Photo: Vincent Michael walks the red carpet at the opening of Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York). Photo courtesy of Valerie Terranova / Provided by Vivacity with permission.
NEW YORK — On Dec. 17, 2025, Vincent Michael had a good day.
As standby for the character of Dougal in the Broadway musical Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York), he had been waiting and waiting for his first performance at the Longacre Theatre in Midtown Manhattan. He knew that whenever that fateful day would come, he would be making his Broadway debut.
And then Dec. 17 happened.
Sam Tutty, who plays the character of Dougal on Broadway, called out for the performance, and Michael was called in. The debut served as a capstone for a long journey that began with Michael sending in, by all accounts, a fairly rough self-tape to land the standby role.
“Sent in a self-tape, didn’t really think anything of it, went to a wedding, got COVID and/or the flu, and could not go to the callbacks because I was deeply sick,” Michael said in a recent Zoom interview. “Tried to do Zoom, tried to sing, failed miserably. The sound would cut out. It was truly an absolute disaster. They were like, ‘Would you mind self-taping again?’ I had to self-tape again, and then Tim [Jackson], our director, was like, ‘Hey, I would love to just sit down and talk with you if you wouldn’t mind in New York.’ And we met with masks on like a football field apart and talked about the role, and then he asked me in the room if I wanted to join on Monday. It was like a Friday night, so I joined.”
Michael joined the production for its Boston run, serving as Dougal’s standby, and he’s still with the show in New York. He shares the standby role with Austin Colburn, and they play against Christiani Pitts as Robin, with Phoenix Best and Jana Larell Glover as standbys.
The musical, by Jim Barne and Kit Buchan, tells the story of Dougal and Robin, who are brought together under unlikely circumstances. Dougal is British and visiting New York City for the first time to attend his father’s wedding. His father’s wife is Robin’s sister, so Robin has been tasked with getting Dougal settled in and also picking up the wedding cake (hence the title of the show). Dougal is excited and energetic, Robin less so.
When Michael booked the part, he had to learn the story immediately and figure out this Dougal character.
“It was a whirlwind, but also I think maybe not thinking about it, not having the time to process the volume of what was going to happen, was probably the reason that I just kind of went head first into it and made it exponentially more enjoyable because of it,” he said. “I just think that they’re two very ordinary people, and I think that they are very real. The circumstance in which they are thrust into is never heightened to a degree that it feels farcical. It never feels elevated and borderline fictional. Everything feels like it could happen to these people.”
Michael called the show an examination of two ordinary people experiencing an extraordinary two days in the Big Apple. The actor described Dougal as grounded, buoyant and very much like a golden retriever.
“We’ve all had our first experience in New York or in the city of your dreams where you have that intensity of excitement and passion,” Michael said. “It’s wonderful to be able to channel it every night because every single person has experienced it or will get to experience that exact feeling at some point in their lives, so, yeah, they both feel very real. These two people feel incredibly alive.”
Michael laughed about the characterizations in the show because the actors behind the scenes have said that the roles are a bit reversed in real life. Michael and Tutty, who play Dougal, are more like Robin (a bit more introverted), while Pitts and Best are like Dougal (a lot more extroverted).
“Maybe that’s how the magic happens in the building,” he said. “We actually get to channel each other. I am much more of an optimist than I am a pessimist, but I don’t know if I’ve ever met anyone like Dougal in my life, let alone myself having traits similar to him. But there is an element to having done it on stage now quite enough that I’m really trying to apply as much as Dougal into my life as I can because when we walk out of those stage doors and you see the impact that this show has on audiences and Dougal specifically, there’s something that I think is very special happening. If Dougal is as infectious to audiences as it appears, then maybe we all need to be like Dougal in our lives.”
The life of a standby on Broadway is an interesting one. Michael reports to the Longacre Theatre every night, and he warms up as if he were taking the stage. And then he has to wait and see if he’s needed.
“Sam and Christiani, I have to give them their flowers,” Michael said. “They have been absolutely ironclad locked in. There were times where they’re like, ‘Hey, I’m exhausted,’ or they were doing the album, or they were doing interviews and podcasts and stuff all day. Sam’s like, ‘I’ve just been talking all day,’ but … they have been eight shows a week if not more so throughout this entire process.”
Michael added: “We’re at the theater throughout the show every single night. I try to prepare my body as if I’m going on that night, and then I get a nice little sweet treat when I don’t have to do the show. [When I do take the stage], it’s definitely demanding because you don’t get to hide on stage, and there are no moments to go get a water, go to the bathroom. Once you get shot out of that cannon, it is two hours and 15-20 minutes of a marathon.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapboxcom
Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York), featuring Vincent Michael, continues at the Longacre Theatre on Broadway. Click here for more information and tickets.