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[0:00] Jeryl Brunner: From Shakespeare to Schwartz, from Fossey to Alvin Elley, from San Tom to Burelis, from McNally to Faye. It happened to the greats, it still happens every day. When lightning strikes is the moment you know when lightning strikes, where you're meant to go. You can stand in Chalureka. Do whatever you like. You'll never forget the moments when lightning strikes.

[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. Steven Boyer currently stars in the dazzling hit musical Kimberly Akimbo, now playing at the Booth Theatre. He also received a Tony nomination for the show Hand to God. Some of his other credits include Time and the Conways, I'm Not Rappaport, Assassins, Moscow, Moscow, Moscow, Moscow, Moscow, Moscow, WeCrashed, Love Life, Borderlands, Hustlers, Chicago Fire, Trial & Error, and more. He also plays lead guitar for the band the US Open. Welcome.

[1:14] Steven Boyer: Thanks.

[1:15] Jeryl Brunner: That was a lot of Moscow.

[1:18] Steven Boyer: That's a lot of Moscow.

[1:19] Jeryl Brunner: But did I get the Moscows right?

[1:20] Steven Boyer: I think you got the Moscows.

[1:24] Jeryl Brunner: You had the most prolific career so far. And I was saying that here I saw you in Hand to God, play a teenager, and now you're Buddy, the dad in Kimberly Akimbo.

[1:37] Steven Boyer: Yeah, it's very funny because, you know, that was at the Booth seven years ago. And so the last time I was at the Booth, I was a teenager, and now I'm back at the Booth playing an alcoholic dad. I'm like, that was a hard seven years. Look what happens in seven years.

[1:54] Jeryl Brunner: Oh my god. Well, that's such a testament to you and your acting chops to go in seven years to make that leap. Can you talk about when Kimberly Akimbo came into your life? Because you originated this role, right?

[2:14] Steven Boyer: At the Atlantic Theater and, uh, as Buddy, the dad, the alcoholic dad, who I'm convinced has a lot of love, and that's what I adore about this play.

[2:25] Jeryl Brunner: He does have a lot of love.

[2:26] Steven Boyer: Thank you. And he cares about his family.

[2:29] Jeryl Brunner: That's right.

[2:30] Steven Boyer: Yeah, in ways that are very complicated and often dangerous, but he does care about his family. But when this project came upon your inbox, came by your agent, what went through your mind? Can you take me to that moment?

[2:44] Steven Boyer: Um, well, uh, first of all, it was, it's, I don't get auditions for a lot of musicals. I tend to just do, um, new plays. And, uh, so I was excited that it was a musical, first of all, because I used to do musicals all the time, and then it just kind of stopped. Uh, so I was excited for that, but then I saw that it was David Lindsay-Abaire and Janine Tesori. And I was like, I don't need to read anything else. This is going to be incredible and groundbreaking and amazing, and it's gonna be hilarious and heartbreaking. So I'm in. Um, I've known David for like 20 years, over 20 years, because he was a playwriting fellow at Juilliard when I was a student there. Um, and I've known, you know, I've seen Janine's shows for the past 20, 25 years as well and have always been a fan of hers. And so I knew that this was gonna be a special one just based on that team.

[4:09] Steven Boyer: And so I kept getting emails like every six months. They were like, "You still interested? We're still gonna do this. Are you still around?" And I was like, "Yes, I'm definitely still interested." And, uh, so we took almost a two-year break, uh, between when I was cast and when we started up at the Atlantic. Um, but yeah, they held on to it. They knew they had something special, so they didn't want to let this one go. It's such a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful life-affirming musical, which started as a play, you know, too, you know, years ago. And, um, can you, for people who might not know what this show is about, if somebody were to ask you, "What is Kimberly Akimbo about?" what would you say?

[4:54] Steven Boyer: Um, so Kimberly Akimbo is about Kim, who is a 16-year-old New Jersey teen in the late 90s, and she's dealing with all the stuff that a teenager normally deals with. Uh, except she also has this dysfunctional family. Her father's an alcoholic, her mother's a narcissist, her aunt is a career criminal. Um, but the biggest, uh, factor that she is dealing with is that she has a rare genetic disorder where she ages four to five times as fast as she should. So her life expectancy is only 16 years, and she is about to have her 16th birthday. Um, but the show is hilarious. It is hilarious, and the music is spectacular.

[5:42] Jeryl Brunner: Right, yes.

[5:43] Steven Boyer: Every song really brings you in. And I think about the songs you sing and how they, you know, develop your character, they develop Buddy even further and further and further. And I just, I love the song. Also, uh, is it called "Inevitable Turn," where you're all sitting at the dealer table and you're in their minds? And that's again the genius of all of you, and then Jillen and David and your orchestrator and how the songs really inform the show in such a unique way that you don't often see.

[6:23] Steven Boyer: Yeah, yeah, that song is great, "Inevitable Turn." It's, uh, it really is three family members in her monologue all at once, and how everyone is waiting for the explosion that they know is going to come. Um, it's also the only time that I get to sing with Bonnie Milligan in the whole show, so it's a treat.

[6:45] Jeryl Brunner: That must be a joy. And what was the joy of bringing the show to Broadway? Because I loved it at the Atlantic, I love the intimacy, and I still feel that intimacy at the Booth.

[6:58] Steven Boyer: Right, right.

[7:02] Steven Boyer: Yeah, I think that the Booth was the theater that we were hoping to land at for the Broadway run because it would preserve that intimacy. Um, you know, I'm used to the process of developing a straight play off-Broadway. You know, and this is my first time doing a new musical. And there is a lot of stuff that I had not anticipated. The way that it's not just about spending eight hours a day on the acting choices. It's like we're gonna spend a little time on that and then we're gonna trust that the performers are going to figure it out, and then we, you know, you have to focus on so many other factors, things like the, you know, the way that interstitial music cues affect the automation of the set and the automation of the lights and how this staging has to be a certain way because we need to make room for, you know, some hydraulics or something.

It's these things that I had never had to think about in any production because I've never done a Broadway musical, and there is a level of production that even with our, you know, seemingly small scrappy show, there's a level of production that I hadn't had to think about. Um, and so the process was kind of different for me. I was unaccustomed to it.

[7:03] Jeryl Brunner: I still feel that deep connection that you had, even though it's a bigger space.

[8:49] Jeryl Brunner: And what qualities do you love about Buddy?

[8:54] Steven Boyer: I mean, I know he's so damaged and he makes all these mistakes, but there is love. And he's very human. And I know, as I said, we've talked about before, he deeply cares for his family. And I see him as, I feel like he wants to save his family in some way, and yet just it gets bum-fumbled along the way. But, you know, it's like even if as a parent you absolutely love your family and your children, it doesn't mean that you're good at being a parent to them. I mean, like Buddy means well, but he is incapable of parenting in the way that he needs to. Um, he, you know, he became a parent when he was a teenager.

[9:53] Jeryl Brunner: Yes.

[9:53] Steven Boyer: And so he's emotionally stunted, he's frozen at that moment in his life, and he was not ready for the responsibilities of parenthood, and he's still not ready, and he's still denying those responsibilities, even though he does love his daughter very much and cares about her very deeply. He doesn't know how to show that or how to act upon it. Um, so he makes mistakes, and also his inability to deal with his life circumstances, you know, lead him to drink uncontrollably. And, uh, it's been really great to work on because I love characters that aren't just one thing. Yeah, you know, Buddy is very funny in the show, but he can also be cruel, yes, in a, you know, in a second he can turn.

[10:36] Jeryl Brunner: Yeah, and what's extraordinary, yeah, I love that song, "See the World," where you're talking about your dreams and how you gave up your dreams, you know, you really didn't explore your dreams, you wouldn't let yourself really explore your dreams because you became a father so early. And at the same time, it's so hilarious, you know, it's, I love seeing you being so caring for Kimberly too, you know, and how it's, you're laughing, like hysterically laughing at all the things happening, and then you're thinking, and then it's so sad, you know, the pieces and how that changes in a matter of seconds, you know, and it's so convincing.

[10:36] Steven Boyer: What's extraordinary too is that I totally believe that you're Kimberly's dad, even though she looks, you know, decades somewhat older than you.

[11:58] Jeryl Brunner: Right, yeah, but that, you know, there is, you're still a dad.

[11:58] Steven Boyer: Yeah, I mean, that's, uh, and a lot of that is on Victoria Clark. I mean, she does such a convincing job playing a 16-year-old girl, uh, that you just forget that it's Victoria Clark up there. I mean, she is so, she inhabits a teenage girl so fully that it makes my job being her dad kind of easy. Um, but the hard thing about it is caring, the hard thing about it is caring so much for someone that you know is not going to be around forever. Um, yeah, and having that heartbreak every night, and you know, two shows on Wednesdays and Saturdays, it's a lot. It's a lot of heartbreak. That's the hard part about the role to me. Um, I, uh, this is the first time I played a father, and I also became a father a few years ago.

[12:20] Steven Boyer: Thank you. And, uh, so since then, you know, I really feel like I understand what it feels like, the feeling of that you are disappointing your kids or that you are somehow like, you know, you have this job that has the most responsibility in the world. You are shaping, you know, a young person, and you're trying to make them the best and the healthiest and the most fully realized that they can be, and your ego gets in the way or your temper gets in the way or you just don't know what to do. And the feeling of I'm not doing this as well as I should is a real palpable feeling that I have as a parent, and it's awful. It's a terrifying feeling. And to be able to, but to be able to sort of exercise that in a piece of art is very fulfilling.

[12:20] Jeryl Brunner: That's a beautiful thing. Yeah, and I think of all of the layers of every character and what an ensemble, and I love that you all originated your roles at the Atlantic and then you all moved right together to the Booth and just solidified and solidified and keep exploring. I want to talk about your lightning strikes moment when you knew you had to be an artist. Was there a moment when you thought, "This is the life for me"?

[12:20] Steven Boyer: Um, well, uh, I've had a few different ones, um, for different reasons. I mean, I feel like I always kind of, I was a child actor in Columbus, Ohio. I did a lot of children's theater from a very young age and was doing, you know, two shows at a time, you know, from the age of like 10 until I left at 18. And I felt like this is what I was supposed to do from a very young age because, you know, even before I got on stage, I always felt like a performer, like not necessarily an actor or an artist, but a performer, like someone whose job it is to make people laugh.

[15:55] Steven Boyer: Like that was just my job. That was my job in the family. My job was to impersonate people and tell jokes and sing songs and crack people up. And so I took it upon myself at home and at school to be that person. And then my parents kind of, you know, funneled me into community theater and was like, let's let this kid work out some of his excess energy in a productive way. And it really, really took. Um, but some of the actual like lightning strike moments that I can remember, I worked on a play called the Lowman Family Picnic, uh, by David Margles when I was um uh 16. I played the bar mitzvah boy Stewie. And it was again this kind of combo of hilarity and sadness, you know, the dramedy that I have tended to do pretty much for my whole career since.

Um, I was 16, and the people playing my parents were two different acting professors from Ohio State and from Otterbine College, and it was at the one equity theater in Columbus. We had one equity theater, contemporary American Theater Company, which is called Catco. And I remember I had this confrontation scene with my father where he tries to take my far mitzvah money, and it was like the audience was holding their breath every night, and we would have it escalate into this physical fight between, you know, tiny 16-year-old me and this hulking man who played my father. And it was electric every time, and I was like, it felt so great to kind of know that I could manipulate an audience in a way because they were laughing and laughing and laughing the whole show, and then that scene comes along, and out of nowhere they're devastated.

And I was like, yes, I did that. I made that happen. And it felt incredible to be able to take people on a journey and pull the rug out from under them and make them feel something. Um, so that was really when I was like, this is it. I'm not doing, I can't do anything else. This is it. I have to keep going. And then I feel like, and you know, once the career got rolling, there were other lightning strike moments, like other revelations, not necessarily about this is, you know, the life that I am meant to lead, but just different ways to sort of navigate that life and that career. Um, I had been unemployed for, I mean, the better part of a decade after I got out of Juilliard. I had done one Broadway show, I'm Not Rappaport.

Yeah, I thought that everything was gonna be smooth sailing, and I ended up maxing out, you know, credit cards for the next decade, paying my rent and buying groceries because the next job was not right around the corner. And I started doing, I got tired of doing um theater on the road. I got tired of doing regional stuff. I wanted to stay in New York City because I felt like no one actually knew who I was because I was trying to go out of town to take jobs when I could. And I ended up hanging out at the Ensemble Studio Theater. Oh where, uh, you know, it's a developmental theater. You're not gonna get rich working there, but it's where playwrights and directors and actors go to create new work.

And it almost felt like going to the gym. You know, it's like exercising my muscles, getting to work on new characters, getting to originate characters, getting to collaborate with playwrights to flesh out story points, you know, and beats and have true collaborations with a director and a writer where you are crafting the character with them. Um, that was a moment that working at EST really changed my entire life. And uh, not to give away the punchline or the thing. There are many punchlines. You wanted to say, wasn't there a play being developed there called Hand to God? Yes, Hand to God was we first did a, you know, a reading at EST. It started from their Youngblood playwriting program. Uh, that's where Rob Askins was when he wrote the first draft, and we did the first reading and we did reading after we did so many readings and so many workshops before finally EST was like we have to do this, and they kind of shoehorned it into a season that was already planned because the artistic director Billy Carton was like, he saw a reading of it and he was like, I've never seen a reaction.

He's like, the people were screaming in that reading. He's like, they were screaming with laughter, and then at the end they were just screaming because they were terrified. And he's like, we have to do this play. And so that crazy, crazy play got a home, and Broadway producers noticed it, which is unbelievable. Like that play had no business going to Broadway. People were like, what is it? Why are you having a satanic puppet on Broadway? But um, it just had an effect on audiences that was undeniable. Uh, yeah, so I owe that to Ensemble Studio Theater. And P.S. not only did it go to Broadway, but you got a Tony nomination for your incredible riveting performance as this teenager who's uh, and then also playing the puppet, right?

Tyrone. Tyrone. Yes. The demonic, it's so funny because people uh, people come up to me now uh at the stage door and they're like, I who knew you could sing? I had no idea. And the thing is is that, you know, a lot of them mentioned that they had seen Hand to God before. And the thing is is that the puppet in Hand to God sings through the show. Like he sings, he sings songs, he sings You've Lost That Loving Feeling, he sings some Smokey Robinson song, he sings, he is singing non-stop and uh, which is like, you know, gags and stuff and jokes and stuff that we developed in the room that weren't necessarily there in the first draft but um, but uh, it's funny because there I in their mind it's like, well that was Tyrone.

Tyrone I knew Tyrone could sing, I didn't know you could sing. The puppet? Yeah, no, yeah, he sang a lot. Well that's a real, again a credit to you because you, you, you don't, it seems like a, he's like Tyrone is like a living, like existing independent from you even though you know you are Tyrone. That was the magic trick of the magic trick in the, and you were so different, you know, this kid is so, is so different from Tyrone and that you inhabit the, and then you know he inhabits you and it's really, it's fascinating and terrifying and again hilarious. And um, what I, I just want to go back though to you said when you were a kid and you had to, yeah, entertain your family. Do you remember what, what that came from?

Why that, that was inside of you? I had way too much energy. I was incredibly, uh, I was, I was constantly, you know, pinballing between things and I couldn't stop. I really couldn't stop making jokes. Like I, I loved Robin Williams from a young age and I sort of like, I was like, that's like me because I couldn't stop making jokes. And I look now and it's like, it's the same. My, my father did the same, does the same thing, and I realized that it's really just genetic. Um, you know, and in a different world, you know, he should have maybe been a performer instead of a psychologist. But uh, yeah, I just, I mean I couldn't, I from a very young age I would impersonate people. I would do voices and impressions, and it was usually people, you know, characters from TV, or it was people we knew and people in the family, and I realized early on that that was like that bit worked, that that got people cracking up.

So I just, I was sent your SL, your Saturday Night Live audition, and it's brilliant. All the characters. We had to pare that down because there were like twice as many impressions on that, and we had to pare it down to like 10 or something. Michael J. Fox and yeah, yeah, the combo of him and yeah. Michael J. Fox was an early one. That one that's been with me for a long time. Then uh, yeah, Gandalf and oh gosh, it goes on and on, and then the original characters, and it's just delicious. And what kept you going during that dry period? You know, between the city? That is a good question. You get a Broadway show with, you know, I'm Not Rappaport, these big stars. And then you think they think everything, it's all gonna be smooth sailing.

Yeah. Um, you know what? I started, I was losing my, I was like losing my mind. I needed to be in front of people. I mean, I, that kind of sounds weird, but I needed, I really like was a performer in search of an audience. And the thing is, as an actor, you're waiting for someone to give you that opportunity. You know, it's you, unless you create work for yourself, which is really the solution for a lot of people, um, you're at the whim of, you're at the whims of, you know, theaters and seasons and directors and casting and what have you. So I started writing stand-up material, and I started going to clubs and I started doing comedy for a while. I, uh, you know, I got past at Stand Up New York on the Upper West Side and got to do, uh, late late-night shows there on the bill and met a lot of different comedians.

Um, and one of them was like, you wanna come with me on tour and be my, be my opening act and my feature act when I headline, and I was like, yes, please. Please let me do this. So I got in a car with someone I hardly knew for four months, and we drove across the country and we did like seven gigs a week um at colleges and comedy clubs and, you know, sleeping in crappy hotels and it was great.

[28:24] Steven Boyer: Does that experience help inform your choices as an actor or what you bring to a role in that comic timing?

[28:36] Steven Boyer: It absolutely does. In certain ways that are very tangible, and then in some other ways that are less so. Like, uh, before I did stand-up, I had a really hard time in a play with direct address. I did not like talking directly to the audience. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't, you know, I couldn't—I it was just very hard for me. And stand-up is all direct address. So I had to get over it. Uh, now I'm fine talking directly to an audience. I also learned, you know, how to write a joke and how to write material for yourself, which has come in handy for any number of things. I mean, I've like I had to host the Drama League Awards one year, and you know, I wrote 20 minutes of jokes roasting everybody.

[29:25] Steven Boyer: Um, with Tyrone, wasn't it?

[29:27] Steven Boyer: Yeah, with Tyrone, which is why it was okay. Because the puppet can make fun of Helen Mirren and it's fine. Tyrone can be a good thing. I did it. You'd be like, who are you? And get off, but Tyrone can get away with insulting.

[29:44] Steven Boyer: So, um, but then other things like, you know, it's always—you always try to listen to the audience, you know. You know, you try and you try and make sure that you keep, you know, one ear kind of tuned to what their reaction is, and especially in a comedy because you want to know what's working. You know, sometimes this audience likes—they like the physical gags, sometimes they're more into the cerebral jokes, sometimes they like wordplay, and you can kind of hear that in the beginning in the first few scenes of a comedy and then kind of tune your dials to give them the best performance possible, or just to sort of get them involved. And because once an audience starts rolling, the whole show becomes better for them and for you on stage.

[30:41] Steven Boyer: It's like you're always taking temperature. You're always taking the temperature, always.

[30:45] Jeryl Brunner: Yeah. And I love also that you went to Ju—did you go to Juilliard right out of high school?

[30:50] Steven Boyer: Yeah. You auditioned and were one of the very few who got in, yeah.

[30:57] Jeryl Brunner: Um, which is phenomenal. Um, what was that experience like for you?

[31:04] Steven Boyer: Um, I well I was—I was coming from Ohio to New York somehow seemed, uh, seemed very natural to me. And I came to New York and I was like, this is where I should be, this is the—this is the place I always imagined living, and this is the kind of life I always wanted. I loved coming to New York. And, uh, so there wasn't a culture shock in that way. But then, you know, I was 18 years old. I missed out on a college experience. And in my mind, a college experience involved, you know, partying and skipping class and having like these, you know, romanticized, uh, college experiences like you'd seen in like an 80s movie or something. Like I was expecting Animal House or something.

[31:56] Steven Boyer: But, um, I, you know, it was an arts conservatory where they are expecting you to perform at a level of, uh, at a professional level. And, uh, I—but I was 18 and so I for the first couple years I really rebelled against the authority of my professors at Juilliard. I just was like, I'm here to show you that I know how to do it all. And it was—I really thought that I knew everything. Um, in a way that maybe if I had gone at an older age, I would have had some more humility.

[32:36] Steven Boyer: Uh, but that was back in the day when Juilliard still had the like we break you down to build you up, uh, kind of mentality. It was the very—it was very old school. We still had some people that have been there from year one.

[32:49] Steven Boyer: Uh, and, um, so they broke me down. I mean, they broke me down, and then it wasn't until third and fourth year when we get to really perform in front of an audience that I felt like I kind of came back to what I knew I could do.

[33:10] Steven Boyer: Uh, or like what I thought my strengths were, which was really playing to an audience.

[33:16] Jeryl Brunner: Yeah.

[33:16] Steven Boyer: But you stuck with it.

[33:18] Steven Boyer: I stuck with it to be so, yeah, and you're really part of this ensemble doing, you know, shows and repertoire. I mean, and these plays and the classics and sh—yeah, everything.

[33:29] Steven Boyer: My goodness. I took the opportunity, you know, we got to pick scenes. I really took the opportunity to do things to play characters and bring in scenes for characters that I would never play.

[33:41] Jeryl Brunner: Like what? Like who?

[33:43] Steven Boyer: Like I—I did—I was like Stanley Kowalski or like I was, you know, Macbeth, you know, and I was like, I was a s—18-year-old kid who was like short and skinny and looked about 12. But I'm like, I'm like, if I can figure out how to make choices, character choices that justify why I would be playing this character, then that would—that's a success.

[34:14] Steven Boyer: And so that was sort of the goal that I laid out for myself in school. I was like, this is how I'm going to use this to its maximum effect. I'm going to try and inhabit the characters that are the farthest from me.

[34:28] Jeryl Brunner: That's so great. What a challenge.

[34:31] Steven Boyer: Yeah, that's—that's how I laid it out for myself. Do you feel like you take ever things you learn that they stay with you even to this day?

[34:40] Steven Boyer: You know, pieces of training. Little things, little things. Um, you know, it's easy to kind of like look at the whole thing and be like, what happened? It was kind of a blur, you know, for four years.

[34:52] Steven Boyer: Uh, but there are phrases and moments and things that kind of stick out. Um, the first year, uh, acting teacher, John Sticks, who's an old studio theater guy. Um, you know, he had like, uh, James Dean and Marilyn Monroe in his acting class at, uh, uh, uh, back in the day in the 50s and, um, he was—his stuff stuck with me the most. I mean, the one of the things that he would say that kind of is always there no matter what I'm working on now is, uh, it's like don't do what's probable, do what's possible.

[35:04] Steven Boyer: And, you know, because it's easy to be when you're trying to figure out the scene like, well, they want this so they're gonna go after it like this because that makes sense. That's logically if you wanted to achieve your goals, this is how this is the tactic you would use and that may be true, but there are other possibilities that might be more interesting and unexpected that can get you the same thing. And so exploring not what's probable but what is possible is always helpful, always helpful no matter what you're working on.

[36:18] Jeryl Brunner: I love that. That makes you stretch.

[36:18] Steven Boyer: Yeah, and to go back for a moment to Kimberly Akimbo, I heard that you wear some of your—your father's—well, they're not literally his clothes but—but yeah, they are really close.

[36:33] Steven Boyer: I mean, Sarah Lux, the costume designer, I got into the room to try and stuff with her and I was like, did you raid my dad's closet? Because this is like his uniform from like the late 80s into the 90s. I mean, I wear the tan windbreaker, the dad jacket that, you know, he wore for decades. I'm wearing the white, uh, Reeboks that he mowed the lawn in. I got the like acid wash jeans that he wore out.

[37:02] Steven Boyer: Uh, I'm—and you know, I even have like the little gold Casio digital watch that beeps every hour, you know, and like has a little blue light up background. And these are like little, you know, photographs in my mind of my dad from when I was a kid.

[37:24] Steven Boyer: And, uh, and it helps. It really helps.

[37:31] Jeryl Brunner: What is it like for you when they come see the show when your family comes?

[37:36] Steven Boyer: Um, well, uh, it's—it's—it's hard. It's hard. Um, my dad got sick recently. Uh, he—he came to my parents came to see it at the Atlantic, and then, uh, about a week after that he had an accident and became ill and is still dealing, you know, with this illness.

[38:04] Steven Boyer: And, uh, so it's, um, it's tough. It's tough. And they're the, uh, you know, they're the audience that you kind of want to impress the most, especially when you're playing a parent.

[38:22] Jeryl Brunner: Yes.

[38:23] Steven Boyer: Um, and you're dressed like one of your parents. Uh, it adds just this kind of surreal element to everything. And also, you know, so I'm on stage playing a father dressed like my father who is—who is ill, and the play is all about the time that you have left with the ones you love.

[38:45] Steven Boyer: And so there's a lot going on in the background of this play for me.

[38:53] Jeryl Brunner: I'm so sorry.

[38:56] Steven Boyer: That's okay. What a gift. And I mean, you know, it's—things come along at the right time.

[39:03] Jeryl Brunner: Yes.

[39:04] Steven Boyer: What a beautiful time.

[39:06] Jeryl Brunner: Yeah.

[39:07] Steven Boyer: Yeah. For—and I'm sure the show is healing for many people.

[39:12] Jeryl Brunner: Absolutely.

[39:13] Steven Boyer: As well.

[39:13] Jeryl Brunner: Yeah, I think so.

[39:15] Jeryl Brunner: What? And I love that you're in the band. What does that give you in the band?

[39:19] Steven Boyer: It's like—it's one, you know, it's a band. It's a bunch of actors that started a rock band. And we all—we all say whenever we have, you know, practice or something, we're like, this is the most fun thing that I get to do.

[39:37] Steven Boyer: It really is. It's like, you know, actors want to be rock stars.

[39:41] Jeryl Brunner: Yes.

[39:42] Steven Boyer: They just do. And rock stars want to be comedians and comedians want to be actors. It's like the circle of life.

[39:48] Steven Boyer: And, um, but it's just—it's just this, you know, it's this other part of your brain. I mean, I play a lot of instruments and I love learning new instruments, you know, based on the information you're like, how do can I translate learning piano into playing accordion or guitar or a saxophone or, you know, like how can one instrument sort of be a gateway to any number of other instruments.

[40:20] Steven Boyer: And I, uh, so when I started playing with other people, it was just—it was like, oh no, this is—this is really where it's at. It's like not playing by yourself, but music created with other people is so much more fulfilling.

[40:39] Steven Boyer: And it also has elements of developing a new play. It's funny because, uh, everyone in this band is an actor, and we met each other through working on new works, and we take the same approach to making music, uh, that we do from creating a new—a new theater piece.

[41:08] Steven Boyer: Um, so it's very, very collaborative, very fulfilling, super fun, and we have an album that's on all the streaming services, and you can buy it if you want.

[41:20] Steven Boyer: It's called We Are the US Open. It's, uh, it's a great rock album that will make you dance. It's a lot of fun.

[41:29] Jeryl Brunner: Do you write songs together?

[41:31] Steven Boyer: Yeah.

[41:31] Steven Boyer: Yeah, we write songs together.

[41:34] Jeryl Brunner: It's so great.

[41:35] Jeryl Brunner: Oh, Steven. Well, it's such a joy to have you on the show.

[41:40] Steven Boyer: Thanks so much for coming on.

[41:41] Jeryl Brunner: Of course. Thanks for having me.

[41:42] Jeryl Brunner: You're welcome, and congratulations.

[41:46] Steven Boyer: Thank you.

[41:47] Jeryl Brunner: The great sit 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 Strauss.

[42:02] Jeryl Brunner: When lightning strikes.