My Friend Seth: Fellow Actor/Singer/Barista
Last fall, Seth joined the staff at Starbucks, and it's been such a privilege to work alongside him and to get to know him better. Seth and I seem to relate really well on both a 5-year-old and a 45-year-old level. If you listen in while we're working the espresso bar together, you're just as likely to hear us deeply analyzing human motivations, as speaking nonsense in strange voices.
According to personality type theories, we are rather similar (see this video). Also, Seth's type, ENFJ, is the most introverted of the extraverts, while my type, INFJ, is the most extraverted of the introverts, so we sort of meet in the middle.
If you've even glanced at this blog, you'll know that I have a profound love of acting and singing, and Seth shares that passion. Around Tulsa, Seth is an onstage regular. Just within the last year, he has been seen as Jimmy in Thoroughly Modern Millie, Young Ebeneezer (Ben) in A Christmas Carol, Hero in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Peter Quince in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and as part of the ensemble cast in both Wrong Way Broadway 2: Even Wronger, and A Grand Night for Singing.
Fun memory: Last summer, during a rehearsal, Seth had just finished singing a solo, and a fellow cast member spontaneously proclaimed, "Seth, I could marry your voice!"
Each person's journey is so individual, and I wanted to find out more about what makes Seth want to step onstage, what drives him, specifically as Seth, to perform. He was all aboard for this interview. He told me in his typically candid way that he was excited about it because, "I'll get to talk about myself."
So, without further ado, here is Seth talking about himself.
E: Seth, if you were an animal, what would you be and why?
S: I would be a show goat.
E: Oh my gosh, what?
S: Like, a goat that's shown at fairs and stuff, because I don't feel like I'm as cool as a show horse, but I don't think I'm as lame as a show dog. But if I was an animal, I would definitely be a show animal. And goats are my favorite animal. They're so cute! They just, "baa," and butt heads. And they eat everything, and I eat everything.
E: Who are your top five favorite famous actors?
S: I really love Madeline Kahn. I really love Megan Mullally--on Will and Grace, she's the really high-pitched, funny one. And she's been in Young Frankenstein and she was in How to Succeed [in Business Without Really Trying] with Matthew Broderick. She's a Broadway actor; she's fantastic. I really love Gene Wilder; I always have.
E: Danny Kaye?
S: Yeah, I love Danny Kaye. I also really love Brian D’Arcy James. He was in Titanic, he was in The Wild Party, he's been in everything. And I also love Raul Esparza. He was in Company, and he also did Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and a couple of others.
That was six.
E: That's okay; I added one in.
E: What was your first inspiration for acting?
S: My brother, actually. My middle brother, Tyler. We're all four years and four months apart, almost to the day. He's the middle child, I'm the youngest. But, he used to make me do plays all the time, and then, around the age of six or seven, I started making him do plays all the time. Like, it kind of just transferred because I loved it so much, and then he just kind of stopped doing it altogether. It was weird, just cause it was a young thing for him, but it, like, started my life. Ever since then, it’s all I wanted.
E: Did you do it in school, did you act?
S: I didn’t, I didn’t do it in school. I chose church over school. I was cast in The Crucible one time, and it was my senior year, and I was supposed to be in ministry school right after that, so my parents were like, “You may be wasting your time doing this because it’s not going to have anything to do with your career,” and so I dropped out and just went up to my pastor’s office every day and sat.
I did theater any way that I possibly could, like through church, any way that I possibly could, growing up, and so I never stopped doing theater, but I never did, like, full scale shows in the community until a couple years ago.
E: What is the weirdest thing about acting?
S: The community. At the TATE Awards [Tulsa Awards for Theatre Excellence] there were so many people I knew, but I’d never met in my life, because I’d seen them onstage. And there were people introducing themselves to me that had seen me onstage.
Also, it's weird learning things like the fact that the stage manager is the highest paid position in the theater, or that the director’s contract ends the day before a show opens.
E: How would you describe your "type"? What do you think are the limits and possibilities of your type?
S: First of all, I don’t think there are any limits, ever. I know that’s a pat answer, but I think my type could be anything from nerd to romantic hero, but it’s the young ingénue. I mean, I don’t like saying I’m the ingénue. I can play ingénue; I can also play the gangster from Kiss Me, Kate. I think you gotta work whatever you do. Whether it’s this role or this role, you just own anything.
E: What do you think it is about you that compels you to be an actor?
S: It’s just who I am. That’s all I can say about that. I have no idea what...
E: What have you learned from acting?
S: Oh my gosh, everything, who I am today, everything comes, it’s all been around theater. With the decisions to like, hang out that heavy stuff. Like, in theater, if I can’t feel vulnerable anywhere else, I can feel vulnerable onstage. And it’s also taught me to be more vulnerable in general.
I used to hold everything in. But I’m like, I would rather get it out and be emotional, than keep it all in, and let it build up and have a huge explosion later on.
I think it, it’s just helped me be more me, and it’s helped me become the person I want to be instead of the person that I was scared I was going to come to be.
E: You've told me your dream roles are Bobbie Strong from Urinetown and Jack from Into the Woods. So why them?
S: Jack was kind of planted in me. Whenever I first started theater, in my very first show, the director of the show really insisted on me learning it. She was like, you would be fantastic as this role; learn it, learn it, learn it.
When Theatre Tulsa had auditions for Urinetown, I started listening to the show, and I started looking at the role of Bobbie, because like, part of his existence is to be a hero. He wants to help, but he doesn’t know how. And then he wants to find purpose. I don’t know, I have the exact, I feel like I have a lot inside me to give, but I don’t know how to get it out. And the only way it gets out of me is acting. [Next sentence: spoiler alert!] Bobbie Strong is the one character I’ve seen who is trying to have this huge revolution, and even though he passes away, they still carry on his legacy. And even though it’s a funny show, it’s just, everything all in one. Like, I really love him.
*In January, Seth asked me to shoot some actor headshots for him. The photos on this post are from that session--I picked three that looked authentically Seth. This one, for example, looks thoughtful, but you can see a hint of mischief brewing.
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