What do you do when opportunity presents itself with no warning? Don't say no. Ask questions, research, evaluate, and ask for another meeting.

My son, Ryan, was 11 when he was offered the iconic starring role of "Charlie" in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on Broadway. Ryan went on to appear in major movies working with stars like Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Lopez. His journey was so improbable, and the lessons we learned were so meaningful, that I kept a journal.

For years friends encouraged me to share our journey publicly. This is the fourth in a series of articles describing our unique experience and the influences that shaped it. (links to first article, second, and third)

My wife identified a special summer theater workshop she wanted Ryan to attend. The program had excellent feedback but was invite-only. Talent scouts for the NYC-based program traveled throughout the United States each year to audition interested children in an American Idol-type of format. Ryan won an invitation in 2016.

The Theater workshop was 4 full days of singing, dancing, and acting taught by instructors from Broadway past and present. Each summer talented kids traveled to NYC to advance their performing arts skillsets and receive feedback.

We gave Ryan the freedom to discover his hobbies and passions. Musical lessons, singing, or theater were encouraged. After school theater met a goal of finding creative ways for him to develop confidence and interpersonal skills outside of sports.

Historically we spent summers attending soccer camps across the U.S. By age 10, several respected soccer programs believed Ryan possessed enough talent to eventually compete for full college scholarships. I knew this was a plausible path as I played soccer in college and Ryan was miles ahead of my development.

The performing arts ?would enhance Ryan’s interpersonal communication habits with positive reinforcement. We emphasized areas of development that came especially hard for his introverted parents --- such as public speaking.

A lack of soft skills grounded many talented adult professions I interviewed. My company offered highly paid roles and top benefits, but many talented hopefuls stumbled badly when it came to interpersonal communication skills. Bad-to-terrible body language, lack of eye contact, missed social queues, inappropriate comments, and a general lack of self-awareness meant they weren’t getting the job.

Education can take you far, but interpersonal skills can take you farther. Even higher-income workers can amplify their value through soft skills.

Ryan attacked theater with the same vigor as soccer. He was a comfortable and gregarious performer. Fearless even. We traveled to NYC at our expense to get an objective professional opinion on whether Ryan’s raw talent and stage presence warranted consideration for future college scholarships too.

“Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.”- Brené Brown.

?The last day of the theater workshop featured a showcase where kids performed individually and with an assigned small team. Invited guests included a small panel of professional talent agents. Parents weren’t allowed to attend.

We picked Ryan up that evening and were pulled aside. A counselor shared that a couple of talent agencies may call us offering immediate representation for Ryan. We were told to these are the types of talent agencies that find you --- you don’t find them. Their contact information isn’t publicized for random solicitation.

We were stunned. I didn't know how the process worked, but surely it couldn’t work like this. Talent scouts would choose children with superior skillsets. Likely kids laboring for years in dance studios, taking singing lessons, and working with acting coaches. Kids who were intentionally groomed for the performing arts. Ryan was not.

Initially, my wife was giddy with delight, then suddenly stressed. We were completely unprepared for that type of conversation. She recommended we immediately form a strategy.

What do you do when an opportunity presents itself with little-to-no warning? Ask questions, take some time to assess, research, and ask for another meeting. Whatever you do, don't say no. Don't close the door to unexpected opportunities before investigating them. At least, that's what a career at Microsoft taught me.

A few minutes after the short walk to our hotel, my phone rang. It was the first of several calls. My wife waved her hands as if she was landing a plane and told me this was "it." I didn't know what "it" was.

On the other end of the line was an assistant from a giant talent agency offering to represent our son. "To do what?" I asked. "To do what Ryan wanted to do," she said confidently. My 11-year-old wanted to be a professional soccer player, astronaut, CEO, zookeeper, and maybe the Phantom of the Opera. In my mind, he needed a decade, or two, to figure it out. I didn’t intend to be cynical, but this hardly seemed possible.

I prolonged the conversation by asking about the reputation of the agency, but with no way to gauge any answer. I wished they called my wife. She’s better at impromptu conversations.

I requested time to consider the offer which they gladly granted without pressure. We needed to research. We had no contacts in the entertainment business therefore no one to help set expectations. I researched as much as I could, but there's simply no instruction guide for parents.

It was a tremendous honor to be offered representation, but emotion could not dictate our path. It was time to sort through a complex set of obstacles. If we moved forward, we had to know how to evaluate why we would say "yes" and exactly what we were committing to. I wrote out an evaluation process using a methodological framework learned at Microsoft. (In a future article I’ll highlight our parental decision process.)

Committing to the agent meant committing to the auditioning process for Broadway, TV, and movies. Auditioning is not a trivial task. Hundred, sometimes thousands of talented people audition for a single available role. A single short two-page dialog audition can require hours of preparation. The odds of getting any role are low; the odds of getting a major role are minuscule.??

If we accepted representation, we could submit the first audition via video. However, if the occasion ever presented itself where Ryan was selected to move on to the next round (of auditions), we were expected to attend in person. We lived 1,100 miles away from NYC and 2,500 miles from Los Angeles. This didn't seem practical.

Time though, not travel, was the primary concern. We valued family time when I was not traveling for work. Helping Ryan audition was not how I wanted to spend my free time, nor how I wanted my 11-year-old to spend his. Theater was an after-school hobby, like soccer.

Still, Ryan was approached by one of the most reputable talent firms in the country. They saw something in Ryan that we couldn’t identify. Further, they were willing to invest further time into him at no cost or obligation to us. My wife proposed we fully commit to the audition process for 3 to 6 months and then revaluate. Ryan, of course, loved the idea. He begged for the chance to audition.

We wanted to support his ambitions, but not blindly. He didn’t have enough life experience to comprehend what he was committing to. Yet his years of playing competitive soccer and continued academic success proved he could follow through on commitments. He smartly reminded me of this.

Certain that the time commitment would quickly overwhelm him, I set a few non-negotiable boundaries. I was clear that we would not argue, cajole, or bargain with him when it was time to audition. I did not want the agent, he did. If he wanted this, he’d be responsible set-aside time to memorize the audition materials and bring his best attitude. Ryan gladly accepted our terms. We reached out to the agency to set up an in-person meeting to verify we were all on the same page.

My wife suggested a second, more advanced theater workshop in NYC before summer concluded. A 10-day program with instructors from Hamilton, Anastasia on Broadway, and veterans of multiple Broadway productions came highly recommended.

This workshop wasn’t about finding agents, but rather accelerated training with a glimpse into the rigors of Broadway. As such, it wasn't designed for younger kids, like Ryan. We made a compelling pitch to the founder who accepted Ryan --- with an understanding that the pace of the class could not slow down to accommodate him.

For the first time, I saw Ryan struggle with theater. One instructor took away a couple of lines of a song from Ryan because he couldn't sing it in tune. It didn’t concern us because I don’t think Ryan ever had an individual singing lesson. He learned by listening to the older kids in the local theater.

He loved the class but struggled a bit mentally. Ryan asked if I should go in and talk to the instructor who "didn't like him." My heart hurt for him, but I was in no position to argue the quality of his singing. These were professional instructors. Effort and attitude matter, but talent and proper execution must be there too. I didn’t know if he could be trained to sing at a Broadway-level, but his new talent agency must have thought so.

I recommended he ask other instructors for assistance --- which they generously provided. I had two difficult challenges for my 11-year-old. No matter what happens with the singing lines in class, he should attack whatever he was given with continued determination and a positive attitude. He might not be able to control whether he got the singing lines back, but he could control his attitude and work ethic.

Ryan continued to lose more singing lines over the next few days. Then, the tide turned. Halfway through the ten days, he was given a few lines of the song back. Then a couple more the next day until he had them all back. Ryan had somehow worked himself out of the situation with no parental involvement, other than simple encouragement.

We did not know it at that time, but by asking for help, Ryan showed something that resonated with the instructors. I don’t know if it was his humility, self-awareness, or compassion. Thank you, Steve, Ben, and a big thank you to Jules. Your kind words, your expertise, and your coaching inspired our young dreamer.

Audition Requests

We flew back to Tampa and soon video audition requests began. First a TV series, a major movie, then a Broadway musical. Auditions came by email and were often due within 2 or 3 days. Musical auditions sometimes contain more detail but allow a few extra days turnaround.

The Broadway audition materials seemed complex with long dialog and two new songs to learn. Singing requirements presented a large obstacle for us. Neither my wife nor I played piano or sang. We'd have to ask his school theater director and music teacher for help. They were both tremendously supportive but asking for help isn't a sustaining model.

The audition required hours of commitment across several days. We hustled Ryan from soccer practice to the music teacher apologizing that he was delivered in his sweaty soccer uniform.

Nothing about this audition seemed to go smoothly. It was my first time using video on a new camera (phone quality wasn’t sufficient then). I didn’t know how to set up lighting for video, nor how to splice and combine video. I was working a lot and using what little free time I had to churn out an audition that he had almost no chance of a callback. It was for a major role in Warner Brothers theater's multimillion-dollar production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on Broadway. The production had been on a year-long search for boys to play the lead role of Charlie. Hundreds, maybe thousands of talented hopefuls were seen.

I uploaded Ryan’s completed audition video late on a Sunday night audition and went about my business. The next day Ryan's agent called. The directors and producers wanted to audition Ryan in person.

This late in the process, an in-person audition meant that Ryan would be in the final two rounds. This would be another first for us. We knew nothing about in-person auditions.

I’ll share more about Ryan’s audition process in the next article.