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[0:00] Matt Doyle: Hi, I'm Matt Doyle, and welcome to The Theatre Podcast with Alan Seales.

[0:11] Alan Seales: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to The Theatre Podcast with Alan Seales. That is me, and our guest today is Matt Doyle, a Tony Award-winning performer with an incredible journey. He shares some of the highs and lows of his career and the moments that shaped him, especially like starting out straight out of the gate with something like Spring Awakening. And of course, just the reality of navigating the unpredictable landscape. But he opens up a lot about overcoming self-doubt, finding balance, and actually, like the surreal pressure of performing "Getting Married Today" from Company, even on the night Stephen Sondheim passed away. It's an honest, heartfelt, and very hilarious deep dive into the life of an artist who has truly embraced every twist and turn that's been thrown at him.

So don't forget to follow the show everywhere on socials, leave a review if you like it, and check out my Patreon or Spotify for the video version of this interview. And now, everybody, please enjoy this episode with Matt Doyle.

[1:14] Alan Seales: Today's guest won the 2022 Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical for his performance as Jamie in Broadway's revival of Company. Ding Dong. He recently made his UK stage debut, starring as Frank Sinatra in the world premiere of Sinatra: The Musical. Broadway credits include the Tony-winning musicals The Book of Mormon, Spring Awakening, and now Tony Award-winning Best Play, War Horse, and the revival of Bye Bye Birdie. Jesus. These off-Broadway credits include Little Shop, Sweeney, and Brooklynite, and he has performed at Carnegie Hall with the New York Pops, at symphonies across the country. He continues to headline sold-out solo shows throughout New York City and beyond. Is there anything else beyond New York? Of course there is. He can now be seen opposite Caroline Aaron in Conversations with Mother, now playing off-Broadway at Theatre 555. Matt Doyle, welcome to The Theatre Podcast.

[2:06] Matt Doyle: Oh my goodness, thank you so much. It's very strange to hear my resume read out.

[2:10] Alan Seales: It's almost as if you wrote that yourself.

[2:12] Matt Doyle: Yeah, I don't think I did. I think that was left to the press team, thank God.

[2:17] Alan Seales: Yeah, the press team sent me that. I was like, oh, that's great. I don't need to modify that at all. I'll just change Matt to he, and there's my intro. Talk about a third person. Looking back at all of this, you said it's weird to hear it read out. Is there anything so far that just surprises you that you're like, is that me? Bye Bye Birdie. I'm like, wait, what? I did a production of Bye Bye Birdie because it was short-lived, and it was early on in my career, and it was a very, very strange, oddly-received production. It's like this wild thing that feels like a fever dream. Did that really happen? Yes, it did.

[2:52] Alan Seales: Looking back on that, do you remember it fondly? That kind of stuff, leading up through rehearsals and tech and everything, and as we're recording this now, you're still in previews for Conversations with Mother, so stuff could be still changing. Until you open a show and lock it, it seems like you just can't remember your ass from a hole in the ground for the most part.

[3:07] Matt Doyle: Yeah. I have such little memory of what I actually did in Bye Bye Birdie. I know it was Hugo Peabody, but what I remember from Bye Bye Birdie was because we knew we were in something that maybe wasn't being well-received, maybe wasn't what we hoped it would be, that's usually when you have the best time with your cast because you have to come together as a family and really support one another. I was coming straight out of Spring Awakening at the time. All of my friends had just booked Glee, and I had a big ego and probably a big attitude and thought that I should be certain places or doing certain things. I was put in the adult male ensemble dressing room, and they all just kind of took me under their wing and beat me into shape.

[4:03] Alan Seales: How old are you at this point?

[4:03] Matt Doyle: I was 22, I think. I mean, you're an adult male legally.

[4:07] Alan Seales: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But frontal lobe-wise.

[4:10] Matt Doyle: Frontal lobe was not there yet. Nope, not at all. John Tracy Egan, I'll never forget. He's so fucking amazing. Oh, excuse my language. John Tracy Egan is so amazing and was so kind to me and just whipped me into shape and told me to buck up and grow up and also just cared so deeply about me and made sure that I appreciated everything that was happening in my life and appreciated that I was a working actor at my age and that I had a big, bright future ahead. He really gave me the motivation and perspective I needed, and that's why that show really, I think, shifted and shaped me. It was just a great learning lesson after something so bizarre as starting your career in a show like Spring Awakening, which is just not normal.

[4:59] Alan Seales: No. No, it's funny. I just released an episode a few weeks ago with Alexander Socha. He had the same experience, right? He literally left high school early to go and skipped college, went straight into this, and then came out with this ego and had to be checked, right?

[5:17] Matt Doyle: I tell people all the time, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. So when you got whipped into shape, was it like, yo, boy, your ego's complete crap, we got to work on this, or is it, I got to tell you something?

[5:28] Matt Doyle: It was really great. I remember that it was a room full of men who had all been leads on Broadway, and now we're grateful to be in the ensemble of this revival and playing dads, and they all had their own lives, and they were all going home at night, and they all knew that this was work. This was eight shows a week, and this was hard work. I think I was just being a little negative one day and sitting in my corner and was just this little dark storm cloud over my head, and I must have made some flippant comment that made John just whip around and just said, you know what? You have it so good, and you don't even know it. That was in tech. From then on, I just was like, oh, no, I've turned into that?

No, I can't be that. That's not who I am. So I worked really hard with them, making sure that I changed my perspective and that I just was so grateful for what I had. I was 21 and in my second Broadway show, and oh my God, what am I talking about? This is everything I ever wanted growing up, and there's nothing to be worried about. It's just taking one step at a time.

[6:32] Alan Seales: That's really good on you to go what we'll call the positive route because you could have been like, oh, well, screw you. I know better than you, you old fart. You're a dad now. You don't know what you're talking about. You're not cool.

[6:42] Matt Doyle: No, I think it was because I had such respect for these people, and I didn't want them to think negatively of me, and just to be called out was so good. It's like you said, though. I've talked to everyone from Spring Awakening, and they have all had similar experiences right after the show. We were in this bubble and little monsters with these huge egos, and half of us... Jen Damiano was 15 years old when she was doing that show. What is that going to do to someone's mind? It's so bizarre. It was great. We all kind of look at each other now when we run into each other on the street and have those moments that you have with people from high school where you're like, you've seen me in the strangest times. You cringe a little bit. You apologize for something that happened years ago, and they're like, I don't even remember that.

[7:35] Alan Seales: Isn't that funny, though? You remember something with one person or group of people that just eats at you at the back of your head for years, decades now at this point, and you bring it up to somebody, and they're like, what are you talking about?

[7:45] Matt Doyle: I did it with Michael Mayer about something because Michael was basically my drama teacher at that point, and he was for all of us. We were his little students, and we learned from the great Michael Mayer. I think when I was working on Little Shop with him recently, I brought up this one time where he pulled me aside and gave me a good scolding and everything. He was like, what are you talking about, Matt? I was like, Michael, you don't understand how much that scarred me for life. He was like, I don't even know, nor do I care. You're fine.

[8:19] Alan Seales: It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all. When you were younger, Little Matt, your origin story, what got you into performing? What made you attracted to the stage? Was it film or just being an actor in general?

[8:31] Matt Doyle: When I was a kid, I always wanted to be a film actor, and then that morphed into stage because that was the thing I could do right there in front of me in the town I grew up in. My sister, she went to RISD for draw paint and then film as well, and she's brilliant. My oldest sister was also an artist. I was just in the shadow of two older girls that were very artistic as well, my parents who were fiercely artistic and had very, very strong opinions on art. I was the youngest, and I felt like I couldn't keep up with everyone. I went through severe bullying in middle school, as a young gay man usually does. I was looking for something that offered me a community, and I had this wonderful teacher, Marilyn Izdebski, who swept me under her wing.

She brought me into her community theater outside of my middle school. I met like-minded individuals, and then it was my own thing. My sisters didn't do it. My parents really didn't get it. They appreciated it because they loved the arts, but they had no opinions on it. I felt like I could just actually blossom and succeed in it. Then I realized shortly after that, when I discovered that I loved it and I wanted to work on it, that I was actually good at it. That was something that I just held on to. I think by 14 or 15, I was like, well, this is what I'm doing, period. I have decided this is going to be my career. The bug caught me pretty early on, but honestly, it mostly came from just finding a community and feeling accepted and feeling like I had my own thing.

[10:16] Alan Seales: Were you out in middle school or just bullied because people were-

[10:21] Matt Doyle: It was just like I was the awkward, soon-to-be gay guy. I went to this school that had eight boys in my grade. It was crazy. It was so small. They had all known each other from childhood. I came in in sixth grade and was very different. It did not go well, to say the least. I would, but by high school, that was really good for me because the bullying was so severe. I was knocked out unconscious a couple of times. It was like, now I look back on it and I'm like, holy crap. That was something else. I then went to high school. Because I had gone through that and come out on the other side of it, I was, I would say, probably way far ahead of a lot of my peers in high school in terms of owning who I was. I came out in high school and a lot of people knew that I was gay and told most of my family at a young age, like 15, 16. I was just who I was. I was wearing the most insane clothes just to make a point. I don't know.

[11:37] Alan Seales: Oh, man. I'm sorry to hear that physical stuff. I mean, words are one thing. Physical is a whole different level. Then to the point of being knocked unconscious too. I think that sort of answer is what I was sort of getting at earlier about when you were pulled aside in Bye Bye Birdie and you're like, that's not how I want to be. You have a self-awareness that unfortunately was literally beat into you.

[12:01] Matt Doyle: Yeah, absolutely. I think I have a lot of anxiety wrapped around being perfect a lot. I think that it comes from being defeated at such a young age. You reassess constantly, oh, am I on the path that I want to create for myself? You overcome something at a young age and you're like, okay, I want to do well and I want to do it perfectly and I want to succeed in all the right ways. That also means socially too. If somebody takes you aside and says, hey, you're kind of a jerk and your ego is really out of control, I will listen because that to me is like, oh no, I am screwing up. What do you do now to check in with yourself? Do you have moments where you're like, what am I doing? Is this where I want to be? When life is so hectic, especially now during previews, attack and everything, how do you keep yourself grounded?

[12:55] Matt Doyle: I talk a lot about my mental health and it is a daily struggle for me. I struggle with manic depression and also severe anxiety disorder. Keeping that in check has been the balance of my entire career and I've learned so many lessons over the years of how to make sure that I don't let it affect my work life but also bring it into my work life. Something like Jamie in Company could never have been created if I didn't understand that kind of panic and that level of anxiety. I'm proud of it and I embrace it in a lot of ways, but if I recognize that it's pushing people away or that I'm putting my mental health onto others in a way that's unhealthy, it's really those moments that I check in with myself and just try to ground myself and check in with my family.

They're my constant. They're my people. The ones that are there for you on a daily basis and that I've known you since you were worrying about absurd things as a child are the ones that I make sure that I really connect with. Sometimes it's a simple trip home. My parents live in Connecticut, which is lovely. They're close enough that I can just escape for a weekend and touch base with them that usually is enough for me to be grounded again. Talking to my sister who can just whip me into shape in one phone call and give me perspective is always helpful, but it's always the constants that bring me back.

[14:25] Alan Seales: Wow. Well, getting married today, the anxiety of that song, the patter song, because you mentioned Company, getting married today. I remember talking with you. It was a quick little snippet, I think, on the red carpet of Company. It was years ago, right? And you were just like, I don't know how I'm doing it. It gives me anxiety every night. Now knowing more of your backstory, it seems like the anxiety of that patter song, I've done patter songs and messed them up almost every other night. So dealing with a diagnosed anxiety disorder and this show in general, which has a lot of eyes because of Patti LuPone and the gender swapping and everything that it was going through, it won the Tony for Best Revival. What were you doing at that point to keep yourself focused, not spinning out of control with anxiety for that every night? Because I know that was difficult for you eight times a week.

[15:20] Matt Doyle: Do you know what? I think the reason why I didn't spin out of control on that was one of my closest friends was directing me in that. Marianne and I got very close during War Horse and we kind of didn't talk for years and years. And then when we came back together in the audition room for Company, just that chemistry that we had during War Horse and we were drinking buddies throughout that entire production. And just like I was her, you know, her like her mate, you know, that she just hung out with as soon as rehearsal stopped. And that chemistry came back immediately. So a lot of the insecurities that happened during Company were eased by this person that was not only my mentor, but a really good friend of mine who understood me and understood my anxieties.

And she was able to really guide me and calm me down. And also, I think I was God, it's so absurd to say, but I was fortunate in a lot of ways that we lived through that pandemic, because leading up to it originally, when we were supposed to open in March of 2020, I was not feeling good about my performance. And my performance also was not anywhere near where it landed two years later. And I think that's because all I could think about were the outside things that don't matter what people are going to think how they're going to compare me to Jonathan Bailey, who had just gotten all the success off of it, what the Times was going to think of me, you know, that's when Ben Brantley was still there.

And just like all of those absurd pressures that you claim you don't care about, but obviously are sitting there, you know, what's Patti gonna think of me, you know, like all of those things. Not one to withhold words, exactly. All of those things kind of fly out the window as soon as you live through a global pandemic, because it just gives you perspective that it's all nonsense. And we're just so lucky to be able to be doing this. And so to come back and see the entire audience and masks just to be there, supporting us and to see theater again. It pushes a lot of that anxiety aside and allows you to just relax into the fact that you actually get to perform. Now, that's not to say I didn't have anxieties.

I had to do that song the night Stephen Sondheim died. And I remember like rolling out just like don't screw this up. Just insane. And Caroline Aaron, who I'm working with now, she asked me the other day, you know, because she does a lot of film and TV. She goes, I mean, I get so nervous in theater. Don't you get nervous when it's like this? And I said, no. And I literally use that as an example. I said, if you roll out to do Getting Married Today, the night Stephen Sondheim died on Broadway, it kind of pushes away a lot of those nerves in the future. And luckily, I didn't screw it up that night. But I am such a perfectionist that when I did screw it up, oh, man, the tantrum I had afterwards backstage, just like I would run up to my dressing room and cry.

But that's me. What am I? What am I? Old jobs. Somebody got me. I was about a three inch by five inch high, three inch high by five inch wide table with like little tiny silverware and plates and drink cups and a little little paper things. And so whenever I get angry, I just go in like mini flip. I flip the table. Nice. And then I like that. And so I have this little mini cardboard table on my desk. I'd be like, flick it. And then and then the cathartic part was just putting everything back on the table. Oh, my God. It was really. So I recommend that for your dressing room. I'll get you that dressing room. Amazing. Mini table flip. I love that.

[18:49] Alan Seales: Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back after this break.

[18:53] Alan Seales: Welcome back to the episode going back to Spring Awakening, your debut. Right. So how did that fall into your lap? Because if what did you you grew up in Ohio, you said?

[19:05] Matt Doyle: No, I grew up in California. Well, I'm originally from Massachusetts. And then my family moved out to California when I was like 12. And I was supposed to go to Carnegie Mellon for their acting program. And I kind of just panicked at the last minute because it didn't feel right. I didn't really think I was a university kid and moving to Pittsburgh kind of scared me. So I applied to a graduate program at Lambda London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art like the last minute. It was like one of the last auditions you could do. I think I was already into Carnegie Mellon. I thought I was going and they accepted me and it was for postgrads and professionals. So I think the next, you know, youngest person there, I was 18 and the next youngest was like 23.

And we had all the way up to like 45 in my class. And yeah, I decided to do that instead. And like my best friend was Parisian and I had the most absurd year of like going to Paris on the weekends. And I came back and I had deferred from Carnegie Mellon and I thought, okay, I'm going to go back to school now. And no, there was no way. So I decided to stay in the city and my parents were amazing. They were like, you can do that and you don't have to go to school, but we are not paying for you to play house in the city. So go get a job and figure it out. And I got a job as a production assistant and I didn't have an agent. So like I just went to open calls and I was so, so lucky that about a year into my auditioning in the city, there was this show called Spring Awakening moving to Broadway and they needed unexperienced kids, you know, inexperienced kids that had never like really that were authentic and raw and saying rock and could speak, you know, semi-classical text. And I just like somehow fell right into place. And I went to the equity open call and sat on the non-equity benches to be seen and went through about like seven months of callbacks and got the show.

[21:06] Alan Seales: Yeah. So a year, a year of not getting anything that you were in New York. So a year in you audition seven months of callbacks. So are at any point are you like, what am I doing? Or are you just the whole time like all the time?

[21:18] Matt Doyle: Yeah, I reached out to Lambda like twice, like, you know, hey, could you take me back? Because I like Carnegie Mellon. I was like, I'll do the two year program like whatever, like wherever I can land. And they were great. They were like, yeah, absolutely. Whenever you want to come back. So I did have that like in my back pocket as like possibly going back to school. So I think that was nice to know. But I also had things that were like really close calls kind of telling me that this could still happen. I had gotten to the final callbacks of the Avenue Q national tour opposite Rob McClure. It was me and him up for it.

[21:54] Matt Doyle: Oh, yeah, absolutely absurd. And I walked into that audition. And Stephen Remus took one look at me and just started laughing because I looked like a child. And he goes, I'm sorry, you're singing about college. How old are you? And I was like, I go over 18. And he was like, that's all I need to know. And so he like wrote me this really sweet email afterwards. I was like, buddy, you were just too young. I'm sorry. But I got so close to that. And I thought, you know, just keep going to keep trying. And luckily, the right show fell into my lap. Rob McClure, such a jerk. I mean, oh, my God, I love that man so much. I can't even handle it. And he's like, I he goes, I do remember like this little boy sitting in the audition wing with me. He was like, but that's all I remember. And I was like, yeah, well, I remember you.

[22:50] Matt Doyle: Yeah, yeah. Well, it happened. I was supposed to work out, obviously. And it's done done well for you and put you down a nice path. And then so now, I mean, originating that you get on Broadway, you're like, this is it. I'm I'm the hot shit now. I'm going to make it everything I auditioned for is mine. So then after Spring Awakening, where where does it go and and how many reality checks do you get beyond that point?

[23:17] Matt Doyle: A lot of reality checks. There were so many things that I think I was up for, like, you know, especially at that time where it was Glee was happening and a lot of like big opportunities were presenting themselves as possibilities even on that show. And there were just a lot of moments that I was like, no, that's not that's not my path. And I kept on thinking it would be and then it would shift, you know, overnight. I never expected War Horse to happen. It wasn't on my radar. It wasn't something I was pushing for. And it just did. And I went to the, you know, the auditions for that and thought kind of nothing of it. And then all of a sudden, you're in this, you know, 30 something person company putting together like the most unbelievable.

[25:32] Matt Doyle: When to leave something that seems stable and in this industry that is so incredibly unstable because yeah like Bye Bye Birdie closes or something's a limited run or whatever the case is but when you have something like a Book of Mormon that literally isn't stopping anytime soon, what choice do you? I mean yeah, what goes into your choices to be like, you know what, I'm just gonna jump without a parachute right now? Well, and sometimes you just don't know what's going to happen because I did do that with Book of Mormon and they offered me, I was supposed to do a year on the road and then possibly a year in London after that and you know they wanted to continue my contract and I very bravely said no. I had a bunch of things in the works, one of them was a show called Brooklynite which did have a short life off Broadway, another show called Diner that Sheryl Crow was writing that I was a lead in, and then I had just like landed the Jamie Lloyd, believe it or not, production of Back to the Future as Marty McFly.

This was all cancelled and canned, so when I said no, here was that, that was 2000, that would have been 2015 in the West End is when they were playing it, yeah early, early, yeah, yeah, and Jamie dropped out and then he took the book with him and the whole thing was scrapped. It was wild and so when I left Book of Mormon I was like no, I feel like things are going really well, I can't do two more years of this show, it's going to destroy my voice if I you know play this role that long and I just can't do it, so I walked away from that and then unfortunately you know Brooklynite didn't move, Diner was cancelled, and then Back to the Future was cancelled and like all these things just like collapse and that's just how it goes sometimes and that's the risk that you have to be willing to take.

Now that being said, if I hadn't taken that move, as hard as those years were following Book of Mormon because you know you go from like oh I feel very successful, lucrative, I feel stable to not feeling stable at all, I took the biggest reality check and stepped back in the world for my career and I actually left the business for about a year and I worked as a personal trainer and wrote comic books and I thought you know this is all after Book of Mormon and I thought I don't think I'm gonna do that again, I don't think that that's gonna, I had no idea you left. Oh yeah, I was like I don't think that's gonna fall into my lap again and that's okay, I did it, that's really fun, I got to do kind of like the pinnacle of it and that's amazing but I'm enjoying writing, it's paying the bills, you know this personal training thing pays more than most of my Broadway jobs have like so I was just like great, I'm good and out of nowhere I got an offer to do West Side Story at Paper Mill and to play Tony and I'd never played Tony and I just thought yeah, I miss it, why not?

So I did this summer of a show that had no pressure on it to go anywhere or do anything, we were just doing West Side Story and a great production of it that lovingly and I was reminded of like this, I need this, I need this in my life and then that led to Sweeney Todd off Broadway and then that led to me getting to know Stephen Sondheim which also led to me doing Company which is like your path just, you don't know what's around the corner and it's easy to feel so defeated after like these super high moments and thinking surely I'm making the right choice by not taking all that money and going on with Book of Mormon for two more years and then I lived with regret for years thinking like oh I just really screwed up but I didn't, I didn't because I absolutely went on the path I was supposed to go on and then you're conveniently like glossing over you know led to Company which led to Tony Award which is absurd, hello, I mean absolutely absurd and I just can't, I mean I still can't believe it and every time I hear it read or reflect back on that and what that moment was, it's really overwhelming and also so strange because the pandemic shifted everything.

I mean it was originally supposed to be the year was going to be Danny Burstein's year that we all went into that year, everyone that was a supporting actor that year was like I mean Danny Burstein's winning a Tony, great, cool, so I don't even have to worry about this, I don't have to think about this or anything and then that all got shifted from the pandemic and I remember coming back after that like weird Tony thing that they did, she's an online virtual thing, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember coming back and just be realizing like oh my category is totally changed, oh this is working out and then you know the hype started to build and I'd started to hear people saying things to me that I didn't want to hear and all of a sudden you realize like oh I'm actually like maybe in the running for this and it's a very strange thing to live through, very strange and not at all on my like list of expectations that year, like at all, for me it was just like we just get to make theater again after two years of not being able to and all of a sudden yeah it turned into a Tony award which was the most real thing.

What was it like in the cast when you found out Sondheim had died? Oh, it was so hard, I remember collapsing and sobbing and I remember Clay was next to me, Clayborne Elder, and he fell to his knees as well and I remember Patty standing tall and holding her head up, she had heard the news just about like maybe 10 minutes before us and we were all holding hands and the emotion was just unbelievable, it was letting out a lot of pain because what we had originally planned was to open on his 90th birthday, right? And it was going to be amazing and he was going to rise up in, there was a box with a heart in it where the priest rose up every night before getting married today and he was going to come up in that, we were all going to sing happy birthday to him in the theater and then this pandemic happened and then he was there our first preview back and it was amazing to have him there and he was giving us notes still and telling us stories and he passed five days after that so it was just like this gut punch, one more gut punch after everything, losing him and losing this legend that we were, you know, making what was so beautiful about that production is how happy it made him, he just was bowled over by it and was so involved, every single change came from him and it was like it felt like we were actively working with him so to lose him in that moment was really, really tough.

We certainly performed it for him every night after that, you know, it meant so much more if coming back from a global pandemic and bringing theater back didn't mean enough, now we were doing it for Stephen Sondheim as well and just losing him, it was just so, so profound and then followed by a ridiculous Jesse Green review and then followed by you know Omicron and you know the second wave of the pandemic and just like the things that show went through, we were just like keep your chin up, let's keep going. Right, well that's one of those things where it wins, it wins the Tony for best revival and the audiences love it and then a month, literally a month after the Tonys, it closes. Yeah, you know we were pushing through a lot and our producers were amazing, I mean Chris Harper is the loveliest man in the world and we luckily, you know, nothing like this will exist now but we got that incredible grant that was saving our stages and we had money from that and I think the show was surviving enough but it wasn't making money and I think they hoped if we make it to the Tonys and we win best revival, there's going to be a huge uptick but the thing about best revivals is that no matter what, there's not usually a huge boost in sales even if you win best revival, for whatever reason that's just kind of a thing that I've learned now from the producers in this city and we didn't get that huge uptick and they just knew that it was time to close it.

They thought about doing a big round of you know replacements and maybe trying to boost sales that way but ending on a note that might have been sour versus ending strong with Patty LuPone and Katrina Lenk was I think how they wanted to go out and Matt Doyle. Oh thank you, Tony winner, mad wild, it's still, I'm still like liar, you're a liar, I don't believe you, that's true, that's fake. So now getting fast forward and you've got a bunch of stuff and so Tony winning, Tony winner, like your Tony, your Tony award is somewhere in your place, yeah, and how do the offers come to you? What do you choose what you're doing now and Conversations with Mother is such an intimate and special story? Yeah, like what, again, two-part question, how do you choose what you're doing and how has your life changed since the Tony and then Conversations with Mother, why choose that?

Well, in some ways, I was talking, you know, a lot of people know this but Bonnie Milligan's my best friend and we randomly won Tonys like one year after another which was so strange because we've known each other for 12 years and we have this conversation a lot where we're like a lot changes and then absolutely nothing changes, you know, like what's nice is that sometimes you get offers, sometimes you get approached to go to a final callback but it's still all the same stuff that you're dealing with on a day-to-day basis and you're still in competition with everyone else, you know, it's not like this huge shift of like here the world's yours now, you know, that doesn't exist. But it's an amazing thing to have and it certainly boosts like the concert series stuff, you know, and being able to go to random cities across the country and do a cabaret as a Tony winner is very, very nice and helps you through the off periods but yeah, I mean I still audition for a lot of things and in the case of Conversations with Mother, it wasn't an audition, it was an offer that came to me and I was so excited to the prospect of doing a play because first of all, I didn't study musical theater so it's really funny that it's like my world and has fallen into my lap as much as it has.

[36:03] Matt Doyle: I came back to New York thinking I'll do a lot of classical theater, which is hysterical to think that there's so much Shakespeare here that I was just going to have a career in classical theater. But I came back and I never really got to do that many plays. I did War Horse, so this was a really exciting opportunity for me for that alone. Then I read the script and within the first 10 pages, I was hooked just because I know this woman, I know this family, and I wanted to do something light right now. It is such a dark time that we're living in and right after the election, my father said to me, "That's it. I'm turning off CNN. I'm turning off the news and we have to start connecting more." He's made such an effort to do so and he's like, "It's family that matters.

It's just family that matters. That's what's going to get us through the next four years no matter what goes on. It's family that matters. We have to reconnect." He's been very motivated about that. I thought as I was reading it, it was such a nice reflection of that. I wanted to do something that was just about human connection and about family and something that would make people laugh and hopefully cry. It was so touching and I was so grateful that I was getting like a straight offer. I felt very fancy. Then I heard I was being paired with Caroline Aaron and I was such a huge fan of hers and love Maisel and love her work in so many different things. I told her the other day, "You're in my favorite movie and you play a really small part, but it's Big Night, which is Stanley Tucci's first film that he directed and it's so good and she's so brilliant in it."

She has like one scene as a customer who doesn't understand Italian food and she's brilliant and I love her. I was just so thrilled to work with her and it's been a joy. I mean, it's just been exactly what I needed right now and it just gets better and better. I think the audience's reaction and how positive the reaction's been so far has not surprised us, but thrilled us. I mean, you never know. We're so grateful that people are connecting with it the way they are and that it's been received so well. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back after this break.

[39:11] Matt Doyle: Absolutely. I love that the show addresses not just the relationship between mothers and sons or mothers and daughters and just the connection that we have with our mothers, but also a very, very specific relationship, which is a mom and a gay son. That is something that we don't see a lot of media around. There are some things, but just to embrace it and really just understand it, it's on another level that my sisters always talk about that they just don't get. I don't understand how mom has so much patience with your bullshit, and yet I can't even get away with this. I think it's because not only am I her son and her youngest and everything, but also we have this connection that is because I had to share something so personal and so scary at such a young age, we started telling each other things that were so much more intimate than my sisters ever thought about talking about with my mom.

It starts at a really young age, especially if you come out to your mom really young, and the story really explores that. I love that the gay element of our show, it's not a thing. It's not something she has to work through as an Italian Catholic. She finds out about it, but that's not the issue. Their relationship and what they learn from one another is completely separate from that. I love that, especially right now. I love that we're not making this show about like, except your son for being gay. No, you should. That's beside the point.

[41:08] Matt Doyle: Caroline's character, the mother character, she's so critical and she's so in the son's business and just wants the best and is one of those hands-on, I'm going to tell you everything you need to do with your life to make it the best life it can be sort of thing. Then being gay is never an issue. It's never a question. It's never a plot point. It's just like, yeah, he's my son. I don't care who he's having sex with as long as he's safe about it.

[41:39] Matt Doyle: Yes, exactly. I pulled a lot from that because it was very similar. My mom struggled at first because she was scared about certain things like HIV, like how my father was going to react, all these different things, but ultimately, my mom was my fiercest supporter. Then the biggest thing that keeps coming up in my life is because I'm an artist, I seek validation in my work and I seek validation from other places. I don't honor my own self-worth a lot. It's something that I really struggle with on a daily basis. That new relationship of mine, it's something that rears its head again and I have to examine and really understand. There's just this wonderful moment in the show where she talks about my character constantly chasing the thing and that the thing is never the thing.

Until you recognize your own self-worth and stop seeking it in other places and other guys and other plays, wherever you think your satisfaction is going to be somehow, until you actually find it within yourself, you're never going to be happy. The play really explores that. It's a beautiful message and one that I try to listen to every night myself. I need to just take that in myself. It's chasing the thing. It's like as soon as you get there, I forget to look back. I reference this a lot. Andre De Shield's acceptance speech when he won his Tony, he said, in the late 60s, 70s when he won his Tony. He's going on about how grateful he is. He's like, just don't forget to turn around and look back to see where you've come from because the top of one mountain is the bottom of the next.

You got to keep going. You keep climbing, but don't forget to turn around and see how far you've come. Most of them will tell you, the most depressing year of my life was the year right after just because you reach this peak that you always envisioned and thought was impossible, magical. Somehow, there lies happiness and then you get there and you're like, oh, okay, so nothing really changed. It's a very surreal thing. I think that's true of any business and any success that we come across. I remember feeling the same way when I made my Broadway debut. It's not this fantasy that you get to. Now, you still have to do your job every day, but be grateful for it and recognize what you have. It's always a balancing act.

[43:23] Alan Seales: I think about the one lyric from Hamilton quite frequently. I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory, and I equate that to making my Broadway debut, which I have never done. I've never officially been paid to perform on a Broadway stage. But I've had numerous anxiety dreams about making a Broadway debut. Literally one of them was Hamilton. More often it's Moulin Rouge, where I'm in the audience. They call five minutes before curtain. They're like, Alan Sayles, please come to the stage door. Vaudevillian accent. And so I go around the side and they're like, you're on as ensemble number three. Go. And I'm like, I don't know any lines. I've never had any rehearsal. They're like, we don't care. Figure it out. And so that's my memory. My imaginary memory of making debut is this hugely full of anxiety moment that now I'm not even sure if I want anymore because it's so stressful.

[45:31] Matt Doyle: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, but it is great. Oh, my God. But it's also like it is such a nice lesson. You know, I teach a lot now and I have a lot of kids, you know, ask me how to get on Broadway, just specifically how to get on Broadway. And I'm like, well, is that something that like you genuinely want to do? You know, the eight shows a week in New York, living in New York, paying New York money. Yeah. When you're not really making enough money to live in New York and like do you want like make sure that that is something that like you want, like you genuinely want for yourself, not just like I want to achieve that so that I can put that feather in my cap and say, ha ha ha. I made it to Broadway, you know, like because that that won't provide you joy or satisfaction if that's all you're seeking.

You know, I promise you, because it gets real. And then you're doing eight shows a week and also like be proud of your community's theater. If you live in a city that has great theater, be a big fish in a small pond, you know, like that's also really satisfying and thrilling. And you don't need to be on Broadway to find, you know, joy and happiness in the performing arts.

[46:44] Alan Seales: Yeah, I agree. It's why why do you want to perform? Why do you want to be on Broadway specifically? And that why is going to tell you who you are and help you find your self-worth because you're right. People may be totally happy just doing community theater, their whole life, not knocking community theater, talking about on a professional scale. Right. I've done I have so many friends that moved to Seattle, that moved to Chicago, and they're like, I am so much happier here. Like my life just changed and I work year round and I have a community that I know and love that never changes. And this is what I needed, you know.

[47:39] Matt Doyle: Yeah. I talked to Caitlin Kittenden every now and then from the I love her. And right. And all of she moved to Seattle and she's based out of Washington, somewhere in Washington. Yeah. Yeah. She's just working year round and so happy. So, yeah, you're exactly right. It's and I know people from Raleigh, Raleigh-Durham, where I'm from that just they choose to stay there and they're based out of that every now and then they'll come up here and do something maybe. But they're yeah. Enjoy themselves so much. Yes. And cost of living is stupid cheap compared to New York. Exactly.

[48:00] Matt Doyle: So real quick, before we wind down, talk to me about Sinatra, the musical for a minute, maybe West End debut recently. Yeah. Yeah. I was it was so thrilling. I mean, this is so surreal. It's funny because, look, I know everybody knows me as a tenor with an Irish last name. And I think at the

[48:03] Matt Doyle: Yeah, people were like, wait, what's happening? I am half Italian. All right, and I also loved the idea that people were like, yeah, they cast a guy's Sinatra that they're gonna change the keys for it. No, that's not happening. But I went in and I was so excited going for it and I reached out to Kathleen Marshall. I said, I really want to be seen for this and she was like really okay interesting, you know, and my agent made sure I was seen for it and so I auditioned for it and Kathleen was thrilled and was like come back tomorrow Tina Sinatra is gonna be here and so I auditioned for the estate and Universal Music and Tina Sinatra and Tina I remember like dropped her water bottle when I started singing and I could see her whispering the entire time to who I now know is Michelle Anthony who's like one of the CEOs of Universal Music and I left the room and within like 10 minutes I had a phone call from Kathleen Marshall and she was like hi, honey you need to meet us at or so right now and I was like, oh, or so the restaurant in Midtown.

I said I have to go to a little shop of horrors and she goes well, you have an hour and you're gonna have dinner with Tina Sinatra and I was like, okay so I went and got to sit down with Tina and she told me stories that I never even imagined hearing especially in my first hour of meeting her and she's an open book. She's the most generous wonderful woman in the world and then she toasted to me and welcomed me to the family so she made me the offer way before anyone else had said anything and it was just wild and then I walked back in and played Seymour Krelborn which was a very different role to suddenly put on but it's been so so thrilling diving into Frank and you know, I know this man. I watched this man.

He's every one of my uncles. He's my dad, you know, and I kind of just sat in the corner and watched him growing up so it's fun to be able to take on a physicality and a persona that you don't know is not necessarily central to who I am but in terms of young Frank's motivations and passions and yearning I'd really connect with that and the show tells a story of just young Frank from 19 to 38 and a lot of people don't know this but he had a massive downfall when he first moved to Hollywood and he kind of got tied up in this huge tabloid ring with Ava Gardner and he was cheating on his wife constantly and so the story is really about his early years and how destructive they were and that he fought tooth and nail and it was actually the women supporting him his wife Nancy and Ava that really brought him back and gave him, you know, the platform in the career that he ended up having and and the fight and the drive that he had and we use music from his entire career to tell the story, but it's fascinating.

I mean a lot of people don't know that he attempted suicide multiple times that he he was performing in basements in New York after you know literally having billing over Gene Kelly and anchors away and it's amazing I've discovered so much. I hear new stories from Tina every day. I get texts from her all the time. We got one from her last night. I was so happy and it's just so surreal. I mean my grandmother growing up had the Pope JFK and Frank Sinatra on her wall and and that's like he was he was God, you know, so to think that I get the opportunity to play him and and I think I was chosen because I don't necessarily impersonate him I I do his phrasing and I do a lot of his intonations, but I'm not, you know, I'm not a Vegas impersonator just like trying to do the best Frank I can you know, it's it's it's it's it's still me and my character of Frank Sinatra and developing that and finding the right balance of that has been really amazing and to be given I don't know just like the permission to do that from the estate and from Tina and and and supported in the way that she's been supporting me is is thrilling and I think will be on Broadway next season. That's what I'm like allowed.

[52:13] Alan Seales: Yeah, if you're still getting texts from Tina who is Frank Sinatra's daughter, by the way for listening at home, if she's still texting you as of last night, I would I was gonna say so what's the plan?

[52:22] Matt Doyle: Yeah, the plan is we had an amazing reading at the Apollo this winter where we presented it with a full orchestra and we're able to just you know make sure that all the American money was there because yeah, we just want to bring it to a Broadway stage but I am so grateful and as long as these things can feel like they take they have a few theaters in mind they don't want to be in the wrong house. They want to do it right. They don't want to blow it and go the wrong house or something's too small something too big and close you know and that happens with so many shows so they're being really careful about it because it's the Frank Sinatra musical and you get one what swing at it and and so I think they're just being careful and taking their time but it looks very promising that will be in the the next Broadway season.

[53:10] Alan Seales: And you said it was it takes place from 19 to 30 34 38. Yeah, that's it. That's exactly World War one to World War two. Yes sandwich between the wars. Yes.

[53:21] Matt Doyle: Yeah, no a lot is changing in the world at the time. I mean, it's what he had to change in his career, too. Is he couldn't sing these like, you know, these sappy ballads anymore that all the the girls wanted when he was this teen sensation when he first started out and was performing at the Paramount but things got real and he didn't go to war because he genuinely couldn't because of his his eardrum he had a perforated eardrum and he was rejected twice and everybody tried to like claim that oh, he he dodged the war he wanted to go then his music had to change as a result of that because people were craving different music and he couldn't fit into this kind of you know, Mitch Miller, you know honky-tonk vibe that was happening and and coming into the scene and it wasn't until he met Nelson Riddle and started working at Capitol Records that his music career really launched again but it was his acting career that thrust him back into the spotlight because he begged and demanded to be a part of from here Eternity, which is the film that won him his first Oscar, but that's the story that we tell all of that everything I just touched. I had no idea. Yeah, no idea. I cannot wait to see this.

[54:29] Matt Doyle: Yeah, it's really exciting and God the muse so great and then we're gonna have you know, he is set up we're gonna have a full full big and and it just blasts your face off and the way it tells this story is so exciting because you go from one, you know one moment where I'm singing about Eric Ava Gardner in a narrative way singing I've got you under my skin, which is perfect lyrically and then you know the big band rises up behind me a microphone rises up and I'm singing it to her in a nightclub in Houston, Texas which did happen and she came to and and that's how we make those transitions and it's just perfect for it. I mean, this is the American songbook. So it doesn't feel like a jukebox musical. It feels you know, these are songs that are so narrative and can fall into any any scenario and they just work.

[55:13] Alan Seales: Hmm well fingers crossed it come. Thank you soon. Cuz thank you so much. Yeah, you sold it to me. I'm very excited about it. And if it takes another couple years, which I don't think it will I think it will be next season. I when it happens it will be right so I can't wait. Cool.

[55:29] Matt Doyle: All right, so then we will shift over to our little closing game and then questions the game is plot in 60 seconds so I have a list of 16 popular musicals and you give me a list you give me a number 1 through 16 it will correspond to a show on my list and then you give me that plot in 60 seconds. Okay, so 1 through 16.

[55:49] Matt Doyle: 8.

[55:50] Alan Seales: 8 is rent go.

[55:54] Matt Doyle: Oh my gosh rent rent is about two guys their names are Roger and Mark and they can't pay the rent because they're artists and they live in the Lower East Side and it turns out that Roger has AIDS and a lot of people have AIDS and it's this awful pandemic and epidemic that the city is dealing with and we learn everyone's humanity through dealing with this horrible horrible thing and these are real people real characters and living in New York City at the time that you you should get to know and should love people that are trans people that are our crossdressers people that are gay by lesbian all the things and it's a show about love and making sure that you hang on to every single moment in your life and live in the moment instead of dreading the future and dreading what's to come and it's a show about embracing the people around you instead of the daily struggle of trying to make it in New York City but the community that you have in New York City.

[56:49] Alan Seales: Hey digs wants your rent.

[56:50] Matt Doyle: Yeah, I did it you did it you did it. Okay, cool.

[56:56] Alan Seales: No mention of I don't know but it's alright. Okay. Hey, what's that? I said, I'm so glad I got rent. They let's see, uh company was number 14 you could have had oh wow. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know what I would have said about that.

[57:10] Matt Doyle: You could have just done the powder song the whole thing.

[57:13] Alan Seales: Yeah, exactly. Yeah getting married today.

[57:15] Matt Doyle: All right. So the three standard closing questions first one simply is just what motivates you.

[57:21] Matt Doyle: Oh, man what motivates me? I think what motivates me the most is the fact that we we have one shot at this and that your world could change at any any second and to just continue to explore and invest in as many things as possible because you never know what's right around the corner and that life as something as tragic as Gavin's passing this past year has shown us life can change at any single moment and we're so lucky we're so lucky to be here doing what we're doing you'd be getting notes from somebody in five days later they're gone.

[57:58] Alan Seales: Yeah.

[57:58] Matt Doyle: What advice would you give to your younger self and younger people listening now starting out on a similar path? What do you think it kind of answered a little bit earlier?

[58:06] Matt Doyle: Yeah, I think especially like the the 19 year old just moved to the city Matt calm the hell down like you need to relax. I still say that to myself I'd still need that advice on a daily basis, but that back and back that kid. He was a neurotic mess and I wish that I could go back every now and then and just be like it's okay, you know, like take your time pace yourself. You're gonna be okay.

[58:30] Alan Seales: All right, so if you can 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?

[58:39] Matt Doyle: Oh, man? It's shifted so much over the years one show one show oh man, I guess it would probably I think it would probably be Sweeney Todd now. Yeah. All right.

[58:54] Alan Seales: Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna fall on Sweeney Todd now or Sunday. It's a Sunday show for sure.

[59:00] Matt Doyle: Yeah Sunday in the park with George might might be up there too. Those are two very popular answers so yeah, you're in good company. Okay good.

[59:04] Alan Seales: All right, where can we connect with you online on social media?

[59:08] Matt Doyle: Oh, you can connect with me online on Instagram. I got the Matt F Doyle at Instagram. I'm on blue sky too, but I don't use it. You know, I don't know like I and I'm not on the X that's a horrifying place now. Yeah, look for me on the Instagram. I also do cameos.

[59:27] Alan Seales: Yeah.

[59:33] Matt Doyle: Yeah, all right, yeah, so you get my me a theater underscore podcast on treads Instagram tick-tock I'm on the face the book fuck it look, you know, leave a rating and review wherever you listen in thanks to jukebox the ghost for the intro and outro music and thanks to Matt frickin Doyle for this conversation.

[59:50] Alan Seales: That's what the F stands for.

[59:54] Matt Doyle: That's what the F is.

[59:54] Alan Seales: Yeah.

[59:54] Matt Doyle: Yeah Doyle thanks, man, it was so good to talk to you.

[59:58] Matt Doyle: Thank you so much. Thank you. I appreciate you.

[1:00:00] Matt Doyle: Make the world a little colorful.