WHICH SCHOOL YEARS WERE THE WORST FOR YOU? ELEMENTARY, MIDDLE, HIGH SCHOOL? WHY?
It’s hard to say. They were all very difficult in their own way. Except college. College was GREAT! But that’s another story.
DID YOU HAVE A BULLY GROWING UP? IF SO HOW DID YOU HANDLE THEM?
I was bullied non-stop from elementary school straight through high school. We moved almost every year because of it, and I was even home-schooled one year so that I wouldn’t get beat-up everyday. That was 8th grade, so 7th grade was, in a way, the pinnacle of my getting-bullied career. After that, I became less and less scared of people, and I started to stand up for myself. And I did finally find some peace towards the end of high school when theater and singing started to take over my life, leaving me with no time to be bullied.
DID YOU EVER TRY RESOLVING YOUR ISSUES WITH BULLYING THROUGH THE POWER OF SONG? THAT SEEMS TO WORK IN MOST MUSICALS.
Umm… No. Is that a real thing? Bullying was fists in my face, feet stomping my body, endless ridicule, someone stabbing me with a pencil, someone rubbing chewed gum in my face, someone peeing on my feet in the bathroom, another guy exposing himself to me on the bus, getting pushed into mud puddles, and getting beaten with a baseball bat. Real bullying is more palpable. It physically hurts. It’s filthy. It’s disgusting. It’s visceral. The “power of song” is a dangerous idea to me because there is no real power in song. That’s like the power of deep breathing. It may calm you down, or make you feel a certain way, but a baseball bat is still just as painful. But yeah, I guess I liked music if that’s what you mean.
WHAT WAS THE MOST IMPORTANT GOAL YOU HAD GROWING UP? (COULD BE A SPECIFIC JOB, A STATE OF MIND, A PONY ETC.)
A pony.
WHAT HAS IT BEEN LIKE WORKING ON "FATTY FATTY NO FRIENDS?"
Hectic. This is a huge piece of theater, and no amount of preparation really, truly, or fully makes you feel ready to live through this emotional rollercoaster of a show in front of an audience. But that said, we somehow made it, due in part to a hard-working, devoted and extremely talented cast and crew and in part to theater magic, which I now know must be a real thing.
ANYTHING ELSE YOU'D LIKE TO ADD?
Tip your bartender.
Fatty Fatty No Friends is the story of a kid.
The skinny kids hated him, no matter what he did.
They taunted him until he took revenge without amends.
It was a tasty lesson for Fatty Fatty No Friends.
Ironically enough I did have a bully when I was about four or five. Her name was Astor and she was twice my size. She kept saying she would put me in the chokie if I didn't do things for her.