Stealing from Mentors – a steppingstone to unlock new opportunities and develop your unique style

My son, Ryan, was 11 when he was offered the iconic starring role of "Charlie" in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on Broadway. His journey to Broadway was so improbable, and the lessons we learned were so meaningful, that I kept a journal. For years friends have encouraged me to share our journey publicly. This is the third in a series of articles describing our unique experience and influences that shaped it. (First article linked here)

Not only did Ryan perform on Broadways stages in multiple shows, he performed well. Variety magazine reviewed him as "…the best thing in the show…and thoroughly professional." Other publications reviewed Ryan …"he held his own going toe to toe with [2-time Tony winning Christian Borle] Borle and the rest of the veterans on stage." ... "a breakout star"..."remarkable"..."extraordinary young actor."

Ryan's first audition for a Broadway show started from a series of unexpected events. He went on to do major movies working with stars like Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Lopez. His journey changed the direction of our lives forever.

Coaching Soft Skills Early

Before Ryan was born, we developed a deliberate strategy to teach life skills not necessarily taught in school. We emphasized areas that came especially hard for us as introverts. We wanted to emphasize 'soft skills' a.k.a. interpersonal communication. We started with principles learned from leadership training and professional development from work. We applied these simple principles to family life.

Our goal was to give Ryan a giant head start and to expand career choices that would come after college. Education can take you far, but interpersonal skills can take you farther.

Theater as a Steppingstone

We knew little about theater, but we did expect it to challenge and stretch Ryan in new directions. Ryan’s school had a fantastic theater arts program. The leader encouraged us to get him involved at age 6 --- years earlier than we planned. We didn't know it at the time, but Ryan was made for this.

Theater is about sensory perception, observation, and expression. Theater isn’t a competition against anyone but yourself. It’s live performance storytelling. Our brains are built to remember stories, not data. The power of storytelling is infectious.

The school theater program was a voluntary after school activity. It required a 3 1/2-month commitment which concluded with the kids putting on 6-8 performances. Each show went from incubation to execution in front of a live audience.

The first show was a production of the famous musical CATS. Middle school students performed the main roles. Younger children supported the show through background parts including singing and dancing numbers. Ryan was one of the youngest participants.

At home Ryan demonstrated dance moves he learned in rehearsals. He counted out loud the dance sequence 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 with a serious face. I felt laughter coming many times, but maintained a strict poker face. I understood that his young innocent heart could misinterpret my laughter for ridicule. I didn’t want to do anything to make him self-conscious.

I could see how complex the song and dance movements that he was demonstrating were. I never told him how hard they seemed because I didn't want him to use my perception of difficulty as his excuse. Ryan's school was emphatic that every child should taught as if they were 'gifted.' It wasn't a school for gifted kids, it was a part of their teaching philosophy. They reasoned children can exceed expectations when challenged at high levels. The philosophy was new to me in the context of children. But it did parallel a leadership principle at Microsoft. Microsoft would establish high goals for individuals, but didn't want micromanagement. If you hire the right people, they'll use their own creativity and discover their own unique style.

Stealing from Mentors

We knew the performance arts would be a positive influence on his development. We could not have known how much. The older kids became mentors. Ryan mimicked their enthusiasm and boldness in rehearsals. Theater became an ecosystem of positive feedback for him.

In the book, "Steal like an Artist" author Austin Kleon states that humans are a mashup of their influences. That we all build on the giants, or mentors, that came before us. Artists incorporate elements they really love into their work. They gravitated toward his work ethic.

Like all us, he learned by copying his heroes. Not a literal robotic copy, rather an adaptation of their best practices into his own style.

If you copy from one author, it’s plagiarism, but if you copy from many, it’s research --- Wilson Mizner

Ryan had an unusual focus and intensity. I remember him sharing with me that he never wanted to let the theater director down. Perhaps his intensity developed from years of competitive soccer. I appreciated that part of his little personality. Yet, I didn't want him to get trapped in self-imposed pressures of perfectionism.

I challenged Ryan’s when I observed a particular line of self-defeating logic. He thought like an adult. I wanted him to enjoy being a kid. We knew the theater director because he was also a teacher at school. He was great to the kids. This was Ryan trying to impress the older kids. I wasn’t convinced that was the ideal motivation, but he flourished and made dozens of new friends at school.

Our theater program thrived from fantastic leadership and a host of parent volunteers. We found an unexpected home in the local theater community --- a welcoming place for kids and parents.

Ryan adapted quickly to the complexities of dance, blocking (stage movement), singing, and acting. The theater director rewarded his hard work with more dialog and scenes in the show(s). Parents weren't allowed to watch rehearsals. Sometimes one of the older kids would walk Ryan to our car after practice and share how well Ryan was doing. For whatever reason, he learned everyone's part.

There were 2 or 3 local theater shows a year and Ryan would sometimes do two of them. Soccer was Ryan’s primary after school priority. When theater and soccer conflicted, soccer came first. Ryan had a real talent for soccer too. We moved forward like this for years.

Broadway Artists Alliance

Parents of the 'older' kids touted a special theater training experience in NYC. Broadway Artist Alliance (BAA) is a one week summer 'training' program for kids. It provides a taste of performance training from former Broadway performers and instructors. It's an invitation only, fee-based program. Each year, BAA representatives travel throughout the U.S. to audition kids.

BAA was a big deal at our school. There was great feedback from several local theater families who had children attend. Various parents would suggest that it would be a good idea for Ryan to audition. My inner cynic wasn’t interested paying for training with an audition as the hook. However, I did like the idea of auditioning. It would be good for Ryan. The stress of preparation and burden of execution would develop interview skills. He'd need this type of acumen for the real-world after college.

My wife suggested that I change perspective. We would think of this as a summer camp for him and an excuse for us to see some shows in NYC. That would be a change as we spent summers attending various soccer camps in Florida and Seattle.

Once a year representatives from BAA would visit our school in March. This was the chance to audition individuals for the upcoming summer session in NYC. In 2015, we missed BAA tryouts because we were out of town at a soccer tournament. In March of 2016, we waited for the email blast announcing the BAA audition date. BAA was popular our school so the available audition time slots filled up quickly. The email never came.

After dropping Ryan off at school one morning, my wife noticed a Facebook a post from one of the theater parents. They were sending the trademark “break-a-leg” good luck to kids auditioning that day for BAA. My wife was distraught. Someone forgot to put her on the email list.

Luck Is What Happens When Preparation Meets Opportunity --- Roman philosopher Seneca

My wife concocted an immediate plan of action. She needed my help, but I was slammed at work with a full agenda of customer calls. I suggested we try again next year, but my wife had already waited a year. She wanted feedback on Ryan, and this was a chance to hear what professional talent scouts had to say. I suggested that my wife was misconstruing compliments from other parents into something more. Now she had to know. There was a single audition spot available later that day. My wife pounced on it.

There was a huge issue though. Ryan had no prepared material. We should have had a week or two of notice. The audition was in a couple hours.

The audition process was much like American Idol, but without an audience. A panel of three judges evaluated individuals based on a couple bars of two prepared songs, a monologue and something random they may give on the spot.

My wife doesn’t usually ask for favors, but she wanted this. She asked the theater teacher for help, but he was teaching class. Bizarrely, he responded almost immediately. He would pull Ryan during lunch to figure out two songs and a monologue to perform later that afternoon. My son was a cool customer, but that day he said he freaked out from the lack of preparation time. Fortunately, Ryan had a song from a show he finished a few weeks before.

With only an hour of preparation time, Ryan auditioned in front of the BAA representatives in a multipurpose room at school. My wife watched. When Ryan finished, one of the representatives walked swiftly up to my wife and introduced himself. He asked if she knew who he was. She didn’t. He was a casting director. A real one for Broadway, film, TV, commercials, over 70 national tours musicals. He said Ryan was “ready” for Broadway.

My wife came home and calmly told me. I immediately researched him and saw he was the real deal. By ready, he meant Ryan had the raw talent and stage presence needed to audition. I didn’t know what to do with this feedback. The cynic in me wrote it off as an ingenious plan to fill up summer sessions. However, the week wasn’t pricey --- especially for NYC. I had to consider Ryan had something, but I didn’t know how the industry worked. It was a compliment, but not much more than that. Nothing could come of this. I had a career 1,100 miles away. We had a great life. Ryan had an outstanding school. We were happy. I didn’t understand the allure of the performance arts. My 11-year-old wasn't going to work. Attending BAA summer ‘camp’ was more than enough.

Months later, we were off to BAA in New York City. It was na?ve on my part, but I never considered that BAA would have agents and casting professionals to evaluate the kids in those classes NYC classes. If I did, I would have never answered the phone and spoke to the agent the way I did.

In the summer and fall of 2016, the planets aligned for Ryan. I’ll share more of what happened in the next article.