of loss of opportunity. Although I should say that I think that the biggest loss there was not the opportunity of the career moving, but rather just the opportunity to keep working on it. Because, you know, the first two weeks that we were working on that show in rehearsal, we're just like, you know, I don't know, kid in a candy shop. I was just like soaking it all in. I was there all day. And then I was going home and I was practicing at night because I was like, so overwhelmed by trying to play Sontag music and a John Doyle production on guitar, you know?

Anyway, the long winded thing of that is that like, yeah, it's been a total roller coaster. And I think the way that I have been able to deal with it in the best way possible is that when I am not working as an actor, even if I'm just sitting at my computer writing, I'm not an actor who's writing. I'm a writer who acts. And then when I'm acting, I'm an actor who writes. And I think that sort of that framing for me has been really good in terms of my own mental health about being like, I'm not wasting time or I'm not losing time. I'm doing the thing that I love and that I'm passionate about. And it's just about, you know, there are different moments when each one takes the forefront or takes the stage.

[13:13] Alan Seales: Well, do you have a preference? If you had to pick one right now, obviously, well, okay, not right now, because there's very little theater happening right now. But assuming no pandemic, everything's fine, life is good. Would you, Assassins, you would have done Assassins, right? And who knows what would have come out of that. But, or what would have come out of that. But at the end of the day, do you enjoy the feeling of the exhaustion of the eight show week? Or do you enjoy the feeling of seeing your original work being performed on stage by other people? Like, what really makes you feel whole inside?

[13:55] Ethan Slater: God, such a good question. I think, I think what I feel, the thing that makes me feel most lucky is that both are incredibly rewarding to me. I think as long as I'm exhausted and overworked, then I feel really fulfilled by it. Yeah, I mean, it's just, it's just a really different feeling. But they're both really, I think, critical for myself to feel sort of whole is to have both of those things. I will say like, for me, the best part of any process is rehearsal. And I was super, super worried about doing a year long run in SpongeBob. I was terrified because I had only done a couple of long runs. And when I say long, I mean like two to three months, like nothing that had been anything like this.

And by the end of two to three months in all of those runs, even when I loved the shows, even when I loved what I was doing, I felt tired and I felt like I was repeating something. And it didn't feel inventive anymore. And I love rehearsal because I love inventing things. I love like coming up with ideas and throwing them out and coming up with new ones. And so I was really terrified about that. But I was relieved beyond all relief to find that I loved every single performance of SpongeBob, even when I was exhausted and, you know, having trouble with high notes or having trouble doing the splits. I was still having so much fun and finding new ways to reinvent within the same sort of structured show.

So I guess my answer to you is that I have no good answer. I can't. I think I really I actually just got back from filming a short film that I wrote with my good friend and we were in it and we'd written it. And I don't think that I want to be in everything I write because there's something unbelievably beautiful about watching somebody else and having the collaboration between writer and actor and being, you know, that collaboration is so beautiful. But in terms of the exhaustion piece, doing way too many things and just throwing yourself, you know, 20 hours a day into a project just feels great.

[16:08] Alan Seales: It's interesting to me that you said that about, you know, having the collaboration and whatnot. And I just heard actually, as we record this, I just recorded with Rick Pender, who released the Stephen Sondheim encyclopedias, like 600 pages of everything Sondheim. And one of the things we talked about that fascinated me about Sondheim is when he wrote Sweeney Todd, Hal Prince was like, no, what you told me it's about it. That's not what it's about. So I'm going to make it about this other thing that it ended up turning into. Right. And so Sondheim, being the genius that he is, was like, oh, okay, well, you interpret it differently. I'm going to let you as the director go off and do your thing.

So who knows that if Sondheim had been charged with directing it, would it have ever been a hit? Because Hal Prince turned it into something that the writer originally never intended. So I enjoy, too, that you're very much open to the collaboration, too. And especially in the rehearsal process, you mentioned discovering and discovering new beats. There are things that your actors, as you're writing, are going to find for you that you never intended to be in the script. It's the stuff between the lines that's really important. Right?

[17:29] Ethan Slater: Totally. And it's sort of that thing that you learn in English class, right, that you can analyze in high school English class, you can analyze literature past the point of the author's intent. And you can still glean some absolutely beautiful meaning from it, even if one kid in the class goes, there's no way that F. Scott Fitzgerald meant that. It still is that valuable. And I think that that's what's so fun about Sondheim. The collaborative part of theater is just so much literary criticism coming at you from all angles.

[18:04] Alan Seales: Does that affect you, the negative criticism? Or do you care about positive or negative? Or are you just writing for you?

[18:11] Ethan Slater: Oh, wow. I mean, the ideal answer is like, no, no, no, I write for me. But that's ridiculous. I write for my collaborators. I think that really affects me. The people who I'm working with on something, it's not that I want them to like what I do. It's that if we're putting something together, we have to all like it. If I'm bringing something to a collaboration and they're bringing something to that collaboration, we have to meet in the middle and we have to find the beauty in both ideas, even if they're in opposition at first. So I think that that kind of criticism feels really good. But then, of course, the other thing that you're hinting at is the criticism that we face a lot of in SpongeBob, which is like, oh, look at this cash grab.

Look at this end of Broadway. This is the worst thing that's ever happened. The number of blog posts that before we came out, a year before we came out, were like, this is the end of Broadway. I think one of the things that was a huge, huge relief, just to be totally honest, because I felt so confident before anybody had seen it and we were getting all of that smack talk, I was like, just wait till they see it. It could be exactly what they're saying, and I understand why they're making this huge assumption, but they don't understand who Tina Landau is. They don't understand the trust that Nickelodeon was putting in Tina Landau. So I felt deep in my heart, here's the thing, we're going to show all the haters and it's going to be glorious.

And then the relatively good news is that that's sort of what happened. We got a fair number of reviews that were like, I really didn't want to like it. And yeah, it was okay. It was good. Begrudgingly like, yeah, all right.

[19:57] Alan Seales: Yeah, like, here's all the things that I like, sort of liked about it, you know, just like, frustratingly go, you know, and so that that was like a really nice, really nice thing. But if it had gone fully the other way, and everyone had said we were right, this was, you know, that would have been hard to read. And so I really tried to not read any reviews, because I just could sense that it would go that way. And it would, like, I don't know, change my performance or change how I felt about it. And I didn't want that to happen. So I wasn't going to read any reviews. And I think I knew at the time that that was a fool's errand. Because you go to the opening night party, and everybody's walking up to you.

And I know that you can't see my face right now. But they're just walking up with just like the widest eyes, like, did you read it yet? Did you see it yet? You know, and like, there's just, it's just impossible to avoid. But like, deep in my heart of hearts, I want to be the person who does successfully avoid it. I don't know if I am, but I want to be that person.

[21:02] Alan Seales: Well, that's, that's for, I mean, actually, I wasn't hinting at SpongeBob, but I'm glad you brought that up. But I meant, I meant, like, when you're, when you're writing, when you're actually writing, not, not.

[21:15] Ethan Slater: But yeah, because it's, it's interesting, again, speaking for myself, I feel like when I was on stage, I used to perform it. I wanted, I wanted to say exactly what you were saying. I want to not care for people who don't care. Because not everyone's gonna like you. I don't want to care about the haters. But I want enough people to like me so that someone says, yeah, that's pretty good. Right?

[21:41] Ethan Slater: Totally.

[21:43] Ethan Slater: I didn't have any delusions of being Meryl. You know, no one, no one can be that good except for Meryl. But I wanted to at least have some sort of positive, like, yeah, yeah, you know, he's helping amplify the show and bring it up instead of the other way around.

[21:59] Ethan Slater: Well, it's just so hard. I mean, to go to the writing part of it as well, and the acting part, it's so hard to keep moving forward if you're not getting any positive reinforcement. I mean, maybe that's just, maybe that's just the attention seeker in me. You know, that's like the, my kid at heart, who my, who my, who I was as a child, like, that I've never really let go of. But like, it's really hard to keep at something when all you're receiving is negative feedback. And, you know, I have been in the position of like, really want, I wrote something that, I won't get too specific about it, but I felt incredibly good about this idea. I thought it was like the best idea I'd ever come up with. People were telling me that it had this Happy Gilmore vibe, like, this sort of, like, really, like, sort of broad comedy, really wacky stuff, right?

And I was like, you know, I was like, no, I was going for like a more Martin McDonough kind of thing, you know? And I just felt really good about this being like a film about philosophical questions and like, you know, with some like really great action and dynamic storytelling, but that's what it was. And nobody saw it but me. And I like really wanted to be the person who was like, I'm just going to keep at it and I'm going to write this thing and it is going to crush. And it's just, you know, it's been on the back burner ever since.

[23:27] Ethan Slater: That's the kind of thing that does happen a lot. That's just one example because it was just such a funny thing of me really not getting across what I wanted to get across. But I am sort of a firm believer, even if I don't want to be in theory, I think in practice I am a firm believer that like if, to only speak about myself, like if I'm trying to get something across and I'm not getting it across, odds are it's not the audience's fault. You know, like if in the same way that literary criticism leaves the author's intent is sort of secondary, is interesting if you're studying it, but otherwise is not really what it is. Like if I'm not getting across what I want to be getting across, I'm not telling the story I want to be telling. And so I need to keep at it and, you know, think about why. So, which is to say that I think that criticism is sometimes hard and hurtful, but it's always, always helpful. It's 100% always helpful.

[24:25] Alan Seales: Well, do you tend to take it personally or because I guess there's criticism that you can get and you're like, oh yeah, cool, cool. All right. So I can, I understand that not everyone likes it. This is actually helpful. But is there a point when it first comes in and you just think, why am I doing this? This is just, this is so, this is such bad criticism. I'm never going to get it right. Because I have those moments where I put something out sometimes and I'm like, oh, damn it. That was really bad. I should quit. And then after time goes on, I have to remind myself that there's another, that there's, there's the other side of it. Right?

[25:02] Ethan Slater: Yeah. Like, and that's come with training of being as old as I am now. We talked about age a little while ago. Like as old as I am, I got that. But like I said, in my twenties, I would have been all over the place and like an emotional mess. Yeah. I mean, it's a conversation that I actually have with my friends and collaborators all the time. Like I talk about, you know, whether we're getting notes from each other or we're getting notes from friends or we put something into the world and we're getting feedback from the internet. I have this conversation a lot with friends and it's a really supportive thing. It's just like, how do you deal with hearing a note that you immediately are like, oh, that's terrible.

That's just not, I hate that. And how do you deal with like hearing it and just being like, okay, give myself time to process it. And I think that I've gotten a lot better at that over the years. I think that there's always, there's always more ways to go, but, you know, processing and giving yourself time to process emotional reactions to things is sometimes a privilege that not, that you don't always have, but is a really wonderful tool if you can give yourself that time in that space.

[26:34] Alan Seales: Well, back me up then to your childhood. I want to figure out how you became this well-rounded individual that you are now. So tell me, you were born in DC, I believe, right?

[26:46] Ethan Slater: Yeah, yeah, I was.

[26:47] Alan Seales: No, Washington DC, which actually is, I think the first person you've, you're the first person I've interviewed that's come from DC. So yeah, not a lot of companies, a lot from Washington state, strangely.

[26:59] Ethan Slater: But there's a big like Spokane, Washington contingency.

[27:04] Alan Seales: Yeah, yeah. There's a lot from like the North Carolina, the Raleigh area, a lot from Spokane, yeah. But DC, not so many. But what got you into performing?

[27:15] Ethan Slater: Well, I feel like it was a slow on-ramp. I was sort of like a performative child. I was like doing videos with my older sisters in the basement. We were like performing Grease. My oldest sister was playing Dorothy in a community theater production of The Wizard of Oz. The neighborhood got together and did these performances at the children's hospital in DC. And she needed a Toto. And she was like, could my little brother play Toto? And I was four. And that was my auspicious debut. I was barking and I was running around on the ground at her side. And my little anecdote about that production is that I had like one thing I had to do, which is I had to, spoiler alert for anyone who hasn't seen The Wizard of Oz.

I'll give you a second to pause or mute. I had to reveal The Wizard at the end, just like grab the curtain with my teeth, reveal The Wizard. And I grabbed it with my teeth. I tripped and pulled down the whole apparatus on top of the single adult in the show. So that's how it all started.

[28:28] Alan Seales: It's going pretty well since then.

[28:29] Ethan Slater: It's going good. And I was like, man, I have got it. And then I was just doing like little school plays and things. And I really loved it. I just I loved it. And in high school I was doing, you know, I auditioned for the play my freshman year and didn't get in. And so I was doing, you know, I played sports and I was like really into wrestling. And I did a little bit of baseball. And then my sophomore year, I auditioned for the play. And I did get in. I got like, I was a part of this awesome, awesome ensemble of students. And I got to, you know, I had a couple of lines that I had to do in a Yorkshire accent. So I had like, you know, it was just a great experience. And then I started like doing a little bit more and more and got a role in the musical.

And then the next year I got a role in the play again. And then I started, you know, the big moment for me in terms of being like, oh, I really like this. And I think I could devote myself to becoming good enough to do it professionally was that my junior year, we were doing The Producers and I was playing Bloom. And my dear friend Noah Robbins was playing Max Bialystock. And Noah had been going back and forth for these auditions for a show in New York from D.C. And I already knew that Noah was the best actor I'd ever met. He was just like so good as a high schooler. And he was like going back and forth. And the day of our final dress rehearsal for The Producers, he was on his way back from New York and he called me to say like, don't tell anyone yet, but I got the part.

And he was playing Eugene in Brighton Beach Memoirs on Broadway. And so, of course, I was like, you guys, he did it. And we all met him at the front of the school when he got there and we like carried him, you know, proverbially carried him all the way to the theater. But it was just like this huge moment of like seeing success up close that, again, like I'm super aware was a huge privilege. And I was like, wow, this is OK. If Noah can do it, I still probably can't, but I can try. And just one other thing that Noah has taught me so much, and he says that he doesn't remember saying this, but it's 100% was him. I can see it time and place. I remember it very distinctly. I said to him like, why are you so good at acting?

Like, what makes you good? Can you just give me advice? And his response was like, I don't know. I feel like the key to good acting is to make everyone else on stage look better than you. And like, I don't know how I took it at the time, but over the years, what that's meant to me is that acting is all about throwing your focus and throwing your intention at the other people around you and telling a collaborative story that acting isn't about yourself in any moment, even when you're alone on stage. It's about the collective. So I'm eternally grateful to Noah for that.

[31:33] Alan Seales: Oh, that's amazing. Yeah, it's, I mean, acting, they say, they, the proverbial they, be a good actor, you have to be a good listener. You authentically, of course, react in the moment and all of that stuff. So that was my interpretation of what you say he said, that he doesn't remember.

[31:52] Ethan Slater: That's so right. That feels spot on.

[31:55] Alan Seales: Yeah, because you're throwing it to somebody else, you're listening and you're reacting and you're being there for them. And when both people on stage are doing that, or everybody on stage is doing that, then the rising tide lifts all ships. And the whole performance just comes across as that much better, right?

[32:09] Ethan Slater: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

[32:11] Alan Seales: So how are you maintaining, then, your own sanity in here early 2021? Obviously, like, I see online, you've been posting some performance videos, and you're doing this concert, of course, coming up on May 24. But otherwise, I know so many actors, Broadway actors, Tony-nominated Broadway actors who have gone home to live with their parents, completely outside of the city. And they just don't, they haven't decided if they want to come back to the industry. So you personally, are you still in the city? How are you dealing with all of this?

[32:50] Ethan Slater: So I'm actually, I'm not in the city. We moved across the country to Los Angeles, a move that was planned for my wife's work. And then pandemic hit, and we were like, I guess we're still doing this. So just like a historically, epically bad time to drive across the country, we did. Yeah, I like, I think it's twofold. One thing is that I just really threw myself into writing. Basically, from day one, I was like, okay, we've got two weeks where we're not in rehearsal. We're gonna be back in two weeks. For those two weeks, I'm gonna get so much writing done. And so it started there. And then with each added week, I just sort of kept at it. I feel like, you know, started a collaboration with somebody that has been incredibly fruitful, and has also given me a lot of purpose and drive, and has showed me what a good collaboration in this kind of world can be.

So a lot of the sanity has come from throwing myself into the writing part of things. I should say, like, I'm doing a fair amount of performing right now. I just did, you know, Classic Stage had an amazing gala that actually just came down offline. And, you know, I did something for the York Theatre, which I think you can still watch and donate to. And I'm doing these amazing, like, these concerts at Town Hall. Like, I'm so excited to be doing that. I think it's going to be like a beautiful night of theater, and like, this sort of coming back into the fold. And it actually, like, means a lot to me to be able to be a part of this concert series. Because I have been saying no to everything that has come my way for most of the year.

Because it was too hard for me to, like, stare into the uncanny valley of Zoom performances, and, like, try to be an actor when it wasn't, like, it wasn't, like, you know, on set shooting a film or a TV show. It wasn't, like, in the theater with people. It was just hard. It was really hard for me to do. And I didn't really realize how many opportunities I was saying no to just because I couldn't get myself to do it. And like, you know, I think it was fine. It was always, it was never a contentious thing.

[43:41] Alan Seales: There's also concerts earlier, April 26th and May 10th. I recommend them all.

[43:45] Alan Seales: They start at 7pm on their respective days and they're available for streaming online for 72 hours. Now, Ethan, first question.

[43:52] Ethan Slater: Yes.

[43:53] Alan Seales: Very simply, what motivates you?

[43:56] Ethan Slater: I think the thing that motivates me the most is telling stories that people can connect to. I think telling stories and getting to work with people to tell their stories. I think it's just this sort of instinctual thing for me.

[44:13] Alan Seales: All right, so then the next question. What advice would you give to your younger self and younger people listening now starting out down a similar path?

[44:22] Ethan Slater: I would say that you should follow every impulse to do your weirdest things. Just anything that feels a little bit weird or scary or maybe not right, go for it. And at the same time, study the most conventional things so you can understand why you like the weirder ones.

[44:44] Alan Seales: Ooh, I like that a lot. Okay, last question is, if you could only see one show for the rest of your life but you can see it as many times as you want, what would you see?

[44:52] Ethan Slater: The Town Hall concert on May 24th, baby.

[44:55] Ethan Slater: That's a really tough question. Oh, wow. If I could only see one thing for the rest of my life but I could see it as many times as I want, and the Town Hall, even though you guys should all go see it, doesn't count as an answer. I think my answer would be the original production of Company.

[45:21] Alan Seales: Ah, why?

[45:23] Ethan Slater: I think it's because it's something that was a really early moment for me of seeing what musical theater could be, and I now am so grateful to musical theater that it's the only thing that's sticking in my head. It's a super not-me-exactly answer, and yet it's the only one I can give at the moment.

[45:43] Alan Seales: Well, I think it works.

[45:46] Alan Seales: Thank you. It's a unique answer. Okay, where can we find you online?

[45:50] Ethan Slater: I am on Instagram at Ethan Slater, and my Twitter is Ethan S.A. Slater because my middle name is Sam. It's not Ethan's a Slater, but that is a better read of it, but that's why it's S.A. Slater.

[46:06] Alan Seales: I'm just going to call you Ethanza Slater, which is like one of the Stark children.

[46:10] Ethan Slater: That is such a beautiful name.

[46:12] Alan Seales: Ethanza. Thank you for taking it with me.

[46:16] Ethan Slater: And then, of course, visit thetownhall.org. You can get more of me in the theater podcast at thetheaterpodcast.com. I'm on Instagram and Twitter at theater underscore podcast.

[46:27] Alan Seales: This is edited by Well-Rounded Hoodlum Productions, thanks to Jukebox the Ghost for the intro and outro music.

[46:34] Ethan Slater: You got a surprise face. You know Jukebox?

[46:36] Alan Seales: Oh, man, I love Jukebox.

[46:38] Ethan Slater: Oh, they're so great. They're so great, right?

[46:40] Alan Seales: Ethan, thank you so much. Thank you so much for this conversation. I've had a lot of fun.

[46:43] Ethan Slater: Thank you.

[46:46] Ethan Slater: Thank you.