Matt Doyle talks about his \u201cextraordinary ability to shape shift.\u201d His career proves his point.<\/p>\n
In 2007, at age 19, Doyle took a chance by going to an open call for Broadway\u2019s buzz-provoking hit at the time, \u201cSpring Awakening.\u201d<\/p>\n
The song he sang was Paul McCartney\u2019s \u201cLet It Be.\u201d It led to him understudying two roles. He eventually graduated to full-time casting as the confident Hanschen and went on to play the complex lead, Melchior.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was fortunate,\u201d Doyle, coming Oct. 19 to the Broadway Cabaret in the Warwick Hotel\u2019s Rittenhouse Grill, says by telephone from his Jersey City home. \u201c\u2018Spring Awakening\u2019 changed my life exponentially.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over the next few seasons, Doyle would play a series of Broadway leads \u2014 Hugo Peabody in \u201cBye Bye Birdie,\u201d Billy in \u201cWar Horse,\u201d Elder Price in \u201cThe Book of Mormon\u201d \u2014 before going on to more unusual roles off-Broadway, including Anthony in an immersive \u201cSweeney Todd\u201d and one of the droogs in an intense staging of \u201cA Clockwork Orange.\u201d<\/p>\n
Obviously, Doyle avoided being typecast, and all of the shows expanded his sensibility about theater along with expanding his range.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am most proud of this earlier part of my career when none of the characters were similar let alone the same. The characters were not only different from each other. They were different from me. I had to learn about other people\u2019s lives. I also went back and forth from leads to character roles.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe shows were also different. They from off-center to conventional, from serious to comic. It was quite the learning experience. I became known among people on Broadway, established a career, and worked constantly even if the public might not recognize me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anonymity ended when Doyle took stage in 2021 as Jamie, the neurotically unsure gay co-groom in Marianne Elliott\u2019s gender-bending revival of Stephen Sondheim\u2019s \u201cCompany.\u201d Doyle\u2019s version of the hilarious lightning-fast \u201cGetting Married Today\u201d earned him oodles of attention along with a 2022 Tony Award as Best Supporting Actor in a Musical. His life was changed again, just as Jonathan Bailey\u2019s was after he played Jamie in Elliott\u2019s 2018 London production of \u201cCompany.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBest of all was playing the character that came closest to who I am. Jamie is a nervous gay guy who is going over the edge as he anticipates what this wedding might mean to him and his partner. I am a nervous gay guy who has a tendency to go over the edge. I am used to having panic attacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a lot to be on edge about with \u2018Company.\u2019 It had two runs. We began performances in March 2020. Five shows in, we had to close because everything was closed by the pandemic. It was almost two years later that we finally began our run.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pandemic also gave Doyle, maybe everyone, additional perspective. After working eight shows a week for an entire decade, he says he had to learn to take life day-to-day. Among things he found himself doing was inventing cabaret or concert acts in his living room, the same one from which he\u2019s speaking to me. Songs and composers chosen revealed preferences as broad and eclectic as the roles Doyle\u2019s played.<\/p>\n
For his set at the Rittenhouse Grill, Doyle will be combining songs from his theater appearances with music from pop singer-songwriters such as Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and Sara Bareilles. The two songs that proved so significant to Doyle\u2019s career, \u201cLet It Be\u201d and \u201cGetting Married Today,\u201d are included.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m drawn to songs of growth, hope and beauty, songs that speak to being an individual,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The soothing quality of \u201cLet It Be\u201d and franticness of \u2018Getting Married Today\u201d figure into Doyle\u2019s life story.<\/p>\n
\u201cI talk about panic attacks and going over the edge with experience,\u201d Doyle says. \u201cFor my whole life, I\u2019ve coped with being manic-depressive. Mental health is an important topic to me, and I will be talking about it throughout my set.\u201d<\/p>\n
Doyle says he dealt with bouts of depression while performing but in general, he found his time in front of audiences \u201chealing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI found safety on stage, identity on stage, and escape on stage. Performing was wonderfully cathartic. Whatever I might be handling off-stage, the focus and purpose involved in playing a character kept me disciplined and level.\u201d<\/p>\n
Doyle also talks about people who influenced him in his life and career. One is Marianne Elliott, to my mind one of the two best theater directors working today. (The other is Ivo van Hove.) She chose Doyle to play the lead in \u201cWar Horse\u201d and gave him the role of Jamie in \u201cCompany.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a gift the way she talks to actors and makes everything so clear,\u201d Doyle says.<\/p>\n
Another is the late Gavin Creel, a fellow Tony recipient and fellow Elder Price,\u201d who Doyle mentioned several times, describing him as a friend and mentor as well as an example of a versatile performer.<\/p>\n
\u2018Misery\u2019 on stage
\n![\"Performers](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1791729249_342_DTD-L-BRUCEEMMAHEDGEROW-1008.jpg\")
Performers Bruce Graham, left, and Emma Gibson, right, are featured in \u201cMisery,\u201d set to run at Hedgerow Theater in Rose Valley, from Wednesday, Oct. 14 to Sunday, Nov. 1, with\u00a014 performances. (COURTESY OF JAMES KERN PHOTOGRAPHY)<\/p>\n
Bruce Graham emphasizes that people who come to Hedgerow Theatre\u2019s production of \u201cMisery\u201d should not expect to see Rob Reiner\u2019s 1990 movie re-enacted.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis a different \u2018Misery,\u201d\u2019 Graham says by telephone from his South Philadelphia home. \u201cEmma Gibson and I are not trying to bring on memories of Kathy Bates and James Caan. We\u2019re working with William Goldman\u2019s adaptation of Stephen King\u2019s novel and basing our performances on what the characters say and do, not what Bates and Caan chose to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Graham says that during rehearsal he and Gibson practically race each other to see who\u2019ll arrive to work first because they are each so eager to begin honing scenes for the show, which opens Wednesday and runs through Nov. 1.<\/p>\n
Graham made his reputation as a playwright but says he laid off from writing about 20 years ago. About 10 years later, he decided to fulfill a long-withheld ambition to act.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went on an audition. I was scared to death. I\u2019m still a little nervous when I try out for a play,\u201d he said. \u201cI always wanted to be a character actor. Even at age 22, I didn\u2019t see many leading man roles coming my way. Not even with a toup\u00e9e. I grew up wanting to be Burgess Meredith. People hearing I\u2019m in \u2018Misery\u2019 might think I\u2019m playing the sheriff, but I am the writer, Paul Sheldon.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo far, rehearsals have been great, but as much fun as I\u2019m having with Emma and our director, Catharine Slusar, I can\u2019t wait until there\u2019s someone besides us in the room.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before talking to Graham, I noticed on Hedgerow\u2019s site that he and Gibson were acting in the piece while Slusar was directing. It read like a game of theatrical musical chairs. Graham, who\u2019s amassed some fine acting credits, usually is the writer, Gibson is best known as a director, and Slusar is regarded primarily as an actress. With \u201cMisery,\u201d they\u2019re going against the expected. Just like Graham says he and Gibson are doing with their parts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a little schizophrenic, but we\u2019re doing well in our assigned roles,\u201d Graham quips.<\/p>\n
One refreshing element of all Bruce Graham plays \u2014 \u201cBurkie,\u201d \u201cMinor Demons,\u201d \u201cCoyote on a Fence,\u201d \u201cAny Given Monday,\u201d \u201cThe Outgoing Tide,\u201d \u201cWhite Guy on the Bus,\u201d etc. \u2014 is its use of naturalistic dialogue. His characters speak as if they didn\u2019t have dialogue written for them. They don\u2019t always finish sentences. They use slang. They might say \u201cdon\u2019t\u201d instead of \u201cdoesn\u2019t\u201d or mispronounce a $50 word. So the question is whether Graham can stick to the text given him or has an urge to rewrite or bring the dialogue down to earth.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a careful strategy. I allow myself to stray here and there, but I know when I do, so I go back to the script, cut my edits, and practice scenes so I\u2019ll perform them as Goldman wrote them. I don\u2019t want any nasty letters from The Writers Guild,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Graham\u2019s character is a writer, but he says except for a trait here and there, they have nothing in common, adding: \u201cWe are alike in one important way. I can\u2019t write if someone else is in the room.\u201d<\/p>\n
One challenge is how physical \u201cMisery\u201d becomes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere I am with two broken legs and my ankles crushed, and I have to move, maybe to fight,\u201d Graham said. \u201cWe have a great fight coordinator who keeps everything safe, but violence is part of the story. At least I\u2019m the only character who is not thoroughly doused in blood.<\/p>\n
\u201cCatharine is an actor-friendly director, so she makes things easier. Also, I\u2019ve been to clown school, and I learned how to fall. I know the parts of a fall and how to handle them so I can take a spill without getting hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n
Graham taught at Drexel until two years ago. In spite of giving up playwriting, he\u2019s a bit \u201ccompulsive,\u201d and had two fledgling pieces read, one at Malvern\u2019s People\u2019s Light Theatre, the other at a theater in Chicago. He says his mainoccupation these days is being a grandfather.<\/p>\n
\u2018Yale\u2019 in Philadelphia
\n![\"Kevin](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1791729249_976_AP19264091369265.jpg\")
Kevin Dunn stars in \u201cYale.\u201d (Photo by Jordan Strauss\/Invision for the Television Academy\/AP Images)<\/p>\n
Van Billet\u2019s wife and children were concerned to the point of wanting him to see a psychiatrist when he retired at age 52 from investment banking and decided to pursue a lifelong dream and become a screenwriter.<\/p>\n
He found success with his first venture but is getting more traction with his newest movie, \u201cYale,\u201d a story from his family archives that he\u2019s been sitting on for about 50 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cYale\u201d is about Billet\u2019s roguish grandfather and has nothing to do with the university. It earned acclaim at film festivals in Los Angeles and Florida Florida and will be played at the Philadelphia Film Festival at 7:30 p.m. Friday at PFS East (125 S. Second St.) and at 5:15 p.m. Oct. 24 at Philadelphia Film Society Center (1412 Chestnut St.).<\/p>\n
Billet is not the only one enjoying later-life kudos from \u201cYale.\u201d Its star Kevin Dunn has the role of his life as a charming cad tracked down by an abandoned daughter during a crisis in her life. Her child is dying and she needs an organ donor to save him. She has to see if her absentee father is a match.<\/p>\n
Dunn is one of those prolific character actors who has seen time after time for more than 40 years. Everyone knows his face and remembers parts he played when they see him, but few could remember his name.<\/p>\n
\u201cYale\u201d could change that. It might replace Dunn\u2019s six seasons as Ben Cafferty, the White House chief of staff on the television series \u201cVeep.\u201d He is also in Delaware County shooting his second season as Vince Runyon, the straight-shooting FBI chief on HBO\u2019s \u201cTask.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGuess so,\u201d Dunn says modestly when asked if having a lead role like Yale could propel him from being a recognized actor with many credits to one whose name people know.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just found the film to be a great opportunity. I was surprised and honored to be offered it. It\u2019s a fascinating story. I could hardly believe it when (director) Jay Silverman told me it was real.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn honest, delicate piece like \u2018Yale\u2019 is a rare thing. When I read Van\u2019s script, I didn\u2019t like the guy, but I had to make the audience interested, so I worked at making him not too mean and not too charming. He\u2019s a sociopath. He wanted to be loved by all the people he could make love him, only to hurt or disappoint them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWorking on it every day was a challenge but a pleasure because \u2018Yale\u2019 is written so well, and Jay and Van were on set everyday to discuss and take the temperature of what we were doing. It gave me a chance to flex my acting muscles. I liked hearing, \u2018You\u2019re OK\u2019 after we shot scenes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those scenes take place in Philadelphia and its suburbs, where the actual story of Yale Parker unfolded. Billet says he insisted Philadelphia be prominent in \u201cYale.\u201d Exteriors were shot throughout the Delaware Valley while interior scenes were shot in L.A.<\/p>\n
The story is one that has been on Billet\u2019s mind since he first heard it 50 years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was already in my twenties when my mother came clean and told me about my grandfather, who was a bigamist that deserted my family and most of the others he spawned,\u201d he said. \u201cI wanted to be a film writer, but that career wasn\u2019t starting. With my future and own family to consider, I did a 180. I went to La Salle University, went on to get a law degree and found a career in investment banking.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the while this story my mother told me about Yale remained in my head, always as a movie. While I always thought about the story, it took a long time to turn it into a script.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe writing took about five years. It took another three years to find Jay Silverman, who agreed to direct it and more time to find a distributor, The hope is the attention we\u2019ve gotten at film festivals will get us the distributor we need.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy grandfather was a narcissist, a taker, not a giver, a heartbreaker but charming and funny. One of the children he\u2019s abandoned has been as feckless as he is. She is a drug user who has been to jail, but she, now sober, has a child who needs an organ to live, and she\u2019s forced by concern for her son to seek the father that vanished in case he is the right donor to save her son.\u201d<\/p>\n
Caitlin McGee plays Yale\u2019s daughter. Billet says she is the focal point of \u201cYale,\u201d but the title character became so compelling, she spends a lot of time listening and reacting to him.<\/p>\n
\u201cCaitlin and Kevin nailed their parts,\u201d Billet says. \u201cKevin is so authentic while being someone to whom the audience could be drawn in spite of themselves. Caitlin resists any form of exaggeration. Her facial expressions tell stories.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dunn was effusive in his praise of McGee: \u201cShe was the perfect person to act with. We bonded on the first day of shooting. After that, it was off to the races.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yale will continue in the festival route through 2026. Billet says producers are looking toward a larger launch in January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matt Doyle talks about his \u201cextraordinary ability to shape shift.\u201d His career proves his point. In 2007, at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304479,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1681,1559,69,71,70,289,1444,7266],"class_list":["post-304478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-entertainment","tag-opinion","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-things-to-do","tag-top-stories-lan","tag-tv-and-streaming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}