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[0:01] Alan Seales: Welcome to The Theatre Podcast, intimate personal conversations with theatre's biggest talents. I'm your host, Alan Seales. Today, we have a star of stage and screen. You may know him as Bobby from Smash and even originating Franz in Rock of Ages, Lucas in The Addams Family, and most recently, the incredible Sheldon Plankton in Spongebob Squarepants the Musical. I have with me today actor, writer, and director, Wesley Taylor.

[0:30] Wesley Taylor: Hello, thanks for having me.

[0:37] Alan Seales: Thanks for being here. So let's dive right in here. You look very cozy today.

[0:44] Wesley Taylor: Thank you. This is the new sweater.

[0:46] Alan Seales: Born in New Jersey, but grew up in Orlando. What's that story?

[0:52] Wesley Taylor: Well, my parents met in Nyack, New York, and they sort of moved to Jersey when they had my sister and I, and that lasted no time at all. I was in Elizabeth, New Jersey for a month of my life before they moved us down to Orlando, Florida, which I spent 18 years living in. Orlando, Florida, very strange place to grow up, but I did.

[1:14] Alan Seales: I've got Book of Mormon running through my head. Yep. Orlando, Orlando. And did your parents live in China? Is that got that here too?

[1:28] Wesley Taylor: Sure. Yeah, they moved to New York when I graduated drama school. And that's exactly the same time they moved to Xinjiang, China.

[1:35] Alan Seales: Small town of nowhere. Drama school being North Carolina School of the Arts, which I'm very familiar with. That's my old stomping ground.

[1:42] Wesley Taylor: Yeah, I grew up in Wilkes Borough.

[1:47] Alan Seales: Yeah. So I know that area. Where did you go?

[1:49] Wesley Taylor: I went to NC State.

[1:51] Alan Seales: Oh, wow. Yeah. So that's my past.

[1:57] Wesley Taylor: Yes. You got the performing arts degree. But I guess being in Orlando, is that what got you into musical theater? What made you want to do this?

[2:03] Wesley Taylor: Definitely not geography. I just had it in my blood. I just had it from a very early age before I could talk. I knew that I would get drunk from people's attention, and the sound of laughter at something I said was the most delicious thing I could experience. So I just wanted to replicate that as much as possible and get in front of people as much as possible. And my mom was a music teacher, so she put my sister and I in church, you know, singing for the congregation, singing everywhere. And so my sister was a little shy, and I was desperate for more. And so I was singing all the time. And I was in front of people all the time. And then at nine years old, I begged my mom to get me an agent.

[2:57] Alan Seales: So really that young?

[2:58] Wesley Taylor: That's right. And so I signed with an agency in Orlando, started going out for commercials and voiceovers and industrials and all these things. And I went to an arts high school across the street from Universal Studios. So yeah, there's a lot of entertainment in Orlando that's conducive to what I wanted to do, I suppose. But no, it was all me. I mean, it wasn't really like my environment that made me.

[3:17] Alan Seales: Hmm. Yeah. And it's interesting. It's an arts high school, like growing up where I did in a small town, the concept of an arts high school, even now as an adult to me is kind of foreign.

[3:29] Wesley Taylor: Sure. Yeah. But I guess when you have that many people around, it was a pretty incredible high school, Dr. Phillips visual performing arts magnet. And I can't say that I, well, at that age, I feel like you're not really learning a whole lot of extensive detail specific craft. But you are, when you go to an art school like that, you are exposed to the greats at an early age, which, you know, a lot of people are like, why are you doing Shakespeare? You're 15 years old. How could you ever know what you're saying? And it's, you know, maybe there's some validity to that. But if you don't start introducing the language at an early age, then it doesn't sort of like by the time I got to college, and we were doing Shakespeare all the time, I was like a step ahead of everyone else.

So we were doing Chekhov and Moliere and Shakespeare and Ibsen all in high school. And also, a rigorous program like that is going to instill a professional work ethic and discipline that is unrivaled at other high schools. We would go on college tours and see all the best acting schools in the country. We would do like four main stages a year. We would be doing all these field trips to going to the Salem witch trial, you know, up in Boston, but you know, because we had been studying the crucible. And, you know, so I think it was a pretty formative time in my development as an artist. That school and then everything sort of fell into place at drama school.

[5:02] Alan Seales: Do you have a tour or a show that you saw at that age that stands out as like, I know I'm on the right path. I want to be like that?

[5:09] Wesley Taylor: Yeah. So I had, again, I had been singing and performing and being in front of people a lot growing up, but I, and I knew I wanted to be an actor, but I, I wasn't. I think it was more the song and dance man. I was a performance sort of person. And then I was in my sophomore year of English class, Miss Poro. And she's a great teacher. And we were, you do those things where like, you're reading a play and Shakespeare that we read a lot more theater than regular English because it was an arts high school. So we were doing Othello, and she was assigning parts to the people in the class to read along, and no one was allowed to read Iago. That was her role that she had to read, and no one could touch it.

And truly when she performed it, you know, just reading the text, I got chills all down my body. And I was just like, I fell in love with acting in that moment. Like just watching her work, read the text of Othello and just like, and still it was such specific, specific evil wonder that not only was I was like, that's my dream role, but also like, I desperately want to be trained and I want to learn how to do this more than going off and singing and dancing. I want to learn how to be an actor.

[6:37] Alan Seales: Wow. So with the classical training and all of that background, naturally Rock of Ages was the perfect fit.

[6:42] Wesley Taylor: I have to say, I mean, I was doing Falstaff and Henry for my final semester of college before graduating, and, you know, booking my first show out of college this, you know, six months out of college, I was on Broadway doing an eighties trashy rock jukebox musical that I was actually embarrassed at the beginning to invite my faculty to because I thought they would, you know, lift their noses to it and look down. And yet, of course, my whole faculty would come and prove me wrong and take me out afterwards and say, this is the work. This is comedy technique. This is, you know, the training applies to every media, every sort of.

[7:37] Alan Seales: Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, comedy is hard. I think comedy is some of the hardest theater you can do. So to do it well, you know, congratulations. But what was it like when you were 21, 22, making your Broadway debut? Did you realize at that time kind of what that meant? Because I feel like, yeah, coming out of college, you're like, OK, what's my next step? Broadway done.

[8:03] Wesley Taylor: Yeah, no, it was like, I don't know. I had this moment a year out of college where all my dreams had come true, where, like, the big dreams of college were I want to live in New York City. I want to be on Broadway, and I want to, like, be living with someone that I love, you know, like a boyfriend or whatever. And all those things within a year of school were happening. And I sort of had a little mental breakdown. I was like, oh, my God, I guess I'll just die now. Like, there's nothing to live for moving, but there's no dreams. There's no, you know, and you have to make new dreams for yourself. You have to, you know, raise the bar higher if you've been lucky enough to achieve some of those goals so that you always have somewhere to go.

[8:49] Alan Seales: I mean, and it was even not only were you on Broadway making your debut, but it was originating a role, which was, you know, that much cast album, all that. And so then that was 2009. The next year, 2010.

[9:03] Wesley Taylor: Yeah.

[9:04] Alan Seales: Tony Awards, all of that. 2010, you went to The Addams Family, and then you're next to Nathan Lane and B.B. Neuwirth. Who? I never heard of him. Like, what was that like for you? Obviously, you thought you were at the pinnacle in '09, you hit '10 and you step up.

[9:23] Wesley Taylor: I would love to go back and sort of recreate some of that experience. Just, just I was so terrified. I was such a scared kid with Nathan and B.B. I just like, you know, I grew up watching Nathan and idolizing him. And so it was scary that, you know, it was a cast full of titans. It wasn't just Nathan and B.B. The supporting cast was Terrence Mann, Carolee Carmelo, Kevin Chamberlain, Jackie Hoffman. I mean, it was insane. It was. But that show was a big lesson in expectation because, you know, Rock of Ages was the show that exceeded everyone's expectation and just kept on being the gift that kept giving. We got amazing reviews, unlike what we all thought. We were transferring to Broadway. We were getting nominated for awards. We were like, it just kept, it lasted for six years. No one expected that this show about white snakes, songs and poop jokes, you know, no one expected.

[10:27] Alan Seales: Everyone loves poop jokes.

[10:28] Wesley Taylor: Well, I mean, it's a very smart show. It really is. It's like the template for jukebox. I mean, you know, Jersey Boys, Rock of Ages, like these are the success stories of jukebox. And that original cast was so incredible. And anyway, the experience of Rock of Ages was so surprising, whereas The Addams Family, I think a lot of expectation went into that project just with all the names attached. And then the creative team was very fancy. The money that was being poured into the production. And so that expectation can also hurt, too, and not live up.

[11:10] Alan Seales: How did that feel?

[11:11] Wesley Taylor: It was hard. I felt like I was getting my Ph.D. in show business. There was a lot of drama. There was a lot of, we did an out-of-town tryout after all these workshops and, you know, the coldest city, Chicago in the winter, like my parents were getting divorced, I was going through a breakup. The Addams Family, it was tricky. It was trying because I think everyone expected it to be the next great American musical. And it was really struggling to find its voice and its direction and its focus. It's, you know, all of the stuff, all the material that I auditioned with as Lucas, none of those scenes or songs ended up in the show.

[11:59] Alan Seales: Really?

[12:00] Wesley Taylor: So imagine auditioning for a character and then he's unrecognizable when you're doing it. It's just, it was a lot for me to digest. There were some, just like trying not to say the right thing, the wrong thing, I was challenged and tested by people creatively cast myself. The whole experience was difficult, but I am a better artist because of it, I think. And, you know, what's amazing is the legacy of The Addams Family. I mean, the legacy is it's the most produced high school musical, like three or four years in a row. I'm like flown all over the country to coach productions of The Addams Family at high schools.

[12:49] Alan Seales: No kidding.

[12:50] Wesley Taylor: It's amazing.

[12:51] Alan Seales: Well, that's impressive.

[12:52] Wesley Taylor: Yeah. And that ended, it closed in 2010.

[12:57] Alan Seales: The same year.

[12:58] Wesley Taylor: A couple of years.

[13:01] Alan Seales: Oh, a couple of years. OK. I did it for the first year on Broadway.

[13:04] Wesley Taylor: Right. And then in 2012, 2013, of course, went to Smash.

[13:07] Alan Seales: Yeah. So I guess during the break, what made you decide to leave The Addams Family in the first place? But then how did you get into Smash?

[13:37] Wesley Taylor: And like I said, I was going through a lot personally and the show was creatively challenging and I just felt like I needed to leave, actually. And since I'm an advocate for mental health and talking about mental health, I will just openly admit right here that I experienced anxiety and depression for the first time during that job in a major way. And I had to get on medication, and I had to take therapy, and I had to start meditating, and I had to start really being proactive about my mental health because it was really in jeopardy. And that was during The Addams Family. So I think I needed a break. It also helped that I booked Tales of the City in San Francisco the month before the year contract was over.

That was very convenient because I had a job lined up that I was going to go do. No, it's not Broadway. It's not that fancy paycheck, but it was a city I'd never been to with a property I really enjoyed. I loved the books by Armistead Maupin, and this was a beloved character, a gay iconic character that I was very excited to play. Mouse, Michael Tolliver in Tales of the City. So yeah. But then you went to Smash, auditioned for Smash after that?

[14:51] Alan Seales: Well, was it after? Yes. That was after Tales of the City. Yes. Yes. So is, I guess as an industry insider question, does your agent, do you have separate agents to send you for TV versus theater? And because Smash was basically televised theater, was that process any different from a normal TV audition?

[15:13] Wesley Taylor: No. So you typically as an actor, you have a legit or theatrical agency and then a commercial agency. So like commercials, voiceovers, print, whatever, all that is an agency. A lot of people don't have those, but I have that, which is like where Abrams artists send me out on commercials and voiceovers. And then right now I'm with Innovative Artists as my theatrical representation. And they're the legit, they send you in for TV, film and theater. So no, not a different agent for Smash and Broadway. Interesting, that casting was an interesting chain of events because I was moving to Los Angeles. I had made the decision that I wanted to try my luck in Sony LA and be going in for a lot more TV and film.

But right before I left for LA, I got this audition from Telsey here in New York City to go in for this new TV show that Steven Spielberg was producing and that the pilot was getting picked up. And I'd heard, of course, I had of course heard about it, but it wasn't on the air yet. It was just a lot of talk. And so I went in for Sam, which ended up being played by Leslie Odom Jr. I went in for that role, put myself on tape a multitude of different ways, not to sound incredibly offensive, but I was asked to do it very effeminately, a flaming sort of homosexual. And then I was also asked to do it very masculine. And they thought, you know, he's a sportsy guy. And so maybe they want to go in the direction of like very butch masculine.

And then they wanted the option of being flamboyant in case they wanted it. And then I went to a dance call. And then I moved to LA and I didn't hear anything for like a couple of weeks. Oh, no. A week later, I heard that Leslie Odom Jr. got Sam. And I was like, oh, that's a very different direction. But then like the next day, they said I was on hold for someone who played a dancer in the ensemble who would be recurring only for a few episodes at that time. And that character who originally they wanted African-American. Now that Leslie was Sam, they were like entertaining me as this character. And then I was on hold for that for a week. And then I was told I got it, which I had just moved to L.A. So I'm glad I didn't get a car at that point. I was just renting and I just moved right back to New York. Wow. Yeah. So you're literally in L.A. for like a week.

[18:12] Wesley Taylor: Two weeks. Two weeks. Yeah. That's crazy. That was the first time I moved there. Right. So then you fast forward to Billy Green, right? So I guess that was happening all the same. It was happening during Adam's family. Yeah. Adam's family is when Billy Green started. And that's mostly because I was feeling creatively stifled and I needed to do something. So what is Billy Green? For those who don't know, Billy Green is a fame whore monster. He's the worst person that you meet at auditions. He's also part of me. He's an awful alter ego that I try to stifle, but he is also someone I love. He's a dark cloud inside of me that I know I'm familiar with. And he's the guy who the true story. This actually, this is a true story.

I wrote it into a play, but I auditioned for Juilliard when I was in high school and I didn't know much about the best schools, but I knew that Juilliard was the best. And so I was like, well, I need to be at the best institution. It's Juilliard or bust. And so I went to that audition in all black turtleneck, black slacks, black jazz slippers. And I did my two monologues, you know, my contrasting classical contemporary. And they said, do you have anything else for us? And I said, classical or contemporary? And they said, uh, classical, I guess. And I said, Shakespeare, Ibsen or Moliere. And at this point, they're like getting annoyed. And they're like, Shakespeare. And I'm like, comedy, tragedy or history.

They picked history. I think they were trying to, you know, see the cracks. But I sure did Henry for I did Prince Hal on the battle lines. It was just quantity over quality. And I wanted to prove my theatrical prowess, my knowledge of the theater. And I did not get in. Thank God. Thank God, because I needed to learn that lesson. And ended up where I was supposed to be North Carolina School of the Arts, which I love, and I wouldn't change a thing. But that person, that part of me who auditioned for Juilliard and prepared 15 monologues is Billy Green. And so I just tried to exploit that ugly part of me. And it made for some pretty good comedy. And I made sure to include everyone in the Broadway community, all the greats like Audra and Nathan and Kristen Chenoweth, Patrick Wilson, and I just got them all in there. And I don't know how I did that. But I did. So it's a web series.

[21:09] Wesley Taylor: The web series. You never actually said that.

[21:11] Wesley Taylor: I'm so sorry. Billy Green is on YouTube. It's a pretty bare bones, like $1.50 operation. We shot it on a point and shoot camera. There's no budget, but it's got heart and you should check it out.

[21:25] Alan Seales: Do you, I guess, real quick, we'll back up. Where can they find it on YouTube? Just search Billy Green?

[21:30] Wesley Taylor: Yeah, I think I think you just type in Billy Green into the YouTube search. That was before I took it seriously in terms of like, video production.

[21:38] Alan Seales: We'll find it, put it in the show notes for this. Do you enjoy writing as much or more, I guess, in a different way? How do you enjoy writing versus, you know, taking already written material and turning it into a character?

[21:52] Wesley Taylor: Sure. I love writing. And also, I never took myself seriously until about five or six years ago when I started making money doing it. I just I always have been a writer. I've always written things down like sketches or journaling or, you know, scripts all the time. And we did these things in college called intensive arts, which was like your the students opportunity to create their own stuff. And my showcase scene, which, you know, you usually for your senior showcase, your senior presentation for the industry, casting directors and agents and managers. I wrote my my scene, which you're not supposed to do. So I lied and said it was from a book of short plays by Daniel Parker. You've never heard of Daniel Parker.

What's wrong with you? But it was a scene that I wrote. And that scene actually was called The Audition. And it was two characters, Carson and Billy. And that ended up being the pilot of Billy Green. But I again, I was I was always doodling, writing sketches, things like that for years and then starting to make web series and then starting to develop a little bit of a fan base from my web content and thinking like, oh, I might I might be good at this. I took playwriting in college as my academic. But again, I never took it seriously. And it wasn't until It Could Be Worse, which was the web series after Billy Green, where It Could Be Worse was my first venture at a narrative storyline, because because Billy Green, yeah, I guess that was connected in a sort of narrative, but loosely, It Could Be Worse was the first time I was like, OK, I'm going to streamline this cohesive narrative with the central protagonist and I'm going to tell a story.

And It Could Be Worse was still very autobiographical, you know, stuff about my life and what what makes me anxious and keeps me up at night and putting that into content. And when we sold It Could Be Worse to Hulu, I said, OK, now I need to take this seriously, I think, because I'm starting to get paychecks for it. So maybe I should like, you know, study this and practice it daily and keep generating. And you still do. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll we'll get to that. I want to go back to the theater side. And we're fast forwarding now, I guess, to 2016. And we're talking about Sheldon, Sheldon Plankton, that little guy. Is that your favorite role that you've done? Is that safe to say?

[24:25] Wesley Taylor: It's definitely up there. It's definitely like in the top three or four, I'd say, because he was just so deliciously fun, so outrageous. That's like, it's like you couldn't go too big with it. That's my boyfriend's favorite word for me. Is that right? I prefer outrageous to extra. But yeah, no, Sheldon felt like me because, you know, he's like this little, feisty, very active, energized creature who is suffering from a Napoleon complex and likes being teased and humiliated, but also hates it. And there's just a lot of eccentricities about this character that I identify with, which is funny because it's a little green cartoon character. Yeah. Oh, it's amazing. Spongebob, I was going to say, it is still, I mean, R.I.P. Spongebob, such a good show.

It was one of my, still is one of my favorite all-time musicals. I think out of the three Broadway shows I've been in, it was the best show I was in and it's the least successful, which is interesting. And there's so many reasons why, which is another episode for another time. But the character itself, do you, I guess he's a caricature and it's not your traditional sort of, you know, similar character like Lucas from Adam's Family, right? Like there's not a real Sheldon Plankton in real life. Like that could not happen. How do you approach that? You get the script and how do you start forming this person in your head?

[26:07] Wesley Taylor: Well, I try to find my way in. I try to find Wesley in it, which, you know, I think goes against a lot of my early preconceived notions of acting, which is that I have to always be a chameleon and transform into, you know, I have to be Daniel Day-Lewis. I have to go to Russia for two years and learn how to be a shoe cobbler to play it, you know, which is, I find a little silly now. I try to find my way and I try to find where I can connect. And so with Plankton, he was ambitious and he was, there's just a lot of things that I was like, oh, I see that and I see that and I see that and that is what I relate to. And then I would just, you know, try to devour the cartoon because I wasn't really very familiar with SpongeBob actually.

I was, I sort of missed that boat. I was, I was Doug and Rugrats and Hey Arnold and I was a little older than the SpongeBob generation, I think. But so I just started, you know, watching it on YouTube all day long and, you know, studying the voice. And it's also like they sort of tailor made it.

[28:43] Wesley Taylor: I went from Rock to Adams to Smash and I was like, oh, I'm invincible. I'm going to be on Broadway forever. I'm going to be employed forever. And so I never saved like I should have. I was living by myself on Central Park West and taking cabs everywhere. I mean, it was just irresponsible. So my hard knocks in the second half of my 20s were important to have in terms of just financial management. I mean, for the actor, for the artist, financial management is so much of it. And my boyfriend, Isaac Powell, who's now, you know, starring in Once on this Island is doing so well. And I'd like to think a lot of that has to do with my influence and my horror stories. So yeah, that's a big advice for anyone is to save the money because nothing lasts forever in this business.

And you will go through ebb and flow no matter how talented you are, how lucky you are, how in demand you are at a given moment. There will be moments when you're not. And not to say that I didn't work plenty during the second half of my 20s. But you have to understand that when you're doing, you know, guest stars, even like recurs, lots of development for theater labs, workshops, readings, you know, you're doing concerts, you're doing all these events and things. It's great. But to live off of those paychecks is very tricky, living hand to mouth paycheck to paycheck. And especially if you've sort of made a name for yourself a little bit, and you can't go back to driving Uber or waiting on the producers at the restaurant and stuff.

So it's tricky. And you start, you know, you learn how to collect unemployment between each gig, you learn how to this awful cycle of like, maybe you accrue some debt, and then you get a job and you pay off the debt. And then you get, you know, it's just I know it's, it's hard. No one said this was easy. So, especially, you know, when I got to, when I got to SpongeBob, I was I really did not take it for granted. Because I was like, Oh, now I'm older and wiser. And I know how rare this is. And I know how fortunate this I am right now. And so SpongeBob was probably my favorite Broadway experience, not because I mean, Franz was just a gift to play. I mean, that was a stupid Broadway debut. I had an 11 o'clock number, I really took it for granted.

It was just an amazing treat to play Franz in Rock of Ages. But for the most part, generally, SpongeBob SquarePants is something that I could really take and appreciate and not take for granted and enjoy and soak it all in. And as with anything, you've been in the cast just spot on, incredible, amazing. And you've even continued to work I think, with, you know, your friends, you seem to be actually genuine friends with a lot of the people.

[32:05] Alan Seales: Yeah, such a great from the cast.

[32:07] Wesley Taylor: Yeah, like the most pure cast I've ever worked with. Yeah, we loved each other a lot. And now it's safe to say, correct me if I'm wrong, that you are not currently employed on Broadway.

[32:17] Alan Seales: How dare you? Do you hate the question, what are you doing now? What's going on? Hey, Wesley, how you been?

[32:24] Wesley Taylor: Let me tell you something. When an actor is unemployed, nothing gives more anxiety than asking what they're working on, what they got coming up. And yet, everyone does it. I mean, even I'm guilty of doing it to my friends. And you don't mean it to be a negative thing. You mean it to be, you're just excited about that person's career and you know that they're so talented that they must be working on something else. They must be employed at all times and they must have a million projects lined up. But it's such a hard thing in between gigs. And I've definitely been in between gigs many times before. So it's just a funny sort of aspect of being an actor. And then it's also this tricky thing of like, if I am employed, but I haven't signed the contract yet, or it hasn't been announced yet, or we're negotiating the points of the contract, or I think I'm going to do this project, but I have this audition next week for something that will jeopardize it.

And I want that more, that kind of stuff. I can't talk about any of that, or I'll lose it, potentially. So that's another thing is you don't want to talk about these things. But you obviously want to provide people with some good news. I don't want people to think I'm sitting on the couch watching the time go by. I'm a proactive person. I'm productive. I'm proud of my productivity. And I want people to know that. But at the same time, it's hard because I definitely don't want to be one of those douchebags who are just like, oh, I can't talk about it right now. Something's very exciting in the works, but I don't want to be that person. And yet I don't want to not give an answer. And I also don't want to deprecate myself to death and say nothing's going on. So you know what I'm about to ask, right?

[34:22] Alan Seales: Oh, Jesus. Well, didn't I just give you my answer? The answer is, I may or may not have several things going on. A couple of things I can't discuss because they're not totally 100% confirmed yet. But I'm enjoying my freedom in going to theatre almost every night. I'm going to cabarets. I'm going to my friends' concerts and shows. And I'm getting dinner at reasonable hours. And I'm seeing people that I haven't seen in a long time. And life is fulfilling without a job. I don't need my entire purpose to be defined by the show I'm currently in.

[35:06] Wesley Taylor: Well, you've also done some modeling for TodayTix.

[35:11] Alan Seales: Oh, Jesus. Okay.

[35:13] Wesley Taylor: I mean, that's some good stuff.

[35:15] Alan Seales: Oh, thank you.

[35:16] Wesley Taylor: Yeah. And you have pet frogs.

[35:18] Alan Seales: Yes. Well, I'm sort of the stepdad because they're Isaacs.

[35:21] Wesley Taylor: Oh.

[35:22] Alan Seales: Yeah. But I love them like they were my own.

[35:25] Wesley Taylor: That's a good answer. You hear that, Isaac?

[35:27] Alan Seales: Yeah.

[35:28] Wesley Taylor: On the record, he loves them like his own. So, cool. We're going to wrap up here with a couple of the standard questions we ask everybody here. So, just in general, what motivates you?

[35:40] Wesley Taylor: Huh. Finally. Not bad. Insert Jeopardy! music here. You know, I am going to see a lot of theater right now because good theater inspires me to do theater. Reading a good book, reading a good script inspires me to write. Seeing an amazing quality cable show makes me propelled to create and write. And I'm inspired by other people. Other people motivate me. Other artists, works of art that touch me and affect me, that resonate with me, that's what motivates me and pushes me to keep going, to tell stories.

[36:24] Alan Seales: Yeah. Is that okay?

[36:25] Wesley Taylor: It's great.

[36:26] Alan Seales: Thanks.

[36:26] Wesley Taylor: There's no wrong answer.

[36:27] Alan Seales: Okay. What advice would you give to your younger self and younger people listening now starting out down a similar path? And I think you probably already answered this.

[36:36] Wesley Taylor: I'd say read a lot of books. I'd say relax. Stop taking yourself so seriously. Get over yourself. Be kinder. Actually, you know what? I would say stop taking yourself seriously. But at the same time, I had this crazy work ethic and discipline that I think, while it's silly and we can make fun of it now, it really did start a focus in me at an early age that I think was very good. Even though it was myopic, it was very strong, focused energy towards a common goal. So maybe I wouldn't change that about myself. Oh, I would not quit the piano. That is something that I'm so mad at myself that I stopped. My parents made my sister and I practice the piano for an hour a day. I'd say I was doing it for about five or six years.

And when I was 11 or 12, they suddenly had this epiphany as parents that they shouldn't force us to play every day or something. They were like, you can play another instrument if you want to, but you can stop. And I, of course, took them up on it because I hated being forced to practice every day for an hour. But it is one of my biggest regrets.

[37:57] Alan Seales: Mine too, actually. I had several instruments my parents let me quit and I'm like, just saxophone. Why not the saxophone or the violin?

[38:01] Wesley Taylor: The thing about the sax is the sax a little bit went out of style in terms of like...

[38:07] Alan Seales: Just in terms of reading music.

[38:08] Wesley Taylor: Oh, I know. No, but the violin could have been very beneficial for you to this day. And I think if I would play the piano now, it would be so helpful. I could write a musical instead of just plays.

[38:17] Alan Seales: Yeah. I thought you were going to say save your money because that's what you mentioned earlier.

[38:29] Wesley Taylor: Oh, and save your money. Yes. And then last question here. 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 show would you see?

[38:35] Wesley Taylor: Oh, my goodness. That's really hard. That's the point. I think one of the best shows in musical theater, a true masterpiece that I connect to and it resonates with me on a deep level forever is Cabaret. And most of the things that Fosse touched have a special place in my heart. But Cabaret specifically, Kander and Ebb, and the historical context of what was happening tied into like, I don't know, the most brilliant musical storytelling and iconic characters. So I would say Cabaret.

[39:21] Alan Seales: Fair. All right. So on the socials, where can we find you?

[39:28] Wesley Taylor: On Instagram, I am SirWesTayTay. On Twitter, I am just WesTayTay. Honestly, on Instagram, I demand respect.

[39:42] Alan Seales: Yeah, I have a Facebook fan page, Wesley Taylor. That's it.

[39:46] Wesley Taylor: And then on YouTube, search, of course, for Billy Green. Indoor Boys and It Could Be Worse, which were the last two web series that I've created are on Vimeo. Or you could go to indoorboys.tv or itcouldbeworse.tv. But yeah, Billy Green's on YouTube.

[40:05] Alan Seales: Wonderful. Well, thank you very much for coming.

[40:08] Wesley Taylor: Thanks for having me. This was fun.

[40:09] Alan Seales: You can always connect with me at theater underscore podcast on Instagram and Twitter or via Facebook at facebook.com slash official theater podcast. And if you could take a moment, also just go rate the podcast, give an honest feedback. And I do read that. So your feedback is very important. You can also connect via email feedback at thetheaterpodcast.com. I think that's all I've got. As always, thanks to our friends, Jukebox the Ghost, for providing the music for this podcast. See you next time.