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[0:00] ♪ Musical number: "When Lightning Strikes" — performed by Unknown artist ♪

[0:26] Jeryl Brunner: Hi, this is Jeryl Brunner, and you're listening to When Lightning Strikes, where we talk about the tingly mic drop moments that led you to becoming an artist.

[0:38] Jeryl Brunner: Sharon Wheatley is an original cast member in the Broadway hit Come From Away. She has the distinction of being the only actress to appear in Cats, Les Misérables, and The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway. When the pandemic shut down Come From Away, Wheatley and her family hit the road in a 30-foot RV to crisscross the United States. A gifted writer, she chronicles her adventure in her riveting new book, Drive: Stories from Somewhere in the Middle of Nowhere. Welcome.

[1:20] Sharon Wheatley: Hi, thank you so much.

[1:22] Jeryl Brunner: Thank you. It's such a delight to have you.

[1:25] Sharon Wheatley: It's just great to be here.

[1:27] Jeryl Brunner: Thank you so much. I was listening to some of your podcasts last night so that I could be sure to catch up. And I was listening to Anika Larson in particular, who I did Avenue Q with.

[1:37] Sharon Wheatley: Yes, absolutely.

[1:38] Jeryl Brunner: Oh, she's so wonderful. I love that.

[1:40] Sharon Wheatley: I was nice. It was nice to listen because I had lost track of her a little bit. It's so I feel like I caught up, even though I didn't actually talk to her. It was such a nice personable interview, so it made me excited for today.

[1:55] Jeryl Brunner: I'm so excited to have you, and I love hearing that you were in Avenue Q, that you have multitudes of talent. I mean, not only are you a gorgeous performer, you're a beautiful storyteller. Your books are magnificent. I just love How the Fat Girl Sings and of course Drive. And here you're a puppeteer as well.

[2:22] Sharon Wheatley: Yeah, I am. Isn't that funny? It's just this one of the I don't really think about it because of course all of it was over such a long span of time. But yeah, Avenue Q was one of those shows that I saw the original cast. I had no idea what it was, walking in the door, and my friend Evan Enson was the production stage manager, and I sent him a text. I don't even think it had opened yet. I think it was in previews, but it was in previews on Broadway because it ran at the Vineyard originally. And I sent him a text and I said, Do you think there's any way you can get me a ticket? It was one of those rare nights when I wasn't home with my older daughter. I was out on the town for whatever reason.

I must have had one of those nights where I was like, I have to have like a mommy night. And I walked in and I saw the show, and I just remember Stephanie D'Abruzzo walking on stage, and she had this puppet, and I had this moment, which rarely happens, but when it happens, I'm right. And I thought I'm supposed to do this show. And I would not be deterred. I remember I called my agent the next day and I said probably something like, I'm supposed to do Avenue Q, something dorky like that. And it probably, you know, 20 of her other clients had also called and said the same thing. And she said, Do you know how to work a and I remember hearing her shuffle paperwork on her desk, and she said, a rod puppet.

They're asking for people who can run a rod puppet. And I didn't even know what it was. And I said, no. But here's what I know. They're gonna have to train people. The number of people who are gonna be able to do a Broadway show and professionally puppeteer, there aren't gonna be that many. So they're either gonna have to train puppeteers to be musical theater actors, or they're gonna have to train musical theater actors to be puppeteers. And if I know one thing about myself, it's that if I want to do something, I'm tenacious. And I could just tell. I just knew I'm just that's the right match for me. And so I just bought myself a puppet and talked to my daughter with my puppet all the time. And everybody, every, you know, she'd be in the bathtub and I'd be like, hey, what are you doing over there?

Come here, I'm gonna wash your hair. You know, just any making animating, animating all of her toys, making all of them talk in funny voices. And I think that when I finally went in for the audition, I was so used to animating inanimate objects that other people walked in with fear, and I definitely walked in like, I'm gonna show you this weird thing that I can do. So my puppeteering wasn't perfect in my audition, but I was game. And I think they were looking more for who was not afraid. And I wasn't afraid. So I think that helped.

[5:25] Jeryl Brunner: That's a beautiful story. I think about your wonderful tale of Cats and your Cats audition. It reminds me of that. That you even messed up. You worked so hard. And then they threw in a brand new combo or combo that wasn't on the video.

[5:43] Sharon Wheatley: That's right.

[5:44] Jeryl Brunner: And then you messed up with joy.

[5:47] Sharon Wheatley: Yeah.

[5:48] Jeryl Brunner: P.S. You booked it.

[5:49] Sharon Wheatley: I know. I know. Again, though, I looked around and I thought, I don't think they're actually looking for the greatest tap dancer in New York City. Because I kept turning down the audition. And I thought somebody, I just looked around and there were maybe 50 women there. And I knew 48 of them. And I knew all of us from going to all the same auditions, and I knew what they all looked like in a dance audition, and me too. And I thought, well, obviously they're not looking for dancers because this isn't the crowd that would be there. So we were at the Winter Garden Theater, which, you know, you very rarely, at least in my experience, maybe other people do this, but in my experience, you very rarely audition on the Broadway stage itself.

And so that was a thrill. And I just thought, oh, I think it was the day after Memorial Day, and I had given up the weekend and not gone out of town with my family to stay home and learn the opening number of Cats off of the movie that they made in London. And I thought, you know, if I can just throw my body in the right direction, maybe this will happen. And I again, I think they just thought it was funny that I thought it was funny, basically. I think that's what they wanted. I don't know how it happened, but it did.

[7:18] Jeryl Brunner: I love your tenacity. I love your drive. Forgive the pun. Let's talk about your lightning strikes moment. Can you talk about or moments when you knew this was the life for you, that this was your path?

[7:34] Sharon Wheatley: It's funny because I know that's the name of the podcast. And so I kept really thinking, like, what was my lightning strike moment? And I don't know if this is interesting or not interesting, but I would say I just had an awareness. I don't understand where it came from because I'm not from any sort of a showbiz family at all. And I just had a very deep knowing and understanding that this is what I was gonna do. And it was so deep in me that I knew very strange things. Like I didn't really want to waste my time doing local children's theater in Cincinnati, Ohio. I did one audition for a local children's theater, and it was for The Sound of Music, and I didn't book it, as they would say. And I left and I thought I'm so obnoxious. I mean, I'm like eight, but I thought I'm better than this. I don't know. I have no idea where this came from, but I was just gifted it from birth. It was somehow in my this obnoxious trait was in my DNA.

[8:55] Jeryl Brunner: Well, in your book, you talk about seeing Oliver.

[9:00] Sharon Wheatley: Oh, yeah.

[9:01] Jeryl Brunner: And how transforming that was, and how you were speechless. You describe that so beautifully.

[9:07] Sharon Wheatley: I was also mad. I went to see Oliver at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. My parents had tickets, which is the only theatrical thing that happened in my house, which is a big deal. But they went on Saturday night with their friends, and then they'd go out to dinner. So they saw all the new plays, and then they would come home and complain about them. And somehow one of them happened to be Oliver. And I don't know how it came to pass that I went, but I did. And I remember I could tell you if we were in the theater, I could walk over to where we sat. I can remember my point of view on the stage. And I remember getting hot all over when the kids came out and watching them sing and dance. And I remember this feeling of being so gypped.

I was so mad that I hadn't been called. I just thought I should absolutely be up there doing that. And I was, I had the same feeling when I watched Andrea McArdle on this television series called or tele made for TV movie called Maybe Over the Rainbow that was about Judy Garland's life.

[10:26] Sharon Wheatley: Yes.

[10:27] Jeryl Brunner: And I remember rolling in, there was like a little black and white TV that my brother and I shared, and I rolled it into my room after I was supposed to be in bed. And I remember watching it. And the thing that I remember is it wasn't the TV that woke my parents up, it was me crying. Because again, I could not understand how Andrea McArdle had become who she was, and why was I still miserable in my rainbow sheets in my bedroom surrounded by show posters and not, you know, doing this. I mean, it just really, it was like that.

[11:04] Jeryl Brunner: That's incredible. And I love stories about your family saying, wait a minute.

[11:12] Sharon Wheatley: Yeah.

[11:12] Jeryl Brunner: That's pretty difficult.

[11:14] Sharon Wheatley: I remember everybody singing along. It was James Taylor's "You've Got a Friend." And I remember everyone sort of singing along. And then the sense that everyone else was dropping out, and I was still singing along. And then there was that sort of quiet after. And I remember somebody saying, You're really good. And then there being a conversation about the fact that I could really sing. And I thought that was kind of cool. And I but I also was like, I know. It was like a superpower. I had this like secret power.

[11:53] Jeryl Brunner: I love that. I didn't have a secret power for math, but I had a secret superpower to be able to sing.

[12:00] Sharon Wheatley: And then you held on to that.

[12:02] Jeryl Brunner: I did.

[12:02] Sharon Wheatley: Even when you heard the lows very well, you know.

[12:06] Jeryl Brunner: Yeah. And can you talk about when you first performed on stage, the concert you did?

[12:11] Sharon Wheatley: Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

[12:12] Sharon Wheatley: Well, I did, I went to Air Elementary in Cincinnati, Ohio, which is the opposite of a performing arts school. It was just this basic, suburban, you know, cute school. And I remember being in the third grade, and there were auditions for solos in the concert. It was the first time that I'd had any sort of choir. Sometimes I hear about how kids, even my own kids, don't have music in school, and I think, what would I, what would have happened to me? I don't even know. But anyway, Mr. Perry, my music teacher, had everybody who wanted to have a solo raise their hand. And I remember we were all sitting on risers, and I remember the three people who got solos, and that I was one of them.

[13:01] Sharon Wheatley: It was me and Pam Grammar and Meredith Potter, and we all sang solos in Free Booten from the musical Tom Sawyer, which I think was maybe written by Mr. Perry. And uh yeah, and I remember when it got to be my turn, just thinking, watch out, here I come. And then later on, Meredith Potter, who I still talk to, um, we were singing Where is Love as a duet from Oliver? And Meredith was the most popular. I mean, Meredith is the coolest still. She was just like blonde and blue-eyed, and she was cool, like her parents were divorced. I thought that was super cool, and just everything about her was awesome. And I felt so honored that I was allowed to sing with Meredith. And then Meredith got stage fright.

And I kept going. And I remember having a moment of recognition for myself, just deeply in myself, not even about the audience. I don't know, it wasn't always so much about I need to be seen, I need to be heard. It wasn't for me, it's always been a deeper thing, just more of a this is who I am. I still to this day prefer rehearsal over performance. I just like it. I like the process of it. I like the, I guess if you are an athlete and you prefer practice to the game. I really enjoy all of it. And I always did, even when I was little, but I remember Meredith dropping out and me having this very strong sense of knowing that I could take care of her, and I could take care of the concert, and I could finish it out.

And then having a pride, not that Meredith had stage fright. It wasn't that, because I would have preferred for her to finish it, but just understanding that maybe Meredith was really good at some things and that maybe this is what I was good at. So it gave me a sense of self. Um then the bragging from my parents and stuff was it was nice, but it also I just it was also got to be embarrassing. I was just like, I don't how do you do this thing that I do, but kind of do it in a vacuum? But you can't. I mean, I guess you could, maybe that's what recording artists are like, but I don't know. I'm just more of a theater person. I love that.

[15:38] Sharon Wheatley: And I love that when you transferred schools, went to a new high school, and you thought, oh my goodness, I'll let you tell the story that you had to take singing. You had to study music, and technically you weren't supposed to take voice classes till you were much older. Right. The school says, but you got the sister to let you take voice classes. Well, it's funny. I went to this all girls Catholic high school, Ursuline Academy in Cincinnati, and um my sister had gone there. My sister's seven years older than I am, and my sister was one of the first, I think I think she and someone else in her class were the first two girls from this school to go to an Ivy League. My sister went to Yale. And so my sister was sort of a legend at Ursuline.

And then I come bopping along, and I remember taking the entrance exam. And the main thing I remember thinking was there's no way that I'm gonna continue on and go to Anderson High School because I had been very bullied and tormented. I'm soft-hearted. I am I'm a perfect candidate to pick on. So do you hear that? Everyone who's listening to this podcast, if you're looking for someone to pick on, I'm a good candidate because I take it all to heart. Um, I try not to, but it's just like who I am. Um, and anyway, I just thought there's no way that I'm gonna continue on with these kids. I have to reinvent myself in some way. So I walk, I walked into the entrance exam, and I took it, I knew that I'd bombed it.

I remember them calling my parents and saying, you know, she didn't do so well, but she's Sharon's sister, so I mean, she's Susan's sister, so we'll let her come. And then I got to Ursuline, and I just thought, well, who am I? We know who Susan is. Susan's at Yale, and and it's gonna be an attorney, but who am I? And I was at class registration, and everybody was signing up for geometry and Latin and this and that. And I pieced out and disappeared and snuck down the hall because I knew where the choir room was. And there was a woman in there, and she was unpacking boxes, and she looked very strict. And I knew her name because she was on the registration form of that I wanted to sign up for voice lessons, and it said, you must be 16 or have the permission of Miss Brown.

And so I was like, well, who's Miss Brown? I'm gonna go find her because I need permission. I think I was 13. I was young. I was a young freshman. And so I walked in and and she was unpacking boxes, and I said, Hi, my name is Sharon Wheatley, and I need your permission to take voice lessons. And she turned around and she said, I don't give permission until you're 16. And I said, I understand that, but I'm different. And she said, How are you different? And I said, because I'm ready and I'm a singer. And there was something, she was so strict, I think that she assumed that I was just gonna turn on my heel and walk out. And there was something maybe about my, here we go again with this word, tenacity, um, that was a little disarming to her. And I remember her putting down the box and walking over to the piano and playing like scales.

[19:07] Sharon Wheatley: And so I was singing, and I had been listening to a lot of Judy Garland and Bet Midler and um Andrea McGardle. And you know, I think that that's the year that maybe chorus line came out. So I was doing that sort of very classic belt, and then once it got to a certain note, I couldn't go above that anymore. And she said, This is where I want you to sing, and I thought, aha, more like Julie Andrews. So then I sang like that. And then she signed my slip to let me take voice lessons. What was the song that you sang for her again? I think that I sang, I think she had me sing Hello, Young Lovers from The King and I. And she kept modulating the key up and up and up. So, and then she would only let me sing classical music.

So for four years in high school, I only sang classical music and I only studied classical music. So I have a great education in and music theory. I took my AP music theory exam. I took my AP music history exam because this incredible strict woman. Um, you know, she and I were a good match. She gave me a lot of discipline that I would not have had otherwise.

[20:26] Sharon Wheatley: And I love the story of how you visited your sister at Yale, and she took you to your first Broadway show. She did. Barley. Barnum. And I remember, I mean, I remember Jim Dale, who starred in Barnum. Yes. But I really remember Glenn Close. And she came out, and I just remember thinking she was so beautiful and unusual looking. And she didn't have the greatest voice, but there was, I just remember thinking there's something about the way that she sings, which now I know, of course, is that she was acting. It was the way she was acting. The lyric, of course, was gorgeous. And she was singing the song called The Colors of My Life. And it was just so amazing that that's what we went to. I'm sure that it's what was on TKTS at the time. You know, I mean, my sister was a college student and taking me. So I'm sure that it was, you know, whatever we could get. But that's what we saw.

[21:23] Sharon Wheatley: So here you knew from very early on that you wanted to be on Broadway. Can you talk about your Broadway debut? My Broadway debut was in Les in well, I was cast in the tour. So it was a Broadway tour, but that's that was my first big show. But then also Les Miz was also my Broadway, my my first Broadway debut. I have this annoying habit of once I'm in the show in one production, then I I end up pop, I quit, and then I end up popping up in every other product. Like they just keep hiring, you know. Can you go to Des Moines and be in Phantom today? I'm like, yeah, sure, I can go do that. So I it was in that's that, but I remember um I remember a lot of things about it, actually. Mostly um in my audition, which was for um this man, Richard J. Alexander, who discovered so much talent.

He discovered so much, so many fabulous singers. Um, and then he went on to give me another opportunity later, which I'll talk about in a minute. But I walked in and Richard J said to me, he said, You have the he said, Okay, I know you can sing. Um, and then he had me do like a bunch of stuff in the audition, and and I left and I just thought, there's no way I got that job. I mean, it was my first big audition for anything. I was non union, I was like, well, that was a good learning experience. And then I'm sure I went shopping, which is what I do when I'm stressed out. By the time I got home, my then boyfriend said, they've been calling you because of course, you know, there weren't cell phones back in '92, which is when I booked Lay Miz.

And I called and they said, um, we'd like to, they we'd like to offer you the position of swing on the tour of Le Miz, and I didn't know what a swing was, and I had never seen Lay Miz. And I said, um, I was a waitress at Macy's at the time. And I quit immediately, and they said we need you in LA on Monday, because it's always fast. It seems like it's always fast.

[23:44] Sharon Wheatley: And I went and saw, they gave me tickets to go see the show that night, and I took my friend Highland, and we sat in the back, and I couldn't, I just couldn't believe, I just couldn't believe I was gonna do it. And I remember Richard J. walking me over to equity to to get my equity card. And that was like the thing to join the union. It just seemed so it was so impossible. And I remember again, I had like an impossible version of how I was gonna do it. I thought, I'm not gonna be like an equity candidate or try to earn points towards it. I'm not gonna join equity until I have a Broadway show. And so I walked over and did that, and and I don't know, and then I flew to LA and it was crazy. It was so hard though, Gerald.

I mean, it was so hard. I understudied. Well, I think I understudied nine or 13 people, but the way that the split tracks, there were all these different variations of it, that it ended up being like 17 different variations of how I could do the show. And the show is long. It's three hours. When I was doing it, it was three hours and 17 minutes long. And I just remember, as I always think, this is my normal narrative, I'm gonna get fired. Um, I was like, I'm gonna get fired. There's no way. I'm never gonna be able to know all of this. And so I just, I just didn't sleep. I just studied and studied and studied and studied. And then my first night on, I was so stoked to be there. And I was running in on the um on the turntable, just having this moment of this is amazing.

Oh my god, I'm in late mess. You know, and saying my stuff and acting and singing, and we were running in slow motion, and this guy ran up and caught up with me, and he was like, hey, whoa, calm down. I mean, it's just a play. And I just remember like my world shattering, and I thought, what, what? I waited my whole life, and you're so jaded, and we're not even 10 minutes in, and that's what you're saying to me.

[26:02] Sharon Wheatley: And you guys are just gonna talk about what you're gonna have for dinner?

[26:06] Jeryl Brunner: What?

[26:07] Sharon Wheatley: So, you know, it's an interesting thing because you're not when you're joining a show like that, you're coming in to a company that's existed in many different variations of time that they've been there.

[26:22] Sharon Wheatley: And I really, over time in my career, started to think that the dream of what I wanted out of a show, what I had formulated in my childhood bedroom of what I thought Broadway looked like, I didn't think it existed.

[26:37] Sharon Wheatley: I thought, well, I have clearly that is a fantasy land.

[26:42] Sharon Wheatley: That because it's, you know, it's work, it's a job, and it's high stakes and it's high pressure.

[26:48] Sharon Wheatley: And it's not, it's not fun and games.

[26:52] Sharon Wheatley: But then I did Come From Away and I was right.

[26:55] Jeryl Brunner: Yes.

[26:56] Sharon Wheatley: Yes.

[26:56] Sharon Wheatley: You're really good.

[26:57] Jeryl Brunner: I just write the role.

[26:59] Sharon Wheatley: That's right.

[27:00] Sharon Wheatley: I was totally right.

[27:02] Jeryl Brunner: I love that.

[27:04] Jeryl Brunner: PS. Because how when did you grab how long were you out of school at that point when you booked Le Miz?

[27:12] Sharon Wheatley: You hadn't been out of school that long.

[27:15] Sharon Wheatley: Two years, three years?

[27:17] Jeryl Brunner: Yeah.

[27:18] Sharon Wheatley: Long enough.

[27:19] Sharon Wheatley: Long enough that, you know, as we all do, I think I had quit the business just a couple days before my audition.

[27:27] Sharon Wheatley: But I quit the business all the time.

[27:28] Sharon Wheatley: It's like my thing.

[27:30] Jeryl Brunner: Well, unless you didn't you quit the business before Come From Away?

[27:36] Sharon Wheatley: I did.

[27:36] Sharon Wheatley: I officially like I really, really quit the business.

[27:39] Jeryl Brunner: Yeah.

[27:40] Jeryl Brunner: I love that.

[27:41] Jeryl Brunner: How did that?

[27:42] Jeryl Brunner: I mean, you moved out of New York and here.

[27:45] Sharon Wheatley: You heard about the show.

[27:46] Sharon Wheatley: I had done four Broadway shows.

[27:49] Sharon Wheatley: I had written a book.

[27:50] Sharon Wheatley: I had performed in, you know, galas and done all the fancy things, and I had two kids and a husband, and New York City's hard.

[28:04] Sharon Wheatley: I mean, I you know, shocking to no one.

[28:09] Sharon Wheatley: Even even the most tenacious of us can't sustain work in this business.

[28:15] Sharon Wheatley: And I always used to joke around and say, it's terrible to be a workaholic in a profession that doesn't, you have to work so hard to get the job.

[28:25] Sharon Wheatley: I would have been great in a corporate environment where you had to work your way up the ladder.

[28:29] Sharon Wheatley: I would have been great at that.

[28:31] Sharon Wheatley: Um, but in showbiz, it's different, and you have to wait a really long time.

[28:36] Sharon Wheatley: And it's always interesting to me that people, my closest friends really consider me highly successful.

[28:46] Sharon Wheatley: And I see so much unemployment in my life, and I know how bad it got, and money wise, and trying to have an apartment that's big enough for two kids, and the stress and the strain on all of it.

[29:03] Sharon Wheatley: And um we ended up making a decision that we were gonna leave New York.

[29:11] Sharon Wheatley: And um, we just had to, we were suffocating.

[29:14] Sharon Wheatley: And I I kind of just boxed it all up.

[29:18] Sharon Wheatley: I remember a friend of mine called me and kind of challenged me on it and said, I don't, you're not making the right decision.

[29:25] Sharon Wheatley: You're giving up too much, you're giving up too much.

[29:27] Sharon Wheatley: And I didn't really feel like I had much of a choice.

[29:30] Sharon Wheatley: I mean, I did, of course I did.

[29:33] Sharon Wheatley: I'm an I'm a grown independent human being, but I looked at my family and I thought this is not sustainable.

[29:41] Sharon Wheatley: So my now ex-husband got a job in San Diego, and we had been talking about moving out for a long time.

[29:50] Sharon Wheatley: He he moved into education, and we decided that if he could get something out of the city that we would look at it, and he got something in San Diego.

[29:58] Sharon Wheatley: And, and you know, it was March in New York City, and San Diego seemed super appealing.

[30:04] Sharon Wheatley: And so we jumped ship, and I really meant it.

[30:09] Sharon Wheatley: I really thought I can no longer stand in front of a folding table, and in front of people that are much younger than me, and never be enough.

[30:20] Sharon Wheatley: I I can't do that anymore.

[30:22] Sharon Wheatley: And I didn't like who it was making me.

[30:26] Sharon Wheatley: And um, so yeah, it was a sincere leaving.

[30:32] Sharon Wheatley: And I remember looking in the rearview mirror of our U-Haul truck, literally, that sounds so trite, but it's true.

[30:38] Sharon Wheatley: And I remember looking and thinking, I'm done.

[30:42] Sharon Wheatley: So three years later, I was in San Diego, and had I was writing.

[30:49] Sharon Wheatley: I was writing for Kristen Chenowith, which I got that job through Richard J.

[30:54] Sharon Wheatley: Alexander, who came back around and said, um Kristen was Kristen needed to use or was thinking about using puppets in one of her concerts.

[31:05] Sharon Wheatley: And Richard J said, this was before I left New York.

[31:08] Sharon Wheatley: She he said, Can you come down and show us how to use puppets?

[31:11] Sharon Wheatley: Because I'd been, I started writing for puppets.

[31:14] Sharon Wheatley: I wrote shows for the Bronx Zoo where that were like edutainment.

[31:20] Sharon Wheatley: So it was all about, you know, the zoo, the animals and whatever.

[31:24] Sharon Wheatley: And um, and we had we built puppets for the show.

[31:28] Sharon Wheatley: So I was also being sort of like the puppet master, you know, running auditions, teaching people how to puppet, directing the show.

[31:35] Sharon Wheatley: I mean, you know, sort of being like a one-man band of I'm how can I make money?

[31:39] Sharon Wheatley: And this seems like fun.

[31:41] Sharon Wheatley: So he said, Can you come down and show us how to use these puppets?

[31:44] Sharon Wheatley: And I said, Yeah, sure.

[31:46] Sharon Wheatley: And as I was on the train down there, I thought to myself, writing for puppets is really specific, really specific.

[31:54] Sharon Wheatley: And I happened to be very good at it.

[31:57] Sharon Wheatley: And I thought, who's gonna write this sketch?

[32:00] Sharon Wheatley: So I wrote a sketch on the train and emailed it when I got off the train to Richard J, and he emailed it to the stage manager in the room, and they printed it and passed it out.

[32:14] Sharon Wheatley: And I walked in, and Richard J said, okay, we're gonna read it down.

[32:17] Sharon Wheatley: I'm telling you, it was that fast.

[32:20] Sharon Wheatley: And I had never met Kristen before.

[32:23] Sharon Wheatley: And he was like, we're gonna use it.

[32:25] Sharon Wheatley: And she looked at me and she said, Where have you been?

[32:30] Sharon Wheatley: And I just was like, wow, look at that.

[32:33] Sharon Wheatley: Isn't that funny?

[32:34] Sharon Wheatley: And then I went on to write some good, some not very good sketches for Kristen.

[32:40] Sharon Wheatley: Um, and maintained a relationship with her.

[32:44] Sharon Wheatley: So when Come From Away was casting, just to bring the story back full circle, I was writing pilots for television shows in my garage in San Diego.

[32:56] Sharon Wheatley: And I had written Kristen, I'd co-written something for Kristen, a rewrite of the song Popular about Anthony Wiener.

[33:05] Sharon Wheatley: And it was on the Tonight Show, and it went crazy viral.

[33:09] Jeryl Brunner: That was yours.

[33:10] Sharon Wheatley: That was me and my friend Alan Kendall.

[33:12] Sharon Wheatley: We wrote it together.

[33:13] Sharon Wheatley: And I thought, huh, I have 30 seconds to do something with this.

[33:20] Sharon Wheatley: So I sat down and I wrote her a pilot, and she attached, and then I got my friend Teresa Rebeck to attach as the showrunner.

[33:29] Sharon Wheatley: And I got agents and managers and attorneys in LA, and I started going into all of these rooms, meeting people, meeting people, meeting people.

[33:38] Sharon Wheatley: Who are you?

[33:39] Sharon Wheatley: Where did you come from?

[33:40] Sharon Wheatley: What's your story?

[33:41] Sharon Wheatley: And I was in the middle of talking to like the Hallmark channel or something about a series.

[33:48] Sharon Wheatley: And Rachel Hoffman from Bernie Telsey casting sent me a Facebook message and said, What are you doing in San Diego?

[33:55] Sharon Wheatley: And I remember at the time thinking, why am I creating a career that's not in San Diego?

[34:00] Sharon Wheatley: Everything I was doing would have taken me to Los Angeles or New York.

[34:03] Sharon Wheatley: Like I couldn't get anything going in San Diego.

[34:06] Sharon Wheatley: I couldn't get auditions for anything.

[34:08] Sharon Wheatley: I remember I applied to be an Uber driver.

[34:10] Sharon Wheatley: I couldn't get a job as an Uber driver.

[34:11] Sharon Wheatley: Like I really, really was struggling.

[34:15] Sharon Wheatley: And I had one friend, well, two friends, and the kids were happy.

[34:31] Sharon Wheatley: And I said, but I will tell you, I don't think I've sung anything in three years.

[34:35] Sharon Wheatley: And she said, There's a show, and I think you're right for it.

[34:38] Sharon Wheatley: And that's how it happened.

[34:41] Jeryl Brunner: Not crazy.

[34:42] Sharon Wheatley: Unbelievable.

[34:43] Jeryl Brunner: I know.

[34:44] Sharon Wheatley: Crazy.

[34:44] Sharon Wheatley: And when Come From Away hit, Jeryl, I'll tell you the truth.

[34:48] Sharon Wheatley: I knew.

[34:50] Sharon Wheatley: I was, I was like, this is it.

[34:52] Sharon Wheatley: When I walked into that room, and I felt, I just felt the energy, the rehearsal, the binders, the music stands, the day one, we're gonna start with Welcome to the Rock.

[35:08] Sharon Wheatley: And I had that feeling of that knowing of I gave up too much.

[35:15] Sharon Wheatley: I'm not myself anymore.

[35:17] Sharon Wheatley: This is it.

[35:18] Sharon Wheatley: This is my ticket.

[35:22] Sharon Wheatley: And I stayed with Come From Away.

[35:27] Sharon Wheatley: I dropped all of my managers and agents and attorneys in LA.

[35:33] Sharon Wheatley: I just was like, I'm out.

[35:35] Sharon Wheatley: I've got to follow this show.

[35:37] Sharon Wheatley: And here I sit seven years later.

[35:42] Jeryl Brunner: That's extraordinary.

[35:44] Sharon Wheatley: I know.

[35:44] Sharon Wheatley: And you know what's even more fun?

[35:45] Sharon Wheatley: I just reconnected with one of my writing agents in LA about the possibility of turning Drive into a feature film or a series.

[35:55] Sharon Wheatley: So we're in the middle of sort of talking about that and working on that and thinking about that.

[35:59] Sharon Wheatley: But it was great because I called him up and I was like, Hi, it's me.

[36:03] Sharon Wheatley: I know you haven't heard from me in seven years.

[36:05] Sharon Wheatley: And he was like, oh God, all right, here we go again.

[36:10] Sharon Wheatley: Like I was right back on board.

[36:13] Jeryl Brunner: But I love how Drive incorporates, you know, all these worlds of yours.

[36:18] Jeryl Brunner: Your writing world, your Come From Away world.

[36:21] Jeryl Brunner: Let's talk about Drive and what inspired it.

[36:25] Sharon Wheatley: Well, I think I had a sense that whatever happened during the pandemic, knowing me, it was probably gonna be funny.

[36:40] Sharon Wheatley: And I am a person who chronicles my life.

[36:45] Sharon Wheatley: And so I called my book agent, and we'd been trying to figure out something for me to do for a long time because I wrote Till the Fat Girls Sing back in 2006, and had not written anything since then.

[36:56] Sharon Wheatley: I mean, I'd written, I had written things, but I had not written a book.

[37:00] Sharon Wheatley: And I called her up and I was like, I have this idea.

[37:03] Sharon Wheatley: Tell me what you think.

[37:04] Sharon Wheatley: This is April of 2020.

[37:07] Sharon Wheatley: And I said, I have to get Toby to San Diego to spend the summer with their dad.

[37:14] Sharon Wheatley: What if I rent an RV and drive in an RV across the country in a pandemic?

[37:24] Sharon Wheatley: And I have no idea what I'm doing, and I have no desire to do it.

[37:29] Sharon Wheatley: And she was like, I've never ridden an RV before.

[37:34] Sharon Wheatley: I've only been in an RV when I was on set of a movie or a television show.

[37:39] Sharon Wheatley: Got it.

[37:40] Sharon Wheatley: We were locked out of the wheel.

[37:43] Sharon Wheatley: No, where I arrived and my costumes there, and then it's cleaned overnight, and then I, you know, I go shoot my scene, and that's it.

[37:50] Sharon Wheatley: So no, I had never done it, I had no desire to it.

[37:53] Sharon Wheatley: I thought it sounded gross and buggy and snakes and dark and smelly and uncomfortable.

[38:01] Sharon Wheatley: And why would anyone do it?

[38:03] Sharon Wheatley: And then my agent was like, I think that's funny.

[38:06] Sharon Wheatley: And I said, okay, I think it sounds miserable.

[38:10] Sharon Wheatley: She was like, that's even funnier.

[38:11] Sharon Wheatley: I was like, okay, so that's what happened.

[38:16] Sharon Wheatley: And then we got, we loaded up a 30-foot RV and negotiated a great deal because at the time no one was in an RV.

[38:25] Sharon Wheatley: There were they were everywhere.

[38:26] Sharon Wheatley: No one was driving around because the whole world was locked down.

[38:29] Sharon Wheatley: And I just thought, yeah, but if we're in an RV, I called my doctor and I said, I have to get Toby to San Diego.

[38:36] Sharon Wheatley: And I don't want to drive in a car because then I have to go in public restrooms and hotels and restaurants and the whole shebang.

[38:41] Sharon Wheatley: What if I rent an RV and just do like quick runs into grocery stores to stock up the refrigerator?

[38:48] Sharon Wheatley: We only eat in the RV.

[38:50] Sharon Wheatley: We only use the RV bathroom, no exceptions, never sleep anywhere else.

[38:56] Sharon Wheatley: What do you think? And she was like, it's still risky, but I think it sounds as safe as it can be. Better than a plane, better than a car. And so I rented it. The intention originally, I think it was for two weeks, and we stayed out for 91 days. It was awesome. And it wasn't just you and the humans.

[39:18] No, no, because when we left New York. So I am remarried to a production stage manager. Her name is Martha Donaldson. And she was the production stage manager of Diana at the time that the pandemic hit. And she was exhausted. They were in previews, they were about to open the show. And if anybody knows anything about theater, they know that if you are the production stage manager of a gigantic musical like this, you're exhausted. So when the pandemic hit, I'll never forget Martha coming home. She dumped her backpack on the floor, took off her glasses, laid down on the couch, and said, I'm so relieved. And promptly fell asleep. And then Toby and I made a 12 layer cake on the first day that we then frosted, and Toby wrote, wash your hands.

And I thought, well, okay, now we've made a cake. What's next? Okay, we're gonna homeschool, we're gonna do this. But then the elevators in our building went out because of a water main break, and people were shoving into the elevators. I think we would have stayed put in New York City because why would we leave? Except we had two dogs that had to be walked at least twice a day, and we were on a very limited elevator situation here in our building, and people were cramming into the elevators. And I thought, well, this is unsustainable and not cool for the building. They definitely need people to leave because it was gonna be months before the elevators were fixed because no one was working. So we did one big push down in the elevator, packed up our car, and we loaded in our two cats and our two dogs and our one kid, and we drove to Cincinnati, Ohio, stayed in an Airbnb because it was closer to where my older child was in college, and that made sense to me.

I was like, let's try to get people as close together as we can. And I grew up in Cincinnati and loved Cincinnati, so it was all made sense to me. And so ended up, Charlotte, sure enough, did come to Cincinnati, and then we all stayed in this Airbnb until we had to get to San Diego, and that's when we packed up everything and we split.

[41:38] Jeryl Brunner: And here you wrote about all your adventures in this journey.

[41:43] Sharon Wheatley: We sure did. Just the way you describe the national parks and the scenery and the majesticness of it all. You know, what yeah, and the people that we met, you know, I was nervous. I'm I'm newly, I mean, I, you know, we joke that I'm sort of newly gay. I call Martha an organic gay because she's, you know, been a lesbian forever. And I fell in love with Martha and we got married, and I live in New York City in Midtown. So, you know, I've never been particularly out in America with Martha. And I just thought, I don't even know how this is gonna go. We're going into these RV. The original title of the book actually was out in America because I didn't know what it was gonna be like for us to go into these RV parks and were people gonna tolerate us, which I came to learn was my bias that everywhere we went, people were so lovely, no one cared.

We were all just people in a pandemic. And if Martha and I didn't know how to hook up to the electric, there was gonna be some guy named Roy right next door who, you know, was maybe in the military and traveling with his family, and he came over, and you know, Martha and he would become fast friends, and I would panic that they were too close to each other and we were gonna catch COVID, and you know, they pet the dogs, and I mean, we just made friends with everybody everywhere we went. So it was that was all on me. That was my fear. And so that was a big lesson to learn right there.

[43:24] Jeryl Brunner: Is it hard to put into words how this experience has changed you?

[43:30] Sharon Wheatley: Yes. I mean, honestly, Jeryl, I feel like I'm still figuring that out. I think in the same way that everybody is, yeah, right. I don't feel like my experience is uncommon, except that I have such location-specific work for me. I never had the option of working on Zoom. So I was just purely out of work. And it definitely changed a little of the hardwiring in my brain, how fast my job was taken away and how long it was gone. And thank God that I'm a person that has grit and tenacity and believed that the show was going to come back. But also looking to do something else. I didn't want my kids to just look at me sit on a couch for 18 months. I wanted to do something with them. I wanted to show them something.

And then once I'd done the trip, I thought I want to have something. I want to have something that I can hold in my hand and say, this is what I did during the pandemic. This is what we learned. This is what we did. This is how we laughed. This is what we did wrong. This is what was sad. I just I wanted that. I wanted it to be to be something. And now on the other side to go right back into the life where I was. So, you know, it's it definitely, I did come back feeling very like, oh my God, I live in the middle of concrete and I haven't heard a bird sing in a really long time. Made me much more of an outdoor person. But also so grateful. I mean, I'll never forget the getting the call that we were gonna do a live capture of the film.

Yeah. And just thinking, how, how, how has this happened? How has this happened to me? How did I manage to get into Come From Away? How am I still in it? How is there a pandemic? How is it still coming back? How is it that Martha and I happened to be two people who were in the two shows that filmed during the pandemic? Martha left for a while and did Diana filmed that for Netflix, and then I went and filmed Come From Away for Apple TV Plus. So, you know, feeling such good fortune about all of it.

[46:34] Jeryl Brunner: What was it like that first day coming back to Broadway?

[46:39] Sharon Wheatley: Oh. You know, there were the it's different. The filming of the movie is very different than what it was like coming back for the first performance. Because the filming of the movie, you know, you're on that like movie timeline. It's sort of like, great, great, great, you guys think that this is fun. Great, we're on a, you know, we're on a budget. Great. Okay, good. You you can cry for two seconds and then we gotta move on. Now, when we came back to Broadway, on the other hand, um, it was it was this unbelievable experience of everyone in that audience. It was their first time back in a theater. It was our first time performing in front of a full house, a live audience. I really, I thought, oh, this is gonna be great, but I didn't, I was not prepared for the energy that we were gonna get from the audience.

And the tricky thing is if you were in the audience, then you just got to feel all of your feelings, right? You got to cry and laugh and clap for everybody as they came on and just sit there and relish in the fact that you were back on Broadway. You're one of the 12 of us. We walked on, the audience went nuts. I mean, full standing ovation, would not sit down, cheering, cheering, cheering gives me goosebumps. And for the 12 of us, we're standing there, we can barely hear the drum to keep the beat in our feet, right? And so we're just waiting until when is everybody gonna sit down so we can start the show? And in those moments, thinking, turn off all feelings, turn off all thought. You are here to do a job.

And the best gift that you can give this audience is to deliver. And so it's a different kind of pressure. And it was awesome and incredible and wonderful in every way. And it also was very hard. Thrilling, but having to really, I'm just giving you the real answer, but really having to keep a lid on it. Because what you want to do is walk out and immediately break character and look at the audience and clap for them and start to sob and just be like, oh god, you guys, can you believe it? We're finally back. I never thought it would happen. I mean, that's what you want to do. Yeah. And and and you can't, you can't do it. So it's a, it's a, it's a challenge. A good challenge. I'm up for the challenge. But it's a challenge.

[49:19] Jeryl Brunner: And here you're in your fifth year.

[49:21] Sharon Wheatley: Yes. Be on Broadway. What is that? I love that this show is about kindness at its center. It's about so many things. It's about connections. It's about strangers coming together. Yeah. And generosity. Yeah. So many things. It's a wonderful thing to be in a show that's basically a masterclass in human generosity every night. It is a wonderful gift of a show to be a part of, to have created, to be the ambassador of. If I were a jerk to a waiter, it would really look bad. Which is okay. We take that very seriously, all of us in the show. And the show has made us nicer, kinder, more generous people. It is a life changing experience to be in Come From Away and to see Come From Away. And I can't say enough if you are looking for the perfect show to see at this moment in time, this is the one.

Because we all need to remember that kindness exists in the world, and it's like riding a bike. You just have to get back on it. And even when people come at you with frustration and anger, that you can come back to them with generosity and kindness and a remembering that we have all gone through something, and this is about community pulling together. Such a key moment, a key statement, especially now where we are in the world.

[51:12] Jeryl Brunner: Yeah, I wish that for everyone. Yes, yes. Sharon, it's such a gift to have you on the show. Thank you so so much for keeping it.

[51:21] Sharon Wheatley: Thank you for having me. It's just a pleasure. It's been so nice getting to know you. I can't, I can't thank you enough.

[51:28] Jeryl Brunner: Thank you. Have a wonderful day.

[51:31] Sharon Wheatley: I will, you too. It still happens every day. When lightning strikes is the moment you know. The theme song was written by Tom McGovern. This episode was edited by Kyle Moore. This episode was produced by Anna Strout. When lightning strikes.