Creative Sparks With Matt Caplan

Rhett 0:12

Welcome back to another episode of Armchair Authentic , a podcast with Rhett and Justin . It is our hope to have real conversations about real life with real people , in an effort to steward our conversations in a way that serve you . Now , justin and I have an exciting conversation with Matt Kaplan . Now , matt is an accomplished actor and musician . He's experienced the pinnacles of success in leading roles of Broadway musicals such as Rent . He's worked with Bono and the Edge from U2 with their musical endeavor on Broadway called Spider-Man , turn Off the Dark , not to mention his national tours from School of Rock , his regional productions of American Idiot , to film and even television .

Rhett 1:03

Now I'm telling you if you have a heart of an artist or creative , this conversation is for you . Now . Before we get into this conversation , though , we do want to take a moment to say thank you to all of you who have taken the time to rate and review the podcast . It means so much to Justin and I , but more than that , it really is the best way we can serve those who aren't on this journey yet . Now , if you're new to the podcast , we say man , welcome to the family . If you haven't already followed us on Instagram or Facebook , you can do so at Armchair Authentic . Or you can even follow us on X at Armchair Off Pod , that's Armchair Off A-U-T-H Pod pod P O D . All right , everybody onto our conversation with Matt Kaplan .

Justin 1:53

Well , matt , it is so awesome to have you on armchair authentic today . It's crazy because this is this isn't just a guest today . This family , this is my first cousin when I am a young , young boy growing up . This is matt , that if you've ever heard us mention him along the way , or if you know my journey , you've heard the name matt caplan . This is my cousin . I grew up with that . I always look forward to summer times . I always look forward to so many events that he was a part of . So we have in the studio today Matt Kaplan .

Matt 2:29

Thank you so much for having me , because I really appreciate it . Man , this is already a blast , just sort of getting ready for this thing . So yeah , thank you .

Justin 2:36

Well , it's fun because I say in the studio and me and Rhett are here in our studio and Matt is in his space really just outside New York City .

Justin 2:45

I mean , matter of fact , during our our pre creative talk , kind of prepping for the podcast episode , I asked Matt . I said I think there is a good view it looks like out that window and I had him show us . So , if you can imagine it , you're in Jersey but you're right there on the Hudson River and you have this beautiful view of Manhattan . I mean . So this is a true New Yorker , through and through .

Matt 3:12

Yeah , born in the city and actually never lived in New Jersey until I was sort of in my late 20s , I had a house on the Jersey coast when I was in the middle of doing Broadway shows . That was the first house I owned , but , yeah , never had a desire to sort of like pursue living middle of doing Broadway shows . That was the first house I owned but , yeah , never had any desire to sort of like pursue living outside of New York City . But at the time , you know , I was making good money and I thought , well , you know , you'd have to be a billionaire and probably a psychopath to buy property in New York and actually want to undertake that , so yeah . So at the time I was like , all right , well , here we go , I'm going to live in Jersey . That so yeah . So at the time I was like , all right , well , here we go , I'm gonna . I'm gonna live in Jersey . And that was crazy .

Matt 3:46

That was before the market kind of got yanked out in 2008 or nine , so that we you know , when I was I don't , I don't have a green thumb , I am not a construction , home repair guy and so that was compared to where I live now , decade and more later , which is a nice little condo where somebody else takes care of all that other stuff that I can't handle . Yeah , this is much more preferable to me , but , yeah , right across the Hudson River from the city . So for my career it's super easy to get in to the city for an audition , for example , or to hang out with my nerdy artistic friends . Lincoln Tunnels , a stone's throw away , so yeah , so if you kind of want a little bit more space and kind of some amenities that you wouldn't be able to afford in the city , at least on my sort of actor budget , jersey is a great place to go , and , needless to say , the fact that my wife is a Jersey- girl sort of sweetened the deal .

Matt 4:37

She was always pretty up for making this her home .

Justin 4:41

That's awesome . And your wife Rebecca is also an actress , so that's awesome . And your wife Rebecca is also an actress , so that's amazing .

Matt 4:46

Yeah , we , we both got the disease . It's a it's it's contagious . It's contagious , but we both caught it before we met each other you know , taking it back , matt .

Rhett 4:54

I mean , I know you're Justin's cousin . I feel like you're like a distant cousin to me , cause I'll never forget . You know , I don't know how we were . I met Justin when I was eight and he was seven , so somewhere between the eight and 12 year old range . I'll never forget you , some northern kid from I think at the time you might have been living in Virginia Beach , virginia , am I am I mistaken with that ? No , and you guys would come down and visit and I'll never forget just some of those fun times sitting around with the guitar . I'm like dude , like so creative , so much fun .

Justin 5:25

You inspired us in so many ways , even as kids of just hanging out and just being goofy , let me time lap that for you just a little bit , because the time that you just gave of us being in those age ranges some of those , it was actually Matt coming from New York City and what we stood out is what we're doing now as a podcast . I mean , we would sit around me and you and then , when Matt would come into town , me and him would do the same thing . We were recording podcasts before podcasts were podcasts .

Rhett 5:49

Yeah , and we'd record it on our cassette tape .

Justin 5:52

I remember listening to some of those . Yeah , and I remember making one with Matt and you know you're on the other end of somebody who it's like wow , they're on another level . And I remember taking what me and you made Matt and I let Rhett listen to it . Oh yeah , and just how quick-witted you were with the comebacks and to this day I mean I remember this has . I mean for our listening audience . Let us just have fun talking right now . Because , if you can visualize , we're having imaginary guests on our little show because we don't really have an audience . And I make the call and I'm like , and matt goes , hello , welcome to whatever our radio station was . And I'm like , hey , it's me mochu , and I just make up that name . I don't even know what mochu is . Do you remember mochu ?

Matt 6:34

and then matt goes yeah , how do you remember it ? That's me no no .

Justin 6:39

but matt replies that's me , mochu and that part stuck with us forever . Like , yeah , that's me , mochu , our whole life and that part stuck with us forever . Like , yep , that's me Moe Chu , our whole life . Matt , me and Rhett .

Rhett 6:47

Just coming back to that moment , man , just randomly . We will just say it throughout our life .

Justin 6:51

Yeah , that's me Moe Chu .

Matt 6:54

Oh my gosh . I think I was probably better at improv back then than I am now , Because you know't censor yourself at all . You're just kind of like rolling with it . And so you probably know about improv . Yes and is a very big thing . So , instead of saying no , you always try to just say sure , that's the world we're living in , I'm going to go with it . So well , kudos to me , kudos to me , yeah .

Justin 7:25

So that's the age range when you started noticing that creativity . But I will say really , to get us started into our conversation , it was when Matt came one summer , and I believe I was 15 at the time . I know I was , which means you were probably 14 , matt , and so Matt came and full disclosure me and Matt would . During the summer we'd play with our toys , like our Ninja Turtles .

Rhett 7:41

Oh yeah , ninja .

Justin 7:41

Turtles we would spend hours .

Rhett 7:43

Did y'all do stop motion with ninja turtles for a little bit ? I don't know if we didn't do the stop motion stuff we were just playing .

Justin 7:48

These are the sounds and like .

Matt 7:50

Okay yeah , deeply immersed in like a real time , oh , for hours .

Justin 7:54

But yeah , I hit that moment in life where I felt like , oh , I'm a , I'm a big man now , and I was so nervous because matt was coming into town and I did not know how I'm going to tell him I don't play with toys like Ninja Turtles anymore . And so Matt came into town and I was so relieved because he didn't have his Ninja Turtles . But you know what he had ? He had a guitar and he started playing his acoustic guitar and I've always just had a thing for the guitar but I've never learned how to play . But I had two of them under my bed at my house , that you remember . I would just pull out from time to time and I told Matt , you've got to show me some chords . And so the next day , when I came over , I brought my acoustic and Matt showed me . He showed me my first five chords . It was D , a , g , c , b , minor , d minor .

Matt 8:42

Great chords , by the way . Still great chords after all these years . Pretty much that's the only ones I use to this day . Yeah .

Rhett 8:49

But the small world of all this and the impact .

Justin 8:52

They fell up . When we're talking to Matt , the impact you've had , even as a catalyst for me , is the moment you taught me those chords , matt . I never stopped Life . To this day , the guitar has been a central part , and even when me and Rhett began to hang out more and we began to sing together , it was because of these chords .

Justin 9:12

You taught me initially , matt , and we began songwriting , and that led to one thing , led to another , to the point we became professional musicians who did it for a career , and to this day it's been stackable that even what we do when we are working with churches and nonprofits and consulting in certain ways or I have the privilege to be a pastoral care pastor at Church of the Highlands and Rhett's an executive pastor at a church in Idaho we can't make that make sense to you right now , matt , with Rhett living in Birmingham , but our podcast audience you can go back and listen . But , matt , it's cool how you played a part in those early days to be a catalyst for even what we have been able to grow and to do . You planted an early seed , and so that's why it's so special to have Matt Kaplan on our podcast today . The story and the weaving of your name that goes through this .

Matt 10:04

I , you know , and you've expressed that to me in the past about how I had inspired you man , and it honestly feels it's so like flattering and so cool and I'm so glad for you . But it also just feels weird because I feel like I never played that role in anyone's life . You know , I'm always trying to be inspired by others , I'm always trying to sort of grab onto stuff there . So , even though this happened , obviously at a very young age , I'm sort of delighted in that and I also .

Matt 10:26

Guitar and I suspect you feel this way is kind of the most reciprocal instrument , like it really does give back to you what you give to it . You know , it's an easy instrument to pick up and , like you said , learn a few open chords and that just unlocks literally hundreds of thousands of songs . So unlocks literally hundreds of thousands of songs . So but I knew that it clicked with you as well and I frankly didn't know that it would . I mean I thought you were just okay , cool , we'll pick it up and we'll see what happens . But you just know , when somebody gets that click and you're like , okay , I've got this thing in my hand , I got the neck , I got him strumming , it's going to be with me for a long time yeah , so , um so yeah , and I .

Matt 10:57

It's funny that you talk about the moment of giving away , giving up toys , dude , because I had that moment too and I'm sure it was right before this happened . You know , otherwise I would have brought my bag of ninja turtles and stuff , but but I , I had it and I it was actually I was a little bit crestfallen . I remember being like I wanna it was . I was at home by myself . I was like I want to create another movie today , I want to do another whatever , and I just I'm gonna make the conscious effort not to do it . It wasn't like I didn't want to , I wanted to . I actually had to make the conscious effort not to do it .

Matt 11:25

It wasn't like I didn't want to , I wanted to . I actually had to make a conscious effort to be like let me back off the toys . You know , I literally have had two little girlfriends already and let's just be honest Girls are far more into guitar playing than Ninja .

Justin 11:35

Turtles Totally . That's probably why I brought the guitar .

Matt 11:38

But you know , as you know , my mom has always been into music . She's a voice teacher and a vocal coach and an actor and singer herself , and so there was always a piano in the house . When I was growing up , that's the first thing I picked up . I'm sure I was singing as a little one too , and I would do church musicals , which led to school musicals and plays , and I liked the piano and I took lessons , but I played a lot by ear and so I would learn how to play the song that I was supposed to play , and then I would just play it by ear and not look at the music anymore . Well , you think that's a good skill and of course in some sense it is . But if you're really going to be a piano player , you're going to want to sight read , you're going to want to read music . I didn't have a knack for it . I remember my piano teacher . I was playing the last song in my piano book . I believe the name of it was From a Wigwam , so sorry .

Justin 12:30

I apologize to any native listeners that you have .

Matt 12:33

It was just a sign of the times . But it was you know , and it was like

From Music to Acting

Matt 12:37

this , you know , thrumming sort of like root fifths with like a sort of like really bad native sounding song . But I remember I ran out of fingers to play the last note on the high end of the keyboard and I literally used my nose and my piano teacher just cracked up . She was like I've never seen that in my life . That is so funny . But also I think she was like I don't know if this is going to be for you , so it was .

Matt 13:03

I asked for a guitar . I think yeah , either 12th or 13th birthday , maybe 13th , but yes . And my mom , to her credit , she was like , yep , he loves music . She didn't care that I was getting into some music that she would never be a fan of . This is the birth of grunge and all that . It was spelled the same way as the car make . I don't know if it was the same . It makes sense , cause you know Yamaha makes vehicles and that's right . But I , I got a Hyundai black Hyundai guitar and then a Carlo Rebelli black guitar , I think , after that . But yeah , yeah , just like you , you know , started out with the with the handful of chords . My brother had a friend who was into guitar and um , and he was also into computers , so he was kind of a great pal for my brother and I . My brother was one of the computers , I was in music .

Matt 13:47

He was like the conduit , you know , between us and uh and man , I was just like once I learned what hammer-ons and pull-offs were , that was the big thing . Yeah , once I got into guitar I was like that was . That was it for for a long , long time that's awesome started playing , started writing and well , it was inspiring because I'll never forget .

Rhett 14:18

After you were visiting , justin was like come here , man , you got , you got to hear this song and uh , you , you know , forgive me I'm not vocally warmed up , but it started with that little guitar line .

Justin 14:26

Ba-na-na-na-na . Oh yeah , Remember that Da-na-na-na-na . Da-na-na-na-na . Oh my gosh , you are blowing my mind .

Rhett 14:36

Yeah , yeah , and then it was , and I said a song .

Matt 14:42

Oh , you're talking about four non-blondes , it was what's up by four non-blondes ?

Rhett 14:45

yeah , the four okay yeah , I was like holy crap justin is like three strings I'm like dude , this is awesome , let's go , you know anyways , I wore that song .

Justin 14:54

We were non-blondes . Yeah , yeah , there you go for real , but that was the song that started it all . It was , it was yeah , what's up by four non-blondes that was matter .

Rhett 15:03

Fact the other night .

Justin 15:03

I was playing through it , thinking there needs to be a remake of this song . Oh , totally , and I might be the one I'm surprised there hasn't been .

Matt 15:09

Yeah , especially because that writer , that singer whose name eludes me now because I have my father's memory , but yeah , she's actually a brilliant writer in addition to being lead singer , so she writes for a lot of other people great .

Rhett 15:20

Well , so it , you know it . It makes sense now , you know hindsight's 2020 , looking back and looking at your career and what you've done as an actor , even as a vocalist , those things I mean like . But you got to ask the question like , what got you into acting ? Like what is somewhere there had to be like this little switch to go . You know what I'm going to . I'm going to pursue acting , as crazy as it might sound , I want to go do this and do this full time .

Matt 15:41

Pretty easy for me to draw that line because , as I was saying , it started with music , right . So it started with the piano in the house , which led to singing , and once my mom realized that I actually had a decent voice , it was all about church musicals and school musicals . So I auditioned for a couple of church musicals and I was going to Christian school at the time . So I did one little kind of thing maybe second grade I think , but third grade , if I'm not mistaken was the big moment where I did this musical called Christmas from Scratch .

Matt 16:14

And the idea was Scratch was like kind of like a young teenager , right , who somehow happened upon this shelter for kids without homes , and the premise of it was they didn't have a Christmas . And so he because he was , you know , knowledgeable about the Bible and all that stuff he essentially said you don't need to have a tree and this and that you can make Christmas from scratch . And so he , you know , he makes a little cradle that's in the corner into the manger and then he starts casting it . He's like , and you can be a lamb , I can almost remember the song .

Matt 16:49

But you know , making Christmas from scratch .

Justin 16:52

It was honestly very cute .

Matt 16:53

in hindsight , I don't know that I was cute in it , but it's really good . But that that was the combination of the moment where I remember being on stage and being like this is super fun . I feel sort of like I said ironically a sense of control . Despite the fact that it's nerve wracking and you're not used to people watching it , I felt very in control and certainly that was the moment when my mom was like oh boy , here we go , like this guy's holding court up there . You know , it's not like he's floundering and trying to remember his lines , he's making choices he's like you know .

Matt 17:24

So both me and my family kind of came together , even if we didn't say it , and we're like all right , this may be something worth pursuing . So that led to another musical the next year and that led to I got like an agent . There's , like you know , agencies , even smaller ones all over the country . And then there was actually a great one , a talent company , back in in Virginia beach , where I grew up , that dealt with or that represented kids from the sort of Hampton roads area , virginia beach , norfolk , suffolk ports , with that kind of Um . And so I got a couple little commercials with the family channel , you know Pat Robertson's old thing , christian broadcasting network .

Matt 17:55

But certainly seventh and eighth grade I went back to public school and I did , I did a couple of plays there but I was , you know , getting into my adolescent phase , getting into my . So that's when the guitar came and blah , blah , blah . So there was a moment where I was sort of de-emphasizing acting , even if I didn't really realize it . But my mom caught wind of a school which at the time was called the Governor's Magnet School for the Arts and that's in Norfolk , virginia . It's still there now and they had two different departments .

Matt 18:23

I had a lot of overlapping sort of magisteria . There was acting , but performing arts was more singing and theater was more acting focused . Then of course there was music , dance and visual arts . So those were the five departments and my mom said I should audition for the theater department . I had no skill for dance . I still don't . I can't dance at all . So , as much as I like singing and acting at the same time , there was no pretending that I was going to be tap dancing anytime soon , which was part of the performing arts department . So I auditioned for the theater department , did a couple of monologues , um , and this is like you know , if you know what a black box theater is , it's , it really is , just that it's a small theater . It typically is all dark , very black tends to . You know , there are 99 seats or less and it was in what's called thrust , so the audience is in front of you and then they're to the left and the right of you .

Matt 19:08

So it's almost like a semi-circle but there's some negative space at the 45 degree and then just a wall in the back . So I remember auditioning on this black box theater on this thrust stage and being even the theater was like I can't believe there's an audience to the left and the right of me because I was just used to stupid musicals and everything's presentational and right out front . And so I remember feeling really free even in my audition to sort of like walk around and like anyway . So I got into that theater department and that I owe most of my inspiration and even training to that arts high school . I went all four years and I studied virtually everything that you can touch if you're going to be a theater actor .

Matt 19:50

It was monologue class , scene study . We did a little bit of music stuff . You know there was like sort of 15 to 20% music in the theater department and the rest was really focused on acting . We took a playwriting class , dramatic literature , where we would read plays . We did theater history , where you learn everything from the Greeks all the way up to modern history , and this was free , by the way . All you had to do was audition and the state paid for it . I think maybe you paid for the plays that you read , like 50 bucks a year . It was not censored . So when we did plays we used four-letter words . I mean obviously there was nothing crazy objectionable use four letter words , you know , I mean obviously there was nothing crazy objectionable .

Justin 20:25

But that was interesting for me , especially Virginia . You know , up in Virginia that was a yeah an interesting experience .

Matt 20:28

But the departments of that school would come together once a year for what they call the main stage production , where they tried to utilize the skills of all five of those departments and then they would full on sell tickets to the public , you know , maybe one week into shows , two week into shows , and they would do it on the stage of the Virginia Stage Company , which was like a real Lort Theater , so really giving these young people a chance to get a feeling of what that was going to feel like . But my sophomore year we did Anything Goes . The Cole Porter musical . I got cast opposite my high school sweetheart . At the time we were , you know , going together and I was and she was Hope I think those are the character names . And this is a classic musical where it's like , just imagine classic musical in your mind and you've basically got the plot . But there's a lot of tap dancing and a side note , my character was supposed to tap dance in that production and they were using the 1985 revival script .

Justin 21:24

Well , they knew I was not a tap dancer .

Matt 21:26

So I remember they came up to me and they were like so , Matt , we went looking in the archives and there's actually a version of this scene where you're supposed to tap that we're going to take the page , one page from the old Anything Goes , where Billy doesn't have to tap dance . There you go , and I was far from being offended , I was like yes because I was

Journey to Musical Theater Success

Matt 21:49

mortified .

Justin 21:49

I was like , please don't make me tap and the performing arts kids right and the dancers they were freaking hoofers man I mean hey yeah , just insanely .

Matt 21:56

You either got it or you don't . If you've been doing tap for a couple years , you kind of know if you got it . So by the time I graduated high school there , there was no doubt in my mind because I'd been doing that but also , as you know , playing guitar the whole time , writing songs the whole time . I was like I'm an artist through and through . I applied to a couple of colleges because I liked their BFA acting program . Didn't get into but one . I got into one which was actually the BA program at Catholic university and I was just like I don't know , man , I think I'm ready to just move to New York . You know , after that four years at that school I knew I was going to need a good bit of financial aid and I was already a little bit intimidated about getting a student loan and having to pay that back . And I was like what if I just moved to New York ? I was like I'm going to take the summer . I was performing Godspell , the Stephen Schwartz music .

Justin 22:46

Yeah .

Matt 22:47

Playing Stephen , which is the Jesus sort of analogous part . That ran all the way until September , when most of my friends were starting their freshman year in college , and so I was still doing that , you know , essentially community theater show . But at that time I was dating a different girl . She was a rocker singer too and was an actor . And she was a rocker singer too and was an actor . And she was like I want to move to New York . I've never lived there . And so we were like let's do it . So moved to New York when I was like 18 , 19 , I guess probably 19 years old , got a job waiting tables . I got one little gig my first year called City Schools Shakespeare , which did Shakespeare for K through 12 . And I was in the middle of that when Rent was sort of in its heyday . So it came out in 96 , 97 . I graduated in 97 .

Matt 23:30

I liked Rent a lot , but I didn't know it well until six months preceding what would have been my first audition for it . By the time I auditioned for it I was a huge fan . I had the dang thing memorized front to back . So me and that girl friend at the time dropped off our resumes at Bernie Tells Me Casting for Rent , not expecting them to back . So me and that girl friend at the time dropped off our resumes at Bernie Tellsie casting for Rent , not expecting them to call , and they didn't . So , to her credit , she was very enterprising and so she grabbed a backstage magazine . This is the magazine where , if you don't have an agent , you get backstage magazine because you got to get all your auditions through that and Rent was one of the shows that would see non-union actors because of course there was a lot of young people in there . You're probably not an equity or union actor at that time . So if you wait on line , they'll see you . We couldn't get them to see us in New York , so she devised a plan . She said let's drive down to Baltimore because they were doing Rent auditions , because it was like American Idol , you have to understand . It was a lines outside the block , all the way around the corner , hundreds of people . They're filming people talking about it .

Matt 24:33

So , again , mainly on a lark , but like it had become a dream of mine to be in this show . Yeah and uh , yep , it came my time and I sang literally about eight bars of the song that I chose , which I think was angels of the silences by counting crows . It was from their second record . It's this really driving loud song with a lot of like . I think there's some a naturals you had to sing in there .

Matt 24:54

So I wanted to like sing . I don't know what they were looking for , but I was like let me just show them . I got only through like eight bars of it . Jody , who uh became a great friend of mine and was an associate conductor of the show , stopped me . She's like that's great , you're moving on . I was like , oh , wow , okay , so moved on to the next phase where I sang even more for uh , more of the team . Then they said that's great , come back in three hours , look over these sides . And it was the material from both mark and roger , two of the sort of male principal characters yeah yes , I was way more appropriate for mark .

Matt 25:25

So I was a little intimidated by roger . Uh , both vocally , because I didn't have a crazy tenor , textured , rocky voice , but also I mean , I'm a little bit of a goofball , roger's kind of like , you know , a sex symbol , let's just face it , he's kind of like supposed to be a gruff rocker cool yeah , he's the cool .

Justin 25:41

He's the cool guy of the show yeah , yeah .

Matt 25:44

Uh . Well , it depends on who you talk to . Like you know , all the cool people want to be hooking up with marks I know who I think the cool guy is .

Justin 25:51

We'll get to that in a minute listen uh , but yeah .

Matt 25:54

So , uh , that audition went really well . I felt great about it , but got back to the city didn't hear anything . A couple months go by they called my girlfriend back , so she goes in to read for another stage and while I'm in the office I go up and I'm like , hey , my name's matt caplan . I I sorry if this is like . I'm sure I didn't use the word cringe , but whatever the you know , 1999 version of that was I said .

Matt 26:17

But when I auditioned I dropped off a resume . I thought it went well . But I understand you have a lot of people .

Justin 26:22

Do you ?

Matt 26:22

know if I'll ever be called . I just asked and she said , hold on , and she went and literally flipped in up the records and she was like , yep , we , uh , we really loved your audition and you'll probably be hearing from us .

Matt 26:32

and I said , oh okay , didn't know if it was lip service but I was like okay sure enough , maybe six months later or six weeks later , they call me in again , very small room , just michael greif , the director , tim well , the music supervisor and conductor at the time I assume the producers were in the office as well probably the choreographer , and they just asked me to go through . I think it was mainly the mark material at this time . Oh , and I had to sing some ensemble stuff as well . So there's a solo called the will I solo in the song called will I . It's this gorgeous song . Jonathan wrote that everything happens in rounds like kind of like a row , row , row yeah , it starts singing on top of each other and it's just just , it is beautiful song .

Matt 27:11

So I sang that and shortly thereafter got a phone call and they offered me a very short two and a half month gig on the second national tour . To be a swing , which is an offstage understudy for the role of mark and the male ensemble , and I'll never forget where I was sitting in that apartment at the time , chills up and down my body , I quite honestly asked myself if I was dreaming . I took a second .

Justin 27:35

I was like just take a breath , make sure you're not dreaming .

Matt 27:37

Yeah , and also I didn't know enough about understudying in theater . So I was like what does this , what does this mean ? How is this going to work ? They're just going to fly me out . And what teach me all the parts ? And yeah , and yeah , that's what they do . So they flew me out . I joined the second national tour . I got ready for Mark and the male ensemble .

Matt 27:53

Now , when I say got ready , I already had the dang thing memorized you know , it was just a matter of like knowing what vocal parts they wanted me to sing for which role , because I love the show . I went on for the role of Mark at a time when I think that the dude playing the role had gone on vacation . He had been there for a long time . He was on vacation . Playing the role , had gone on vacation . He had been there for a long time . He was on vacation and the director of the show , michael Greif , who had only seen me at the audition and probably not since then , was on the road for that week to give notes and to reshape the show . So the director and or an associate would do that . Right , they would come , be like hey , blah , blah , blah , and then they'd go back to New York and the production stage manager would be responsible for making sure that the creative input would be maintained throughout the tour . So , anyway , he was doing that and I got to go on .

Matt 28:38

Now , grand Rapids I remember that I don't remember the name of the theater , but it was pretty big as well . So it was like , unlike the Nederlander on Broadway , which is a very small theater on which I had not performed ever , this was big , you know . So it's pretty nerve wracking , uh , but went on for the role and of course we all have to meet and have notes afterwards and I just felt like so , like the eyes were on me because they were like you know , I mean he's used to seeing understudies go on , but I didn't know that and so I could tell that he enjoyed the performance . I could tell I did a good job . I won't get too much into what red family is like , but you probably know if you didn't do a good job they don't pull a lot of punches .

Justin 29:11

You know they're very . It's a sincere family .

Matt 29:14

It's a very open family , half family , you know . And then , several months later , that actor I said he had done the role for a while , so he moved on and they offered me the role of Mark on the second national tour . Obviously , that was huge for me . I was on that tour for , I think , a total of a year and a half and right before , in fact , 9-11 was when it ended , so I think it was September of 2001 . Right when that ended there was an opening for the swing spot on Broadway . So I followed the same pattern on Broadway Started as a swing covered Mark and Roger went on a handful of times .

Matt 29:46

Trey Ellett , the brilliant actor who had played Mark before me , had been there for a while and I knew he was going to put his notice in . He put his notice in and they offered me that gig when he took off . So I took over mark , uh in the broadway production of rent and , uh , I did it for many years . I took some breaks while they brought in some celebrities to play mark to sort of boost sales , uh , which at the time broke my heart because I hadn't been doing the role for very long , and I I was like , really You're going to bring in Joey Fatone from NSYNC .

Justin 30:13

I remember that .

Matt 30:14

yeah , Joey was a wonderful guy and he was super nice to me . And then they told me in no uncertain terms that as soon as he left they were going to give the role right back to me . It wasn't too shabby . That like when you sign a contract with Equity , they got to pay you for every week you signed , got put on a paid vacation for six months . Yes , so that was pretty cool , yeah , but yeah , that was Rent which led to you know me opening the door for me to do those other shows .

Justin 30:40

That was my big springboard . I want to jump back into that . I'm aware of Rent now because I'm hearing the story that Matt's telling and I was very much engaged with it because I'm a big fan of Matt . But I didn't know a lot of theaters , I didn't know a lot of the big Broadway shows out other than Les Mis . I mean , that's always been my favorite . Phantom of the Opera . Phantom of the Opera is a great one .

Justin 30:58

Matter of fact , I remember the reason Les Mis was so big is when I was a kid . Matt , you were very into that and you introduced me to that . My gosh , everything keeps going back to Matt .

Rhett 31:07

I know you're a pivotal catalyst moment in Justin's life , man , and so I've been to— .

Matt 31:11

Where would you be without him when ?

Justin 31:13

would .

Rhett 31:13

I be .

Justin 31:14

So Les Mis has always been my favorite .

Matt 31:15

You were the same for me .

Justin 31:16

But I will tell you this I started hearing about Matt being in this musical a rock opera is what they would call it . I had no clue what that meant . I thought it was cool for him . There seemed to be a lot of fans , supposedly—you know , in my mind I'm like , yeah , there's a little grouping of people who love it . Great , good for Matt .

Justin 31:40

So Matt comes . It was actually a national tour of rent you guys came for I believe it was a week in Birmingham . It was April of 2001 . The reason I can timestamp , that is , it was me and my wife's one year anniversary . But Matt would come and he spent the night with me in summer so we could spend some time together . And I had an exam I had to take at UAB the next day and I asked Matt , you want to just go with me and then we can just go hang out , run around the town ? He said yeah , so I go in . And there was this place at UAB . It was like a cafe , it was like on the second level , and I had him go hang out there . I'm going to run , go take one of my music tests , I get finished with that and I come in . If you just imagine a cafe . You got your food line , but you also have like , just your chairs .

Rhett 32:14

Cafe's a stretch . It more like a cafeteria .

Justin 32:17

Yeah , it's from what I remember , they call it the cafe .

Matt 32:21

That's okay , you can remember it as fancy in your mind . That's right . Yeah , I buy it .

Justin 32:32

There was a huge line when I walk in . So my first thought is I need to find Matt , because there is somebody here very famous . Before I go meet him , I want , I want Matt to be a part of this with me because , hey , uab

New Horizons in Musical Theater

Justin 32:38

has , I guess , some famous people from time to time . So I can't find Matt . I'm walking around the room and I'm finally walking in front of all these people . They're waiting to meet Matt .

Rhett 32:47

Yeah , in line . Your cousin is the famous person . My cousin is the famous person that showed up .

Justin 32:50

yeah , is the famous person that showed up , funny because I'm in the music , in this theater world , at uab , this opera , all this stuff that mean you did read these were like fans of the musical and they were hardcore . They had already purchased tickets and they saw that that they they didn't know him as just matt cappell and they were like that is mark from the play rent . He's here on national tour . I finally just sat in my chair and let Matt finish . But as I'm sitting in the chair , I realized , oh my goodness , this is a big deal that my cousin's a part of and we attended Rent and saw it in Birmingham and were blown away . We would go to New York City and that's when Matt was Mark on Broadway . So , matt , it was really cool because here you are , rent was just one of the number one musicals for a long time on Broadway . So , matt , it was really cool because here you are , rent was just one of the number one musicals for a long time on Broadway .

Justin 33:37

You were the lead role , you hit a pinnacle really early and it was really awesome . And I know that there's the journey that begins to happen after that . Kind of take us from that point . You're doing Rent , you're kind of I mean , you're on top of the world with this . You've got it memorized . People are coming out . They love Matt Kaplan on Rent . The play is doing an amazing job . It's a lot of success . What's going on with you at this time and what begins to happen ?

Matt 34:06

Well , before I pick up the story there , let me say about the UAB thing , because I know people might be wondering wait a minute how did these people know I'm just there to kind of hang out with you ? I promise I was not going around going like hey , I don't know if you see my bleached blonde hair and my cool look , but I'm not here for no reason . Okay , I'm wondering how in the world he's just humming 525,600 minutes . Oh hi , I didn't see you standing there .

Justin 34:34

I'm Broadway's .

Matt 34:35

Matt Kaplan . Here's my card .

Justin 34:36

I'm National Tour's Matt .

Matt 34:37

Kaplan hey , my name's Mark , I mean Matt . So I did Rent for a great number of years and I had seen people stay in long-running shows , which is , I mean , frankly , it's a blessing . Even successful Broadway shows in air quotes might not run for more than a year and a half after you know if they recoup at all . And then so that was . They enjoyed an atypically or atypical long run . But I had seen people stay in shows for a while and whatever you thought about their performance after all those years , I saw that personally with them and artistically with them , they felt a little stagnant . You know that , yes , it's a blockbuster and yes , it's huge and it's exciting , but no amount of money in the world will , for some people , really keep those creative juices flowing and really prevent you from getting , I don't know , artistically complacent . And I was dead set on not being that person . I've always been a . As soon as you walk out on that stage , nobody in there not being that person , I've always been a . As soon as you walk out on that stage , nobody in there , let's assume , has seen this . They don't know what it is . Your obligation is to bring to life an imaginary character and imaginary circumstances and , and , and particularly in the case of a musical hopefully to excite and to thrill and to affect people in a in a , in an almost magical way and emotionally magical way . So I never took it for granted , but at the same time I thought you know , I'm not gonna be the best judge of that , maybe I think I'm still doing my best work , but maybe I should sort of move on to something else . So with a semi-heavy heart I was like you know , I think it's time to look at other stuff . So if you're fortunate enough to have a job in New York working in theater even an up to and including eight shows a week you will oftentimes get much of your daytimes free and those days are often filled with doing what's called workshops , right ? So workshop means either one or two weeks long . You go during the day you spend anywhere from three to six hours of your day before you do your show at night working on a new show . So you'll have the score , you'll have the script and at the end of that workshop they'll invite potential investors and the producers . Of course everybody's going to be in the room and you're sort of doing a miniature reading of it to try to generate some investment and some interest and to see what you need to work on with the piece . So I had done several of those . I had done some for shows that went on to Off-Broadway and shows that never went anywhere afterwards . But one of them was High Fidelity , which was based on the Nick Hornby book and film of the same name . Uh , the John Cusack starred in that and you know I I I wasn't as absolutely in love with the score as I was with other shows that I had been on .

Matt 37:22

I didn't get that feeling when I did the workshop like oh man , this is going to be huge . I got to get onto this , but at the same time I I knew that if they offered it to me , I was like I think I'm gonna take this , even if it's a smaller role , because I still only have one broadway credit after after years of work , including the national tour , and I just wanted more shows and I wanted to diversify and and so they offered me an ensemble role with the chance to understudy the , the lead character in that , and yeah , so I took it . So high fidelity opened and closed pretty quick , definitely , definitely considered a flop , one of the I guess you consider . I've been in a couple flops , but I knew right away I'm certainly by the time we were well into rehearsal . I'm I'm really weird with this sort of like . I don't know if it's like a spin-off of the imposter syndrome , but even if I in the in the room I'm enjoying my work and I'm there and I'm present and I really I'm trying to , sometimes I leave rehearsal and I'm like I'm not sure if what we're doing is particularly good , like I don't . I think I think we have too much to change and to work on before we hit opening night .

Matt 38:25

And I and with that show in particular , without getting into too much into the weeds the book is about , about snobs , basically you know who are on this record store and how that relates in a metaphoric way to the lead character's relationships failed and otherwise , and so I wondered if we were doing that core thing as well as we could with High Fidelity . You could say you disliked the score , liked it , and there were some wonderful songs , wonderful songs . It was absolutely hilarious , you know . It was fun to perform . But my main thing was like I'm not sure we're honoring the thing that I think people who know what this piece is will want to see , which is that cynical look at life , you know , and it's hard to do a musical about music snobs , right , because music snobs would hate musicals . So we opened and closed pretty quickly .

Matt 39:10

In Broadway shows there's a tradition of staying up until midnight until the reviews come out . Some of the papers get leaked a little bit early , and I think this was just at the time when things were available online on your phones , even if you weren't calling them all smartphones by then . But yeah , and they weren't particularly favorable and I was like I think I'm about to have my first flop . So that is what happened , and so the show closed relatively quickly . I think I'm about to have my first flop , so that is what happened , and so the show closed relatively quickly . I think it was literally just a matter of weeks .

Matt 39:35

One of the things I did during that time was a workshop of American Idiot based on the Green Day record of the same name . Yeah , so Green Day came out with a record called American Idiot . It was during the height of the sort of Bush era era it was and it became sort of a comment , a punk response to sort of far right , you know , conservative america and media overtaking and how that's , you know , affects like I don't know average empathetic people . Uh , I did a couple workshops from that and I knew that production was brewing , but it was

Navigating Musical Theater Success

Matt 40:07

not . They didn't mount a production of it . So then I auditioned for a show called south pacific . Now south pacific is a classic musical it . So then I auditioned for a show called South Pacific . Now South Pacific is a classic musical . It's a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical . It's a World War II era musical . It takes place , of course , in the Pacific theater of that conflict and other than you know I mentioned Anything Goes that I did in high school .

Matt 40:28

Other than that I not only had very little experience with classical musical theater but I also just wasn't particularly drawn to them . You know , being a guitar player and being a rock and roll fan and alternative fan , I obviously you know the two shows I had done were Rent and High Fidelity , which were both rock driven and guitar driven . So my agent sent me to this audition . Now it's at Lincoln Center . So you know Lincoln Center is a historic , legendary artistic entity . Right , they do . They have in their sort of complex . The Met is there and then there's two theaters inside the theater part and then there's the ballet and it's technically a nonprofit or not-for-profit and so their approach to art is art first all the time . You know , of course they need to make money to keep running . But you know , having been a kid on the Upper West Side , I knew what Lincoln Center was since I was a little kid .

Matt 41:19

So even though I wasn't particularly enthralled , I didn't even know songs from South Pacific other than one or two of them . You know some enchanted evenings and like that . Um , my agent sent me this audition . I said okay and I went in and it was the same casting agency who had cast me in the previous production . So that helps . This is Bernie Telsey casting , who's the biggest casting agent probably on the planet . Now . People who have worked for him now split off and started their own casting agencies . That's kind of how big of an influence he was . But I auditioned for South Pacific and that you know , chris Catelli the choreographer choreographed just a little eight step thing , a little eight step thing where you catch a coconut and you're kind of going back and forth and I felt good about the audition . But when they got to that dance audition , we're going to need you to tap dance .

Matt 42:05

Oh God , thank God there's no tap in that show . I would not have moved on further , but but I didn't get it perfect . I missed a couple of steps . I was bummed . I called my agent and I said listen , I really don't think we should go out for these musicals again . And he was like okay . And I said they're not my forte . I felt a little bit embarrassed . I didn't think it was my best work At Lincoln Center . I really wanted to make a good impression . I don't know how long it was a couple of days , a week or so . Calling him back Matt Kaplan , it's your agent . I know you said you didn't want to go out for those musicals again , but I hope you'll consider South Pacific because you have an offer for the ensemble of South Pacific . And I was like what are they thinking ? Are you sure ?

Matt 42:48

I said yeah , and so I could not believe it . And what I would come to learn as we got into rehearsals for South Pacific was that was not unintentional , that they had cast particularly male identifying actors who weren't particularly good dancers .

Rhett 43:06

Because these were , you know , Seabees , the construction battalion .

Matt 43:08

So these are military guys and they don't want people who necessarily look like they know they need awkward guys , they need clunky guys , they need goofy guys and Bart Sher that was part of his vision and Chris Catelli , sort of you know , adapted that and incorporated it into the movement aspect of the show , which , again , when Push Came to Shove and we opened , I still wasn't doing much to the show .

Matt 43:25

Spoiler but that experience was absolutely unparalleled in my life . I couldn't have been more different from rent in terms of the dramatic storytelling and the music and even the venue . But I was back in thrust for the first time professionally , right . It was in the audience , in the front and in on the sides , so in a weird way I felt at home again . That opens you up as an actor , right . Then you can sort of essentially turn much of your back to some of the audience and still have sight lines , right . So it just physically it opens you up . It feels more immersive , in my opinion , to see certain things in thrust . But South Pacific was a phenomenon . I had a smaller role .

Matt 44:04

I started out in the ensemble and later took over one of the principal character roles when that actor moved on . But it was just being in that space , in that theater . Every night the show would begin with the overture . You know the orchestra playing what will be the songs you're going to hear throughout the night , right , and all it is is a blank wooden stage with relatively sparse decoration . But then the overture swells when the song Valley High starts to become identifiable and in the first explosion of the Bally High chorus , again no actors on stage , yet just the overture . The floor recedes , so it , like a treadmill , goes backwards into the back of the stage , what we call upstage , far away from the audience , and you see the orchestra . This is something Lincoln Center had never done before . They just stayed underneath the stage .

Rhett 44:52

That's so cool .

Matt 44:52

The conductor gave a bow at the end and that was it . So when the music swelled and let me tell you , the audience at that moment , most of whom probably had heard these songs , all of a sudden there was an understanding of what they were about to witness . Just for that simple staging thing of the stage retracting backwards away from the audience so that they could hear the full acoustic sound of a real full symphony orchestra , I get chills all over my body just now .

Rhett 45:17

Yeah , I mean , you gave me chills too .

Matt 45:18

I'm like I'm right there in that moment with you , dude , like that's awesome , and so we um , I think our show was such that I was able to watch it even from the pit and the wings , you know , I could see some of the show . So when I wasn't on stage , certainly for the first six months of the run of the show , I would just sit in the pit and watch the show . So I would sit at the foot of that staircase looking up at these world-class actress , kelly O'Hara , paolo Schott , danny Burstein , loretta Abelser , who would go on , of course , to all get both nominations and Tony awards for these performances . But not just watching them in rehearsal , not just working with Bart Sher as director . But that was such a treat . Just watching that darn show I knew that I was a part of something special . I did much of the run of South Pacific after I took over the role of the professor , sort of one of the goofy sidekicks of the Luther Billis character played by the brilliant Danny Burstein .

Rhett 46:07

First of all , I love your perspective . You're at the pinnacle of success at Rent , if you will , outside , looking in . I love the heart and the grit of going . You know what ? I want to go and experience some other opportunities . And so you literally took a step of faith . If you will , into the unknown , not knowing what was going to happen , you're doing these workshops .

Rhett 46:28

Obviously You're coming off that . You get into high fidelity . It's a flop , using your words . What's going through your mind at this point ? Are you thinking to yourself what in the world did I do ? I'm such an idiot . Or you know what ? I'm going to keep grinding this thing out and I'm going to find the next like cause in my mind . I think the natural response if I'm a listener , is like dude , he had something really going . It was something really solid . You're making a name for yourself . I get that , but like you walked out of that into like oh crap , now back in no man's land , I might have to go wait tables again . That's what's going through my mind . So something that's innate in you to keep grinding it out and gritting it out and be like you know what . Yeah , it was a flop , but like what did you learn from it . What's going through your mind , what's internally going on to keep you moving forward after having such high success and then having to grind it back out again ?

Matt 47:15

So I was always acutely aware that I achieved and enjoyed success very early on in my life . I knew that there is no direct trajectory for a theater actor . You don't just say , well , I put in my time and community theater and worked my way up and finally , at 45 , I'm on Broadway . It does not work that way . I knew that that could very potentially be the top of my career . I knew it . I knew it . I was like I got my dream job . Like playing Mark and Rent was my dream job and I got it . Like so will anything really ever even come close to that ? Part of it was , frankly , just a kind of I don't know what the word I'm looking for is , but just a sort of like objectivity , I suppose , about it . You know , I made the conscious decision to take an ensemble role after I was playing a principal in Rent because I was like the experience is more important . Working with different directors is more important , at least at this phase . Of course it's brilliant . It's one of the most amazing stories to ever tell . It's probably my favorite show I've ever done , still to the day .

Matt 48:15

But too much of a good thing , right ? And , like I said , I didn't want to be anybody who stayed too long and became in any way , shape or form , complacent or comfortable . Art should very , very rarely , if ever , be comfortable , and I didn't feel that I was . But I also said maybe I'm not the best judge of that , maybe I need to just dare myself . So I said the only way that I'm not just going to sit in this show playing a principal character waiting to get another role of equal or greater value .

Matt 48:43

I want the experience and it's okay if I have it in reverse order .

Matt 48:47

It's okay if it goes up and down , and I'd seen a couple of people who had had that with their career too . You know , maybe they enjoyed success early on , then took smaller roles or had a family and took a big break for a while and came back . So I knew it wasn't written in stone that it had to go one way or the other . So that was part of it was just a kind of like objectivity . And then the other aspect about my sort of like , I guess , lack of regret for any of that , the kind of butterfly effect answer right ,

Embracing Change for Creative Growth

Matt 49:14

which is I would never want to go back and alter a decision that I made , lest I not go through this other Byzantine conduit that led me to meeting this great person . Right , if I hadn't done that , I wouldn't have met this actor . If I hadn't done certain things with my life , I wouldn't have met my wife because I wouldn't have ended up in LA , because I wouldn't have ended up there for the other reasons .

Justin 49:34

And so that's good .

Matt 49:35

I'm I know that's a different kind of that's great . I call it the butterfly . Well , that's real .

Rhett 49:39

Yeah , but see that's real and that's what people want to know , cause the world tells you , man , I mean , like you know , you've , you've lived it .

Rhett 49:53

It's like why in the world would you want to ? There's more for me to learn , there's more relationships , there's more to connect with , and I love that idea of you know we have a lot of leaders that listen to this podcast . It's like , you know , complacency is the point . Like it can , it can become death , but like just the fact that something inside of you is driving you to go . You know this is great and I'm loving it and it's a mountaintop experience . But there's more for me to experience on the other side of this , and even if it leads to a flop , I feel like there's things for me to learn through that to help grow me and put me in a place where I can be more effective and more influential and more fill in the blank adjective to , to , to my career , to my family , to my relationships , the way that you explain that stepping out , you knew that you may have already hit the height of what people will perceive the height of attainment of rent , one of the leading Broadway musicals at that time .

Justin 50:45

For a long run you stepped out of that , knowing it might not actually get better than this as far as how people will see things on paper , but the experiences that I'm going to have by taking this step for my life , it is actually going to be better .

Justin 51:02

It just might not be in the tangible ways that most people see , but , as you said , the tangibility of meeting your wife , rebecca , who is your most precious person in your entire world . You're looking at it like see , I've got the pinnacle now and we're growing together into new pinnacles . But no one will understand that , and so I'm moved when I'm listening , right when I'm hearing Matt , it stirs my heart when I hear you talking because I just I love the step realizing it's not the money side , it's not the security and the comfort that we think that we're trying to search for . It's not any of that . It was the realization of if I want to keep being creative , it will require me stepping out of this , because I've used all my creative juices in this and I've got this thing on muscle memory and I'm going to wow the crowd every night , but man , I'm not actually growing over here anymore . I'm giving a great experience to this audience every night because I'm only going to always give my best , but the creative tank is no longer growing .

Justin 52:01

And for you to recognize that and you knew the only way is to step out of this , to get that back .

Matt 52:07

Yeah , particularly wanted to nip that in the bud , because of course I can think to myself oh , I am , I'm . And Rent is an impossible show to perform for most people , I think , without your head and heart and skills and craft as an actor . It gives you so much but it also demands so much . So it's . You know , once in a while in that or other shows I would see folks who I'd be like gosh , they're kind of phoning it in a little bit and it just is what it is . I mean , some people get that way and I said I will never , ever be that person . I can't . And as a result of that and Rent , of course , is also pretty demanding , maybe not as much . Mark is a relatively demanding show . You're on stage a lot . You rarely get times off stage .

Matt 52:54

You're wearing a coat but you're not angel in heels , I'll tell you that much you know , so it demands a lot of energy and so part of it was also hey , I also don't want to just frankly burn out , you know , like it's it's , it asks a lot of you and so , yeah , it's funny , minor , minor spoiler about

From Rent to Spider-Man

Matt 53:11

meeting my wife , but we , after we got , we were together for a long time . She , despite being not much of a musical theater actor , she's got a gorgeous voice but she does more of what we call straight theater . So classical theater Chekhov , shakespeare is kind of her bailiwick , but she does , of course , modern plays as well . But she loved Rent . Back in the day she went to go see Rent , she still has her program from when she went to go see rent and rent .

Matt 53:35

They not only had the character descriptions but the individual inserts for each performance . Because the show was so demanding , people would have to call in sick and they would do a special sheet inside the normal playbill that said here's your cast du jour , your cast of the day . Um , I was not only playing mark at the time , but I was on that day that she saw me and she says she didn't remember me specifically , but she loved the show and specifically loved whoever was playing Mark , and years before we would met . It was a marriage later , before I ever met her .

Matt 54:03

But that's how big the phenomenon ? Was Her dad knew that she loved Rent and got her a signed poster . My signature's on that poster .

Justin 54:11

That's so cool . Long before we ever met .

Matt 54:15

So yeah , it was a phenomenon .

Rhett 54:16

So from New York to LA , back to New York , talk to us about that little connect . I mean , you're obviously New York City to LA . I mean , what was that transition like ?

Matt 54:28

And then , back to New York . What was the thought process behind all that ? You know I had done a couple of workshops of that American Idiot musical I told you about .

Rhett 54:33

The .

Matt 54:33

Green Day sort of punk poetry show . It Idiot musical . I told you about the Green Day sort of punk poetry show . It's not really a musical per se , it's another rock opera-ish but it's more abstract . So I played a leading character in that and I left South Pacific a Broadway gig to go to Berkeley , california , to be in American Idiot . So I did the out-of-town run of that show , came back to New York .

Matt 54:56

In that time I'd gotten married to my first wife . We had lived in-house in New Jersey and I didn't get asked to move on with American Idiot to do the New York production , which ripped my heart out . I mean , I loved American Idiot so much I learned how to play every single song on the record , even though you know my character plays guitar . I'd played a little guitar on stage and you got Billy , joe and Trey and Michael hanging out with us and I I did all the workshops in the in the Berkeley run and so I knew it wasn't guaranteed . People will often do that sort of stand back after before you go to Broadway and say , all right , should we replace anybody ? You know , can we get a better look or a better vibe or a better whatever . So I knew I wasn't inoculated against that , but oh boy , did it just kill me . I couldn't . I couldn't get off the couch for a few months . You know , I just couldn't believe it . But again , butterfly effect , silver lining is that freed me up to work on the crazy , you too .

Matt 55:52

Julie taymor , spider-man musical yes so if you picked up a paper anytime between 2009 and 11 or 12 , you probably read about this very controversial , very dangerous .

Justin 56:02

Spider-Man production yeah . And our favorite band in the world , man Bono and the Edge , u2 , man yeah . So Bono and the Edge .

Matt 56:09

I think just the two of them technically wrote the music . They met Julie Taymor on Across the Universe , which is a film that incorporates Beatles music . It's like a Beatles musical . I was in one scene of that , the song With a Little Help from my Friends I play like a little college dorm buddy of one of the main characters . But through that , of course , met Julie , of course met a lot of the musical supervision team that they used for Across the Universe , and so Julie and Bono got together and started talking about doing this rock and roll musical of spider-man and that started with those workshops that I was telling you about . So this is around the time I was doing probably south pacific a little .

Matt 56:47

Around that time we did these workshops for spider-man and I always played the same character when we read the script , which was flash Flash Thompson , who's the bully who beats up Peter Parker .

Matt 56:58

But while they were developing the score , they asked me and a couple of female singers so three of us to come in and basically sing everything they were working on . So Bono Edge , julie T-Skull , all these people , like all these Broadway musicians , would rent out this huge studio space . I wish I could tell you exactly the year this happened . But you know , sometime oh , eight ish probably and we would just sing the entire score and then Bono would be like , great , all right , I'm going to change this . Do that . Sing it this way now . So I was singing Peter Parker , I was singing the Green Goblin stuff , I was singing , obviously , my own track , flash , I was doing all the Bully song . So that was pretty surreal and I actually really quite liked that music from the Giddy Up . The concept was already so odd that in my mind at the time I thought , if you're going to go see a literal rock musical about Spider-Man hopefully you've already been like I'm going to kick back and just see what happens .

Justin 57:54

I don't have expectations .

Matt 57:56

Well , we came to find out that people did have a lot of expectations . It turned into the most expensive Broadway musical in history , I don't know what . The final price tag was upwards of 75 million or something like that . It cost a million and a half to run it per week . Wow .

Matt 58:11

And during the course of that time , um , I got the . I got the pleasure of understudying the Peter Parker role . So one actor would do six performances a week , the alternate Peter would do two and I was the sort of third string Peter Parker Pardon the pun . So , yeah , I actually didn't even get to go on for Peter Parker the entire time , except for the last few weeks .

Matt 58:37

Now , during that time , I was with my first spouse and they booked a TV show out in LA . I had never lived in LA , they had never lived in LA , but we I was super excited about this prospect and so when they were out there shooting , I was like , well , this show could go on for a while . And now we're collectively the two of us making great money . But TV is where the money is , so I might have to leave Spider-Man and move out to California . Now , at that time the show was very dangerous . There were some very serious injuries as a result of it . Contrary to popular belief , no fatalities in the show , but some serious injuries um , that's how we would hear about it .

Justin 59:18

That's what would hit the newspapers around . Indeed , same thing with my wife rebecca .

Matt 59:23

When I met her she was like I couldn't wait to ask you about spider-man because I would get the new york times everything . What are these freaking people doing ? They ?

Justin 59:29

do keep getting hurt .

Matt 59:30

It was why can't they keep these people up in the air .

Rhett 59:33

But um , they do it at Disney . They would be flung into the audience .

Justin 59:39

It was the darndest thing . Disney and Marvel of course , is the umbrella company for this .

Matt 59:44

Anything . Spider-man , they control everything , so they were none too pleased that it was difficult to maintain a safe show . But of course it became . You know what is it ? Circus like the Coliseum .

Rhett 59:54

People would buy tickets Just to see what's going to happen , maybe not expressly to see it , but more of a little bit to see what might happen .

Matt 1:00:00

Yeah , as you wink . Yeah , I love it . It's funny . I went to go see a filming of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart when he was running it for the first time while I was in Spider-Man , and before he starts filming he'll ask the audience if they have any questions for him off sort of off camera . And I raised my hand and he called on me and I said , listen , I'm in the Spider-Man musical and the audience is like oh , right away .

Matt 1:00:23

And I was like John , can I , can I offer you , and maybe your kids , you know , a couple of tickets to come see the show ? And he paused for a second . He was like you know , I'm going to say no because I don't like to go see anything where I got to lean over to my kid every five minutes and go . This isn't supposed to happen . It was so funny . And then when the camera started rolling off and he'll do a little one-liner joke that falls flat If you don't know what was going on in the audience he said uh , hey , everybody , this is daily show . I'm John Stewart . Oh , hang on , I got a little frog in in my throat .

Matt 1:00:58

I hope my understudy is out in the audience and I couldn't believe , like everyone started clapping , I was like , oh , he's talking about me so surreal , surreal which there is a bit of favorability there I mean , if you see what it looks like they , they favor , we do . Yeah , I think my brother has often said that john stewart my brother says john stewart is our long brother .

Justin 1:01:15

He's half like my brother and half like me . Yeah , you all look alike .

Matt 1:01:19

But anyway , yeah , so I went to California because my spouse at the time , my wife at the time had a TV gig . So I got out to LA and , you know , for reasons , reasons , reasons , we didn't work out . We were so very opposite . You know , I'll try to nutshell this without getting too personal , but we were just as different as you could be and that was what made our marriage amazing and it made it fun and it made uh , it gave us the ability to learn from one another and to support each other in ways that someone who was exactly like ourselves might not be able to do . But , um , I guess , to put it most simply and sort of tactfully , those core differences , they kind of come to a head when distance right comes in or when conflict comes in . Yeah , and then people grow and I got married relatively young , depending on the strength of whatever your relationship is what you've got going on . Although we parted and obviously that few months living in LA had to get an apartment by myself , that was in and of itself a small nightmare . We actually ended things more or less very amicably .

Finding Love in the Theater

Matt 1:02:21

So , but when that , when that fell apart , you bet your butt , I went back behind the bar and I started bartending again because LA has wonderful theater , um , but not a ton , and it doesn't . Shows don't run for very long in LA . Yeah , it's very unusual for a show to run longer than six weeks , a couple months . There's the Pantages , which is the big touring show , so not really sit-down shows . So much there . The Amundsen , the Geffen Center Theater Group these are all theaters in LA proper and there's even some in the surrounding Los Angeles area that are equity houses , union theaters , wonderful jobs , good money when you get it , but they just don't run long . It's not . It's not like New York where you're trying to sustain an audience with a musical for as long as you can , um , things are done more seasonally and and so , uh , found myself in 2013 , after bartending a couple of jobs and , you know , driving way out to crazy places to kind of make ends meet .

Matt 1:03:22

I was cast in a play , which was exciting for me because I had only done two plays in my professional career . Two , you know , compared to all the musicals and all the off-Broadway musicals and the touring productions . But , you know , I love acting basically as much as singing . It's kind of hard to say you love one thing or another , but I love just being an actor and and wanted to experience the more natural , creative craft where I didn't have to worry about vocal stuff and the movement and whatever microphones etc .

Matt 1:03:47

So there's a play called 4 000 miles , written by amy herzong . The premise is young guy rides his bicycle all the way across the country with a friend of his and along the way they sustained some tragedy . There's , a tragedy happens . So by the time my character shows up at his grandmother's door in New York city his liberal , left-leaning , you know , uh , grandma , um , he has a lot of weight on him from this thing that happened and as an audience member you don't really know what it is , but you begin to sort of tease out what happened . So the play primarily focuses on the character I played and his grandmother . But there are two other cast members . One is my character's estranged girlfriend they broke up before he went out West and the other is a young woman that my character brings home for like a one night stand .

Matt 1:04:39

This theater was called South Coast Repertory . They are a phenomenal organization . They remind me a lot of ways of Lincoln Center for the West right . So they're very focused on the artists . First , it's a gorgeous space . It's in thrust again a lot of common themes here , but it's in Costa Mesa , so it's 45 minutes without traffic in LA and I don't need to tell you that you basically better double that time . Yeah , so you're not going to get there , so I'm driving back and forth . There's a woman playing the part of my estranged girlfriend . She's terrific in the role , but that woman books .

Matt 1:05:11

I believe it was a film and it was like a feature film and we were two weeks away from opening and she threw herself on the mercy of the court with those people and said is there any way you can replace me so that I can do this film ? Find somebody who you can come in . It's only two scenes that that she's in . They very graciously allowed her to leave her contract because they knew somebody they could call , who they had worked with before on , like at that point , eight or nine shows or something . Who was a brilliant actor . Bfa from rudgers university knew her stuff . They knew that she would come in learn that part in no time and they were confident enough in my ability to , because our scenes were with one another to get her up to speed . That person was rebecca mozo . So wow , rebecca comes in so cool .

Matt 1:05:58

Two weeks before we open we're about to do what's called tech rehearsal . That's when you get out of the rehearsal room and you get on your feet , they start lighting you and blah , blah , and she's just finished filming like this , uh , indie film series in boston , I believe , and she had lost her dog , I think , during that time , and so she was coming from this whirlwind experience on the other side of the country but had been based in LA . She had been in LA at that point for , I should know , seven years or so , so she had kind of , despite being a Jersey girl , she found herself in Los Angeles right out of college because a manager kind of swept her up and said I know you like theater , but let me try to work with you in LA . To that manager's credit , she did book some cool theater gigs leading up to us meeting , but always in her heart she was thinking I want to go back to New York and not just be closer to family but also really pursue the hardcore theater life .

Matt 1:06:46

So I get her up to speed for the show . Those hour and a half commutes well , you don't want to do them by yourself , right ? If you're both commuting from LA to coast of Macy , you might as well carpool , right ? You can share the driving duties . So what happens is , you know , we drive down on the weekdays . On the weekends they put you up at like a condo so that you , of course , you don't have to go back and then do two shows in a day and come back . One thing leads to another . We get to know each other super well , both staying at those condos , and it becomes pretty clear right away that we've got a little showmance going on . Showmance , that's awesome .

Matt 1:07:19

An eye roll of portmanteau , but it's the truth man , it's the truth .

Matt 1:07:23

It's how love happens in the theater a lot of times and I just knew right away . I was like there was such an ease with hanging out with Rebecca and obviously I was attracted to her because she was stunning and so brilliant and just a way more accomplished actor than I could ever hope to be , and even though we met in a play , you know , I had been at that point bartending for a while without a serious gig in LA and she sort of single-handedly reignited my love , not just for a theater in a general sense , but specifically acting as a craft . She really got me remembering what was so fun about that and so we finished that show together . It wasn't too long after that before we moved in together and it wasn't too long after that before we became engaged . Then we got married in October of 2016 .

Matt 1:08:09

At that time we had already started talking about moving back to New York , but of course that costs money and to move across country and she , you know , was a little reluctant to leave her LA family , even though her actual family was all back East and so it's hard when you've . You know , we got that she's by the time we left in 2019 , she was there for , I think , gosh 13 , 14 years . We were waiting for a little bit of extra cash and just like a sign you know something . So my agents sent me a self-tape audition for the School of Rock National Tour in 2018 .

Matt 1:08:45

Yep , so Andrew Lloyd Webber penned a musical based on the Jack Black film of the same name about kids who he teaches to play instruments , because he's masquerading as his roommate who's supposed to be a substitute teacher . So I auditioned for a role that would be in the ensemble of the cast , but I would have to understudy the real Ned Schneebly . Now , this was played by Mike White in the movie , the guy whose identity the Jack Black character steals . So , gosh , I think . So . I did six months of that and I saved up a ton of money . You can make a lot of money on the road because they pay you a salary but they also pay you per diem and so if you're really , really thrifty , you can really scrape up . I didn't save like a ton , but enough to alleviate the moving expenses and we just pooled and pooled and obviously got help from friends . But we would need to get back here .

Matt 1:09:39

My brother-in-law , her brother , got me my first get me by bartending job . You know that I started right before the lockdown . You know we were already getting along like gangbusters , of course , but we , uh , we got . We were one of the couples who got even closer during COVID , you know , during the lockdown . And yeah , I , as soon as hospitality opened up , I jumped right back on . I'm super . In case you haven't noticed , I don't like to go anytime without working , like I don't . Unemployment is great , but it's not . It doesn't make me feel comfortable and I've enjoyed it once in my life when I absolutely needed it . But I have like a hey , I'd rather be doing theater , but I do better when I'm in a bit of a rhythm . Yeah , rather be doing theater but .

Matt 1:10:15

I do better when I'm in a bit of a rhythm . Yeah , so I got back into bartending and and it's been a great career for me I call it my second career now . I used to call it a survival job but it's basically a second career .

Matt 1:10:23

You know I can drop at any time , uh , and even if I burn a bridge which thankfully hasn't happened so far when I've booked an acting gig , guess what ? I can pick up and apply for another bartending job anywhere . And I got at this point over a decade of experience . And since that time , since the world opened up , I've had a couple of cool gigs , the coolest of which was there's a theater called the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam , connecticut . I had heard about the Goodspeed since I was a little kid . The first show they ever did was like , or was known for , was Annie . They did the original production of Annie way back when , before it moved on to Broadway . So they enjoy a reputation of being a theater where certain musical theater pieces will start and then enjoy a life after that . So last autumn I booked a swing job in a show called the Twelve . The Twelve is a rock musical composed by Neil Berg about the events of the lives of the disciples of the Bible immediately following the crucifixion .

Matt 1:11:22

So not to draw too many parallels between another rock musical about disciples but whereas .

Matt 1:11:28

Jesus Christ Superstar takes place in the moments preceding the crucifixion . The Twelve picks up in the absolute , immediate aftermath . The crucifixion , yeah , the 12 picks up in the absolute , immediate aftermath . So it's just the disciples reconvening in in what we've . We had made the upper room sort of you know , yeah , but um , it was a modern adaptation . So our director , john doyle , tony and warden , brilliant director was inspired by what was going on with ukraine , so there was a lot of nods to that . Scenically and thematically we were in more or less modern clothes , but the names , aside from being adjusted for modern times , were kind of easy to tell which disciple was which , which apostle was which .

Matt 1:12:05

So I got to understudy a lot

Artistic Aspirations and Musical Theater

Matt 1:12:08

of roles , many of which played guitar on stage . I've got two of which play guitar on stage because , yeah , because , john Doyle , if you look into his work , he has a long , just huge tome of theater history in his resume , particularly with UK and Europe , directing big passion plays and things like that . But in the Broadway community he's known for productions where actors play their own instruments and particularly in shows where that would not be presumed . This had less instruments , it was only guitar because of our tiny little space at Goodspeed , but that was a checkbox for me to check on my list .

Matt 1:12:43

As soon as I knew what John Doyle did , I was like I don't care if I'm a swing , I don't care if I'm in the ensemble or a principal or whatever . I would sweep the floor in a John Doyle production and that was just a treat . That was the most recent sort of like union theater gig that I got was last fall . You've caught me in the busiest week since the end of the lockdown and since I moved here . I think I told Justin I had eight auditions in seven days .

Rhett 1:13:07

Now good news is yeah , that's a good thing oh yeah , people would call it an embarrassment of riches .

Matt 1:13:12

but the thing is you , you know , even though seven of those were self-tape , which means I tape them whenever I want , as long as rebecca's there to read the other character you do them in the middle of the night , you can do them in the morning , whenever works for your , your work . It's still just a lot to digest . You got to feed the teleprompter the the line so you can read it , and I have one audition in person and that is when you and I are done . I'm gonna going to throw on some clothes , I'm going to get on the bus and I got to go to the city to do an audition for , like , a psychological thriller movie . This will be a series . Excuse me , it's a TV series . Okay , after that , man , it's back back to auditioning , back to writing songs when I have the time , just enjoying my life being what I hope is a good husband and a good cat father .

Justin 1:13:54

Yeah , that's right , father to a cat .

Rhett 1:13:57

Where do you see yourself in the next five , 10 years ? You have vision that far out New York , broadway , kids , family life slowing down . Like where do you ? What are the aspirations that you have ?

Matt 1:14:06

I want to win the lottery and buy a theater and and then make , make all of the theater that I want to do and that I want to make shows for my wife to do , and I want to make theater on my own terms . I mean , I've been so lucky to be a part of the Broadway community , but it is a very challenging industry , especially when you've stepped away . For what was about , I don't know , seven or eight years for me . I'm lucky in that people remember who the heck I am , but it still feels insular , it still feels like a world that you're you got to crack back into because you've been out of it and it is catch as catch can . And so I think I realized , you know , relatively early on in my career , that I didn't need this . The satisfaction of somebody telling me I like you , I'm going to put you on my show , so much as I just wanted to do it , just want to do it . You know , becca's the same way , man . She could do a tiny production of some place somewhere .

Matt 1:14:59

And as long as we can make ends meet , we're happy that's really good , she's happy she just , we just want to do the work , and so of course I'm joking when I say win the lottery and do that . But but it's . The short answer is is doing art . I mean music has has always been my , my secret and most sacred heart , because I can take my guitar anywhere and I'm always singing a song in my head and I'm always writing in my head and because it's entirely mine . There's a lot of satisfaction when you craft a song and I would love it if I could have a career just focusing on that , where I wasn't so dependent on a casting agent , where I wasn't dependent on my managers and agents to go out there and get me gigs . You know that that would be , that would be probably the dream scenario . That's my hey , you got a fork in the road . You can choose just music or just acting . I would probably go with music if I knew that I can make it work . You know cause there's so much satisfaction in that and and just endless possibilities . I don't have to wait for someone to write a role for me .

Matt 1:16:01

So , where I see myself just short answers just make an art . It's the only thing I really do . Well , you know , I've I've fantasized . Once in a while , man , you go back to school , do something a little more . You know reliable and I'm not , you know , so proud that I couldn't see myself doing that . There's things about which I have interest in life that aren't necessarily the arts , but I'm just . I'm a theater rat man . My wife and I are theater rats . We get into a theater and we feel like we're at home .

Matt 1:16:28

And so it'll be doing some kind of art and it'll be with Rebecca , hopefully inspiring people , hopefully making people ask questions that they didn't ask before they were exposed to that art . That's the most exciting thing about art is making people think things and realize things and wonder things and use their imagination in ways that they wouldn't have prior to coming into that theater , or sitting down to watch you play or whatever .

Justin 1:16:52

So Matt and Rebecca will be opening , in time , with these aspirations , the wonder theater so just wonder theater , wonder theater keep your eyes good actually before this actually comes live , matt , you'll have time to go ahead and get that , you know , copyrighted so that no one can grab that name done and I gotta kick you in a percentage , but easy well that was the plan .

Rhett 1:17:16

well , all that just to get that out of me . The agenda finally came out in the last 30 seconds . Hey , matt Goodness .

Justin 1:17:25

We have been so thrilled to have you . Where can people connect with you on socials or media of any sorts that you could share ?

Matt 1:17:32

Definitely Instagram . It's just my name altogether Matt Kaplan , m-a-t-t-c-a-p-l-a-n . Matt Kaplan on Instagram . I do have a mattkaplanorg website . There's some links there to my music and things like that , but that's really kind of just . I'm holding it there so nobody buys it and I'm waiting to sort of like expand it . So when you go and see like photographs I took like in random places I'm not a photographer , I'm just holding the place there of mattcaplinorg um to to hang up . But yeah for sure .

Matt 1:18:01

Instagram , give me a . Give me a follow there at Matt Caplin with a C and uh . I'll follow you back and and I'll certainly announce if and when I get something cooking .

Justin 1:18:09

Well , we are so grateful to have had you today and just personally again , we're grateful . Just even me and Ritz like the impact you've had on us indirectly and just from a me to you . Man , I love you so much and I'm incredibly grateful for the part you play in my story . So , thank you , matt Kaplan , for hanging out with us today .

Rhett 1:18:28

Yeah , and I would say ditto to that . You ended with you know you just want to inspire people with art , and that's exactly what you did when you were in Birmingham , alabama , hanging out with your cousin , and brought this guy along too , and so I would say it's , it's been a common theme throughout your entire life , so , no doubt , whatever you do , you're going to continue to be successful in it . We wish you the best man and thank you again for your time .

Matt 1:18:49

Thanks guys , and uh , and I wish the same to you and I know , justin , we didn't get to talk too much about like crazy family stuff and whatever , so somewhere , down the line if you want to do a part two and maybe we focus on a little bit more of those crazy memories , maybe following our brothers around spying on us , oh gosh . Maybe , all those adventures .

Justin 1:19:06

We've got some crazy

Expressing Gratitude and Shared Memories

Justin 1:19:07

stories the man in the Black Suit .

Rhett 1:19:09

Oh , my God oh gosh . Oh Jesus , that's a teaser . Let's leave that teaser in there . That's a good teaser , I think a part two will be coming .

Justin 1:19:17

You're going to see it Be ready in upcoming seasons and it might actually become a written play at the Wonder Theater featuring Matt Kaplan . We'll be right back , thank you .