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[0:00] Jeryl Brunner: From Shakespeare to Schwartz, from Fawcy to Alvin Ailey, from Santam to Borealis, 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 your matter goes you can stand in tell your rega, do whatever you like. You'll never forget the moments when lightning strikes.

[0:28] 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. Matthew August Jeffers currently stars in An Enemy of the People, now playing at Circle in the Square Theatre, a prolific actor. Some of his other credits include Richard III at the Delacorte Theatre, the film Unidentified Objects, and the TV shows New Amsterdam, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and The Walking Dead. Welcome, Matthew.

[1:05] Matthew August Jeffers: Thank you, Jeryl. So nice to be here. So nice to connect with you. It's such a joy. Thanks for having me.

[1:12] Jeryl Brunner: Thanks so much for coming onto the show. Let's start with An Enemy of the People. Can you bring me to when this beautiful show came into your life? Where were you when you heard about it?

[1:25] Matthew August Jeffers: Yeah. Um, well, uh, this past summer, uh, my uh fiancé and I split. And uh she moved to Israel. And for years, I was trying to get her to watch Succession with me. And we watched the first episode uh during COVID, and she was like, "This is just not my cup of tea." And so the very first thing I did when I moved into my own space was uh start Succession. Um, and so I was in the uh midst of the final season when this audition came through, and I saw that Jeremy Strong was going to be starring as Dr. Thomas Stockmann, the protagonist in An Enemy of the People. And it was this kind of kismet uh where I was falling in love with his work on screen every night. And here I was with the prospect of getting to collaborate on something with him. It was uh both exciting and um intimidating given, you know, his kind of uh reputation for the intensity that he brings to the role.

[2:43] Matthew August Jeffers: So I called my mentor up. I work with my old college professor. We meet weekly to discuss projects and read plays together and called him up and said, you know, I have my first Broadway audition in a long time. And this is a really exciting show with a really exciting team, and I want to do everything in my power to bring this home. And that was about September, October. I was flying to Colombia for the international premiere of Unidentified Objects in Bogota. And so I would work, I think like we worked maybe 12, 13 hours out of the hotel in Bogota with my mentor and I just, you know, breaking down the script line by line and uh turning it over. And I don't think that I would have booked this without my mentor, without those hours of really understanding and getting our fingernails dirty of what this story really is and what it means for today's audience.

[3:40] Matthew August Jeffers: Uh by mid-October, you know, I was auditioning and by early November I had the offer to play Billing and was thrilling, truly. I it was kind of kismet in another way because I was auditioning at, I think Broadway 42nd and 8th, something like that. And I got the call from my agent, literally across the street. I was going to see a friend in a play at Roundabout. I got a call like a stone's throw away from where I had auditioned. And so it's just, you know, a lot of full circle moments for this project. I'm so thrilled to uh to have been able to be a part of it and to continue to be a part of it.

[4:21] Jeryl Brunner: Well, let's um pack here. It was is this mentor of yours, is he from Towson State where you went?

[4:29] Matthew August Jeffers: Yes, yes. I I spoke, I spoke at Towson's theater program graduation last May, uh, May 2023. And he emailed me. He said, "Hey, while you're in town, I would love to grab coffee with you." And I said, "Of course." He's what I I did my senior thesis within his class. So he, you know, he has long known kind of the career that I'm hoping to pave. And so we got coffee and he kind of pitched this idea that he has this a friend of his was a longtime kind of dramaturg assistant to Keanu Reeves. And he said that, you know, as my career continues to kind of progress in exciting ways, uh, he wanted to see if I would be interested in kind of collaborating in a way where if I get an audition or a project, or if I just need an extra set of eyes that he could be that support system for me.

[5:23] Matthew August Jeffers: Um, you know, hyper-intellectual, uh deep, deep knowledge of plays and playwrights and the arts as a whole. And I was absolutely I would I was honored, truly. He's he was he's long been one of my favorite um resources in in this in this field. So uh and we've been meeting weekly since then, going on a year. It doesn't feel that way, but it's been going on a year where we we actually met this morning. We meet once a week to talk, you know, break things down, talk about things. And it's so interesting because in August during the strike, there was really it was uncomfortably quiet. And uh I met him in Baltimore. I remember sitting on a uh bench together, and he was like, "What do you want to do?

Like, you know, during this time of quiet, what do you want to do? What are the plays that you want to read?" And just getting your, you know, just getting back to basics. And I told him, I looked him in the eyes. I was like, "Honestly, I feel like I'm ready for Broadway. Like I feel like I'm ready for that challenge that kind of done, you know, a number of off-Broadway productions in the past few years. I'd really love to challenge myself for a Broadway length run." And I think less than a month later, this audition came down the pipe thanks to Taylor Williams, who cast me in Light Shining in Buckinghamshire, New York Theater Workshop. So again, um beat a dead horse, but really a lot of full circles here. It's just the c the the team that I've worked with. Um it's crazy how it all came to be.

[6:56] Matthew August Jeffers: It's uh incre yeah, I've heard the statement, you know, the harder your work, the better your luck. And certainly you've worked incredibly hard and have done so much, and it's yes.

[7:08] Jeryl Brunner: I have to tell you, I just I I don't know if you'll see, but you say that literally on my wall right here, just off screen, there's a big whiteboard. It says Broadway, and then at the very top it's a is a handwritten note. It's the one note, it's the one handwritten thing that I have. It does I find that the harder I work, the more luck I have. Oh Thomas Jefferson. So it's so interesting that you just said that.

[7:32] Matthew August Jeffers: Something that I've kind of harnessed and believed in for years.

[7:36] Jeryl Brunner: That's wonderful. What kismet! And it's for people who might not know. I mean, uh not only I mean incredible cast, director, dramaturg, uh Sam Gold. He was directing her. It's Buzzy. That's a good way. Amy Herzog.

[7:53] Matthew August Jeffers: Yeah, Sam it's it's a they've they've been married and they're they're they're married, and and this is actually their first artistic collaboration together, which is really exciting. And honestly, um watching them work in the rehearsal room together was so beautiful, you know, given their long history of interpersonal relationships and also professional relationships. They just they worked so well together, and um hopefully that you know, hopefully this is the beginning of a fruitful professional relationship between the two of them because they really um I think it was Variety or New Yorker did a beautiful piece on and yes, Michael and Perioli, um stars as Peter Stockmann, Victoria Pedretti, you and and the haunting of Hill House, just a lot of really David Patrick Kelly.

It's it's a really really and also arguably the greatest theater on Broadway, Circle in the Square. So a lot of heavy headers in this piece, and uh I think that's why audiences are really responding to it.

[8:57] Matthew August Jeffers: And I've always loved this play, but I've never laughed at it. And it's so hard. And I'm fascinated that what it was five, and it's been beautifully condensed. Truncated, truncated, you know, to just what two hours. And you really get to the heart of things, and it's incredibly relevant. What do you love about doing the play, especially now?

[9:26] Matthew August Jeffers: I don't consider myself a hyper intellectual. I wish I was. And I think the fact that that is what I love most about this piece. You know, I've done Carol Churchill and Shakespeare and kind of some heady highbrow texts in the past few years. And even like you said, the original Ibsen, it can be a little uh you have to jump through a few hoops to really kind of break down that that original um text. But what Amy did so beautifully in this piece is she made it disarmingly approachable. This this the language in this piece, Sam kept saying in rehearsals that this is ideas play, right? That the people, the audiences are going to understand and become invested in this play so long as they hear the words, because ideas play.

You have to understand what is the problem in this town, why are they fighting against it? And having Amy's script and the sentence structure be so simple, and I mean that in the best way, right? So approachable and attainable. For me as an actor, it's it's a it's a it's a breath of fresh air to be able to say a line and kind of like know exactly what I'm saying, you know, and why I'm saying it, and also to be able to imbue some nuance and subtext there.

[10:47] Matthew August Jeffers: But really just being able to go out and say the words sometimes with less stroll uh or with weaker scripts, you as an actor, you have to, you know, over muscle heavy lifting to kind of get that idea across. Exactly. And then and then everything kind of feels heavier and more plotty with it with Amy's script and Sam's depth uh direction. It all just feels disarmingly simple. And I think that is why audiences feel so connected with it because it's so intimate and it's so approachable, especially once we get into the interactive act four when people are literally on stage with us. It's like uh suddenly this becomes really a group project. And then it goes, you know, haywire really fast. I think uh, like you said, the fact that it's under two hours, it eclipses it all just kind of works.

I think in in previews, we really found that, you know. We found that the the faster it went, the the more clip it had, that's when audiences really started to hear and and those jokes started to land and the ideas, you know. We start it David Patrick Kelly, who plays Martin Keel often says in addressing it's like we're at church because so many of Dr. Stockmann's uh lines and Peter's reactions, you have these audible reactions from the crowd, which is the surest sign that they're listening.

[12:18] Matthew August Jeffers: Yes, that they know what's going on. And it feels like every audience, every night, we have this kind of audible assurance that they are on this train, that it's not moving too slow or too fast. They are there and they're waiting for the next beat to drop and the next beat to drop until finally it all comes crashing down for Thomas and people are left reft and stunned. You know, my personal favorite part of this show is as you know the town turns on him in a really gruesome way. I get to kind of peek out to the crowd because the house lights are on. And without fail, there are people with their jaw dropped next directly next to people who are cracking up, directly next to people who have tears in their eyes.

And I mean that literally. This idea is landing, and each person is having their own unique experience with this story. So again, that's a credit to Tom, to Jeremy, and Michael, and all of the casts for delivering. It's really a sign of being human and why I love theater so much, because of how people respond. And you're right, it's like a revival maybe, you know. It's like and how we're all part of it in this very integral way.

[13:39] Jeryl Brunner: For people who might not know, do you mind explaining what An Enemy of the People is about, just like in basic terms?

[13:48] Matthew August Jeffers: This is set in the late 1880s in Norway. It's cold, it's dark. The town doctor, well respected, discovers that tests that he has been conducting are coming back with the results being that the local water is poisoned from a tannery. The local bands, the spas that this town is building, the guests are coming and they're drinking and they're being exposed to toxic pollution in the water. And his brother happens to be the mayor of this town. And he quickly realizes the ramifications, the financial fallout of what would happen if this news came out; they would lose tourists, tourism would plummet, and so their economy would plummet. Very similar, eerily similar to the fights we were having with COVID, right when people wanted to open up shop.

But then, so a lot of parallels here in Dr. Fauci, of course. And it just becomes this kind of interfamilial, inter-societal war between establishing the facts and securing a financially successful future for the town. And you know, I work at the local newspaper that is kind of caught in the crosshairs, yeah, what to publish, what side to take, and the town itself kind of has to reckon with their opinion on Thomas Summer or Peter and then their arguments. It's really an idea of how this small town, how one kind of news source can kind of tray the relationships and people's belief systems and their priorities and also what is fact, what is fiction, understanding the value of truth. It's dense.

And again, going back to Amy's writing, she boils it down into kind of the most rudimentary terms to make you feel that you really can understand the stakes of what is going on in this town. So many parallels with what's going on in America and the world, almost eerily simple. And I hear a lot of that with the audience. When I sign after the show, so many of them are like, I can't believe that this was written 130 years ago. You know, it felt like it was written in 2021.

[16:18] Jeryl Brunner: I know, it feels so timeless, and it's funny. That's what's great. You look at it. And it's funny.

[16:23] Matthew August Jeffers: I know, I know. Well, I had no way reading the script. I had no idea how funny it would be until we got it on its feet and got in front of an audience. Yeah, they're listening. And how delightful is Billy? I mean, all of his flaws and things, but I just you're really rooting for him until anyway. I don't want to give it away. What do you love about him?

[16:51] Matthew August Jeffers: I really enjoy, well, he has a swagger and he has a passion. He's kind of this firebrand in this story. I think he is at the root of it a fierce opportunist. I think the world is not as black and white as kind of I've come up thinking, and I kind of live my personal life in a way that is black and white and that's always productive and helpful. And you know, Billy for all of his flaws and his lack of a backbone, I think it's a good testament that people are complicated, that people at the root of it are looking out for their best interests and are always kind of taking stock of what is going on on the outside and processing how that affects their own personal life and their own situation. And I kind of build a backstory in order to justify Billy's decision and how he kind of switches in order to justify why he would do that. And he just, yeah, he's got this swagger to him, he's confident, and I love playing characters like that.

[18:07] Jeryl Brunner: You once told me about your lightning strikes moment and I wonder if it's changed at all when you were in eighth grade in Charlie Brown, right? And that that's really when it hit you, ah this is when they want to perform. But tell me about your lightning strikes moment when you knew you had to be an artist or one of the key moments where you thought this is my path.

[18:43] Matthew August Jeffers: Well, when I was a kid, I tried to stay as far away from the thespians as I possibly could. I always thought that they were kind of the weird ones because I grew up in a hyper-masculine kind of jockey world society and culture. So I was on basketball courts and the baseball fields, and it wasn't until I realized that that was going to be a reasonable long-term career opportunity for me. And my mom was the one to come to me. And she told me, "You're so dramatic. You're such a good storyteller. I really think that you would be great on stage. It's a different kind of court, you know. You just think of it as sport on a stage. You still have your teammates, you have your coach." She kind of reimagined what I thought of the theater and kind of related, interlinked it with sports.

And I said, okay, fine. I did Charlie Brown in eighth grade, and I made Schroeder. It was that moment that so many actors recount of the curtain coming up and having audiences stand on their feet and clap, express their gratitude for the short story that we shared with them. It was that moment that I was like, it's a drug. It really is a drug. It's hard to, once you kind of taste that honey, it's hard to not want to continue to live in that environment. And since really, honestly, since that moment, it was like it felt like a rolling out of the carpet for me for the rest of my life in terms of what I wanted to do from that point on. It was like summer stock. I knew that I was going to major in theater, and when I applied to college, it was all just kind of no-brainers from there.

And also people from really early on, from really that first production, and even going back to like when I went to camp, like as a kid, we would do like the talent showcase. People were always coming up to me and telling me that I was expressive, and I couldn't talk until I was four. And so I kind of had to rely on a lot of facial expressions and kind of gesture, you know, big gestures to express what I wanted because I didn't have language. And so I think that kind of helped form how I can the different ways that I could communicate effectively other than language. I think that served me well.

[21:29] Jeryl Brunner: We've talked about quote living in the fringes, that a lot of the characters that you've played aren't specifically written for you. A little person. And can you talk about that? Shattering these, you know, stereotypes. And is it okay to talk about that? Are you comfortable talking about that?

[21:57] Matthew August Jeffers: I think respectful. Of course. Bertolt Brecht said that art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it. I think that it is through performing and having casting directors and directors and then ultimately audiences reimagine or being challenged for what it means to have a little person play Shakespeare or Tom Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie or Billing in An Enemy of the People. I was in college when Peter Dinklage was having his meteoric rise in Game of Thrones. And so I knew that I didn't know that if it would happen to me, but I knew that it could happen. I wrote my senior thesis on how Peter Dinklage was transcending what it meant to be a dwarf in Hollywood. He's really the only one to break.

He's the one that has had the widest reach across theater and TV and film over the past few decades. I think you need a trailblazer. You know, I think you need someone to break down that door. I don't know if I would have had the opportunities that I've had recently if it wasn't for his kind of trailblazing. And it's something that I hope to continue to do going forward. I knew that that is what I wanted to do when I moved to New York because right before I moved to New York, a Rolling Stone magazine did a feature on Peter Dinklage, the title saying Peter Dinklage was right to say no. And it chronicled all of the projects that came his way early on in his career that he actually turned down, regardless of how well it paid.

He had a set of morals and he knew exactly the stories that he wanted to tell and that he did not want to be pigeonholed into the tropes and the stereotypes of little people over the course of centuries. The joke, the pranksters, the jokesters, the elves. And that was kind of a watershed moment for me because when I started to get offers for, you know, Dollar General Christmas commercials, perhaps I would have taken that, you know, had I had that exposure and history of Peter's journey. And I turned down a lot of those early offers. I told my agents very early on that I wanted to take meaty roles.

[24:38] Matthew August Jeffers: I wanted to change people's minds, what they saw in a little person stepping into a character. And I do have that thought. They have that thought. You know, when they see Billing enter the stage in darkness, I'm sure that for someone who doesn't know me or isn't familiar with my work, it does take a few seconds of calibration of like, oh, there's a little person in this piece. Um, because in the past few years, the projects that I have done, Richard III, Light Shining at Buckinghamshire, the dramatic choice was disability. I was on stage with maybe the character that I was playing wasn't written for a little person, but the directorial was okay, we're going to highlight otherness, we're going to highlight diversity.

And this is the this is the I would say this is the first project or one of the first projects where disability is not in the kind of thread work of what this story is. Sam just casts me as Billing. So the onus is now on me to go and present my case to present myself as here's why Billing should be a little person in this piece. And I felt really fortunate that I connected with audiences in Billing, and I feel that they are very quick to accept that and go along with that. Okay, Billing's a little person, and here we are, you know. And I felt that kind of from the get-go, and hopefully, directors and casting directors and executives can take note that you know, audiences ready and are willing to accept and embrace characters who are a little left of center.

If it is authentic and it's just, it's like, you know, if the story, if the character brings his or her life to the story, then it doesn't really matter. I'm I feel really really excited about the roles that I've taken what the future holds for them.

[26:44] Jeryl Brunner: That's so incredible. And how you're a trailblazer now. Um, what is the step by step?

[26:52] Matthew August Jeffers: That's it. Step by step. Was there a time though that um somebody said, Oh, we don't see you in this part or we can't cast you. How did you keep moving forward despite the registers?

[27:08] Matthew August Jeffers: Oh my gosh. I mean, we all have regimes. Nine times out of ten. Yes. Oh my gosh. I, you know, if you're if you're if you have a if you have a 10% success rate as you're like a pretty successful actor. So rejection is baked into the to the work. Frankly speaking, I've never been told you are not right for this part because you're a little person. I don't think in this in this climate, people say that outright. I'm sure I'm positive that has been the case. But that's I I don't know. I I think I think, frankly speaking, I think I have enough and confidence in myself to know that I have something to offer. Yes. Who have accepted me and and embraced me and and have challenged me. It's one thing to cast me and something, but it's it's it's a challenge for me to okay, I've been given this offer this opportunity, and now I have to bring it.

Yeah. Going back to kind of my sport background of like delivering, you have to you have to deliver. I take this work very seriously. Why I was really excited to work with Jeremy Strain, because you know, it is well documented how he approaches his work. And I felt fortunate that I was going to be able to work so closely with someone who does approach the work. Kind of this life or death lexicon is this life or death lens. I think that is the space in which you're you're most ripe to make the most exciting work as he's as he's shown to you.

[28:56] Jeryl Brunner: Yes. Oh, well environment, you know, to be in credit. And can I ask um where so what was one of the first professional jobs you had when you went from your period, your Charlie Brown, you know, advancing to working professionally?

[29:14] Matthew August Jeffers: Well, I moved in 2013. I got a job immediately at the Fouya Theater, off off Dropway, which paid nothing. Um, it's also well documented, their treatment of actors. Um, I moved in 2013. It what I made my TV debut in 2015, but it wasn't until 2018, five years later, that I got the opportunity to play uh in Light Chinning at Buckinghamshire, Carol Churchill's piece, directed by Richard Chafkin at an uh New York Theater workshop. Uh when I got my equity card. I've been, you know, I've been fortunate to be a part of some some really exciting productions.

[29:56] Jeryl Brunner: I love all your work. I loved you in this beautiful movie, Unidentified Objects. And I wonder if you could talk about that really special independent film and who you played special.

[30:11] Matthew August Jeffers: I um yes, that was one of the as you know, that's one of the few roles that I played that that was written for a little purse. But the reason I took it, as you well know, is that that character that I played was so rich and so complex. Had this nuance and this beating heart that, you know, I just couldn't wait to play. So obviously it's you know, you take each project as as they come and decide if it if it rings your bell or and um that came in in the in the midst of 2020, like really in the midst of August 2020. I got the offer. We all third 20 of us went up to the middle of nowhere, Maine and shot this super low budget feature film. My co-star Sarah Hay, Bowden Globe nominee from Flesh and Bone, wonderful actress.

And we shot this film, and and now they are some of the closest artistic collaborators and some of the closest friends. The the writer, the screenwriter came to the show, Enemy of the People last week. I work very closely with him and Juan Felipe's letter, who directed the piece. And it's it was this tiny, tiny film that, you know, we we had a great festival run. We won Outfest, uh, we played at Fantastic Fest and Sidges in Spain, and had a theatrical run here in New York City last year. And now we're, you know, streaming people on all the streaming sites. And it was it's you know, it was this beautiful, beautiful piece of life for the past few years. It changed me in many ways. It changed how I carry myself upset.

How so bolstered the belief they had the capacity to be a leading man. I mean, it did a lot for me. I really am thrilled. It kind of it kind of felt like it came from the stars. I'm glad it's available on streaming. It's this amazing, like you've never seen seen before, kind of road buddy trip with a with a real heart.

[32:19] Jeryl Brunner: Yes, indeed. So price and a very pink jeep. Very like cheek. So isn't is there something you would tell that that kid who was the Schroeder who was just starting, you know, knowing what you know now, telling yourself.

[32:37] Matthew August Jeffers: Yeah, um it was 2017 when a very, very good friend of mine took me down. He said, Matt, you're a bird, an ornithologist. You're just an actor, make it about the work. And that conversation changed my life because up until then I was distracted. I was focused on whatever fame was, or becoming famous, or biking around the city. I just I felt a little lost. I felt like I was circling New York City and I wasn't finding the door inside. And it wasn't until my friend sent me down and said that quote to me about just getting back to basics, read a play, go take a class, go to a workshop, go to shows, make it about the work. Um, it was only months after that conversation that I got shining in Buckinghamshire, and then kind of the ball store started to roll a little quicker for me.

So just based off of pure evidence, I would say just make keep making it about the work. Um, there's a lot of distractions, especially with social media. It's so easy to kind of try to amass a following, amass an audience because everything is literally at the fingertips. I have found that it it is more fruitful to turn the pages than to touch the screens. And I I think that I hope I hope that I don't lose that sense as my career continues to grow, because I think it has proved useful for me.

[34:15] Jeryl Brunner: It's beautiful. And when you did hear that you were cast as Billy, who what was one of the first things you did right after there you were, standing on the street, finally out, you're cast. What did you do?

[34:28] Matthew August Jeffers: Well, I was I'll tell you what I did. I I went right, so I went to see the refugee plays uh roundabout. My friend Daniel Watts from Richard III was in it. And he knows this. He he won't be offended if I if I take if I say this, but it was midway through the first act that I was like physically shaking in my seat. And I turned to my friend during the first intermission, because there's like a three and a half hours. Yeah. I turned to him and I think if I don't leave right now, I'm about to stand up on the seat and scream, I'll go on a Broadway. Like I need to get out of here. So I was I was just buzzing. So I so we left, went back to Brooklyn. We got vegan pizza and a cigar, and and walked in the park and and uh and made a night of it. It was really special. And I look forward to ending this production with another cigar with uh with my friends.

[35:23] Jeryl Brunner: Very exciting. And then I and that was followed shortly by uh an absolute panic attack in early January. Where you know, I think it the reality kind of hit me that uh that Broadway is happening and all the things that come with that, and so I threw that, and then like I just said, made it up the work and started to get my fingernails dirty and get into the text. And uh it's been a really really beautiful process.

[36:09] Matthew August Jeffers: Uh oh, oh the only park that I...

[36:09] Jeryl Brunner: It's amazing. And I just want to know where did you get the vegan pizza and what park?

[36:09] Jeryl Brunner: Matthew, it's been such a delight to talk to you. So much congratulations. I can't wait to see more of what's next for you.

[36:24] Matthew August Jeffers: Thank you.

[36:26] Jeryl Brunner: It's been wonderful to stay connected with you over these years. I look forward to more.

[36:29] Matthew August Jeffers: Yes, I and I too. It's such a gift.

[36:33] Jeryl Brunner: Take care.

[36:34] Jeryl Brunner: We're lightning. The theme song was written by Tom McGovern. This episode was edited by Sarah Goodman and produced by Anna Strout.

[36:47] Jeryl Brunner: Lightning strikes.

[36:56] Matthew August Jeffers: Oh my gosh, the only place to get vegan pizza in Brooklyn called Screamers in Crown Hike. It's it's fantastic, fantastic. And the cigar and uh and what park?