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Video: Jeffrey Seller Is Letting Out His Inner Theater Kid
May 10, 2025
Jeffrey Seller has made the theatre that has changed my life. I will always remember being twelve years old and being obsessed with all that is Rent. This show changed the face of theatre. He did it again with Hamilton and In The Heights as well. His artistic blueprint is all over the DNA of Broadway. His new memoir 'Theatre Kid' is out and it is a must read for theatre fans and artists alike. Watch in this video!
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Are you ready? It's the roundtable with me, Robert Bannon
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Welcome to the roundtable, everybody. My name is Robert Bannon. You're watching us on Broadway
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World. Happy Friday. It's a Broadway World exclusive. Every single Friday, we bring you
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the best of Broadway art and artists here. And I'm really excited. Listen, I'm on page 202
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I got the book yesterday. Jeffrey Seller not only has produced some of the greatest theater
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that I have ever seen in my life, seeing Rent at 12 years old changed my life. And being in Rent
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in a very bad regional production also changed my life. But reading about his life and how honest
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and vulnerable he is in this book is something that everybody needs to see. Artists, people
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humanity alike. And I think he's down the block. He is in Detroit and I am in Detroit. And he grew
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up in Oak Park, which is five blocks from my house in Seven Mile in Livernois. Jeffrey Seller
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is going to be forced to be my best friend just so I could afford tickets to see Leslie Odom Jr
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back in Hamilton this fall. That's the secret behind this whole chat. Jeffrey Seller, welcome
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to the show. You are fabulous. And I can't guarantee the tickets to Leslie Odom, but
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everything else you ask for, the answer is yes. I knew that was going to be the line, Jeffrey
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I knew that was the line. Welcome. It's so nice. I mean, I could have had you over my house for a Coney Dog or something
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Robert, yes, I'm here today. Well, first of all, I'm here a lot, is the truth of the matter, because I teach at U of M in the fall
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And my new love, the love of my life, my boyfriend, Yuval Sharon, is the artistic director of Detroit Opera
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And he spends a pretty good amount of time here. So you can often find me at those fabulous restaurants downtown with Yuval on the weekends
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Okay. Well, listen, then it's a deal because not only do I love Detroit Opera and shout out to the beautiful Detroit Opera House, but my husband, who I moved here for, is a Detroiter through and through
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So I'm here as well. And I love the art scene of Detroit and what they're trying to do here
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That's what brings me to your book. Look at – see, Detroit finds love for us East Coasters
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It did for me. Oh, that's so beautiful. That's great. I was reading your book and I was reading about your childhood
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and the book is mandatory reading for anybody. I mean, it is called Theater Kid
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It is out now. You can get it wherever books are sold. And while we're talking about it
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you can go to jeffreyseller.com and you could get information about that
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or you can go to Jeffrey's Instagram page at jseller. And wherever you get a book
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go to Barnes & Noble, Amazon, get a copy of this book. I didn't get to the point, Jeffrey
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where you become Tony Award-winning superstar producer and I'm enthralled. I thought I was gonna be ready
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Stories about Lynn and stories about Rent But your childhood is fascinating
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I had to make sense in my childhood. I'm going to take us to a more serious place
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Please. I don't believe in life after death. Okay. I don't believe in God
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though I am a cultural and sometimes observant Jew. And I guess I wrote this book as my own form of redemption
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Why am I here? How did I get here? You know, I guess I'm like Mark Cohen and, you know, Halloween
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How did we get here? How the hell pan left? And I mean, that's a joke
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But I, you know, I, and I'm an adopted kid. And when you're an adopted kid and you don't know where you come from, but you know that your biological mother and father made a decision to sever ties with you when you were born
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I suffer from that. I suffer from an innate sense of being lost and being rejected
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in spite of the enormous love that was showered on me by my chaotic, hectic family
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And so I had to write this book to say, why am I here on this earth? I need to make sense of it
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And it was my own. It was for my own process. And I didn't have a publisher and I didn't have
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a publication date, I just wrote a book for me with no expectation of who else the audience might
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include. Well, you could tell because it's very personal. I mean, you get into nitty gritty
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like you tell your personal life, the good, the bad, the ugly. You talk about your family and your
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friends and your relationships and your journey in a very honest and conversational way. It's just
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like I'm sitting having a cup of coffee and you're telling me your life story. I figured that if I am
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to write a book, there's no reason to write anything if I'm not going to get down to the
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absolute core of those questions. And only by delving deeply into what happened, can I
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work through that process to come to a result? Well, when you start the book, you'll find out
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that your father had an accident. Well, I don't want to give too much away, but had an accident
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and left him with some impairments with short-term memory. And he dealt with his own things
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Your mother worked and tried to provide the best that she could for your family
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You lived in Oak Park, but not in the fancy area of Oak Park that is now
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There's areas of Oak Park that are very nice. You talk very openly about that and your siblings and you being adopted very openly
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But it's a love letter at the end. Even when you write a letter to your dad that not nice and even as you guys combat each other through the journey and your feelings come about you can sense the love and how proud your parents were when you graduated college
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when you graduated high school. You found your passion and you come out with no controversy with your parents either
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They showered me with love. You know, my father was a mess in so many ways
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He was a failure as a provider. He was a failure at earning money. He cheated on my mother. He wasted resources and money that were not his
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um and anytime i asked my father hey dad i want to go audition for the peron play hey dad i want
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to go audition for the community theater hey dad i wanted to go audition uh for michigan opera
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theater you know what the answer was get in the car yeah get in the car and through all of that
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chaos, what they did get right is they loved me and acknowledged me and celebrated me
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And you made it. You made it through camping trips. You made it through serving people court
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notices. You made it through the days of growing up in Metro Detroit. I saw a lot of Metro Detroit
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I mean, you're bringing up this thing, serving papers, quote unquote. My dad, after he bankrupt the family business and had this motorcycle accident, he got a job as what we call a process server
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The guy who has to show up on people's doorsteps when they are in trouble
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people who do not want to see a 250 pound, six foot three process server, who's telling them
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here is your summons to court to appear before a judge. Here is your subpoena to court to testify
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in this trial because you are in a lawsuit getting divorced, not making your child support payments
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getting kicked out of your house for not making the mortgage payments, people in trouble
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And bizarrely, my dad liked my company. So he would say, you want to go serve some papers
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For $20. He would get $20 for everyone he served. $20. If you serve a paper, you get $20. You serve five a day, it's $100. I mean
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I was a counter. I was like an accountant. So I was like, okay, well, that's $500 a week
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That's $25,000 a year. I guess we'll be okay. What I didn't know is that he would go cash all the checks and then go spend it on food
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pool halls, and women. So it wasn't even coming into the house. And you hear about all of it in the journey and your parents' journey and your journey
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with them as well. I have to shout out Stage Crafters, who still exists here in Detroit
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One of the biggest and the best, right? Biggest. When I moved here, I met with a music director and I was like, I sing
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I have this show. He said, you need to go to Stage Crafters. And to see it, I was thinking, I loved reading the book for people in Detroit
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And I know this is inside baseball for Broadway World. But I was at the Dairy Queen on Nine Mile last weekend
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I mean, there's little nuggets. It's still there. It's there. It's lovely
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It's so good. You got to go next time you take your van and go to the Nine Mile Dairy Queen
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We're going to go to Ferndale. We are going. We are going. But there's so many great restaurants downtown
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We don't get uptown. But Ferndale is where the gays are. A lot of the gays are out here in Ferndale
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I know. We can't be. there are so many theater kids watching, hopefully, that are not from Detroit
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Right. We want you to know it's not that Detroit-centric. No, it is not
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It is New York-centric. It is. And you're right, Jeffrey. And it is very New York-centric
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And while we're talking about it, one of the best stories I loved in the book was when you talk about falling in love with Broadway
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And when you fall in love with Broadway, your first Broadway show, Seeing Dream Girls
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and showing a Jennifer holiday and the roof rattling and all of that
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that literally led you into an obsession. Like you were a theater kid performer before you ever
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went to book tours, before you ever went to produce shows, you were a performer first
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I was in the plays. And then I was in a play in the eighth grade at Stage Crafters Youth Theater
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It's called Popcorn, the Adventures of Popcorn Pete. I was the jack in the box. And I want to say
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I was pretty good. I had common timing. I was vivid. I was good. Anyway, and here's what I
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noticed as a 13-year-old. One, that is a dumb name for a play. Two, nothing happens in the course of
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the 50 minutes of this play. There wasn't enough conflict. I was like, what's the major question
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I didn't yet know Shakespearean five-act structure, but I kind of knew what's the
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major dramatic question. Why are we here? Where's the crisis? Number three, nobody came to see it
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Now, maybe it was February in Michigan in 1978, which was a pretty cold time prior to global
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warming. And, you know, people want to stay in. But you know what? I think the play wasn't good
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enough. And I said, who picks the play? And the moment I said, who picks the play? And I found out
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It was the play reading committee. So now I am a 13-year-old who's reading plays all weekend to try to help pick the right play
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That's when I started to make the transition. And so, yes, I continued acting in plays, ninth grade, 10th grade
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I was in the fest. We were in Fight First People. I won two awards for actor. I went to the Northwestern Cherubs program between junior and senior year of high school as acting
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And frankly, it was there that I was like, you know what my great talent is
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Identifying talent. And I was like, oh, this kid's better than me. This kid's better than me
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Oh, they're going to be actors. I'm not. And I wanted to pick the play So I realized I want to I want to manage the forest not the trees Yes And you have and you managed the forest And when you read the book everybody
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which is available now, Theater Kid, wherever you get books, make sure you order a copy of the book
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read it, paper. I have the paper copy. You got to get a copy, hold it and enjoy it
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All the theater babies out here. When you read about graduating and graduating U of M and moving
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to New York City, which in of itself is fascinating to me because I grew up in Jersey. So people coming
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to New York, it must be so overwhelming. You get a job eventually with Barry and Fran Weisler and
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that journey. The anxiety I have reading those chapters about learning how to book a show and
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give a guarantee, but we're not going to tell you how to do it and get them on the phone and you making mistakes and learning on the flight. But it was an environment you thrived in. You did it
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That was Broadway, baby. I mean, I got a job in a vital, chaotic, crazy Broadway office where there was constant action every day of the week
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And and they don't, you know, send you to school. So you learn on the fly and you learn by making mistakes
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And sometimes you learn by getting yelled at. Yes. And you did. And you hear about it in the book
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I just finished the chapter about three meetings that changed your life, which leads you to start a different journey
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And then ultimately there's a couple of different things in these meetings. But then one of them brings up Jonathan Larson
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And what fate and divine intervention led you to this workshop, this performance of a show
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And then you just having the guts to say there's something here. And you wrote a letter, Jeffrey
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I am a letter writer and I think we all need to write more letters. So what happened is that
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while I was working at the Weisslers, it's the fall of 1990. And just to give you a very quick
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snapshot of where I am in the fall of 1990, I still work there, but I don't like my job and
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I really want to be a producer, but I don't know how to do it and make the transition
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I'm not satisfied. Number two is I've just broken up from a very powerful six-year relationship that I thought would last forever because I was naive in my 20s
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And I was lonely and I was afraid I'm never going to meet anyone again
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And I was wondering, like, are Broadway musicals still pertinent? and my friend Beth Emelson who works with me at the Weisler says I'm going to my friend's
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show tonight it's called Boho Days and it says Boho Days a rock monologue by Jonathan Larson
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first of all I'd never heard rock and monologue next to each other before I was like wow that's
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a cool juxtaposition of words so this is going to be a one-man show a monologue but it's going
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to be told through rock. I was like, let's go. And of course we get up to the performance place
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and, uh, empty stage with, uh, you know, a blank stage with just piano, bass, drums
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And then out comes this tall, lanky, curly haired fellow, um, Jonathan Larson. He sits down
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he attacks the piano ferociously and he starts singing about his 30th birthday, where at 30
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he's a composer of rock musicals that nobody wants to produce. He lives in the fourth floor walk up on Greenwich Street with a bathtub in the kitchen
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has no health insurance, and he's being offered a job by his best friend to be a copywriter in an
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ad agency, which would finally mean he can live in a better apartment and maybe afford to go on
16:15
vacation. And then finally, he's in a relationship with a woman who he really likes
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but he really knows she's not the person for him and he needs to break up. And does he have the guts
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to be lonely? And he's singing all of this in a series of songs that is just thrilling me and
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moving me and making me cry and laugh and scream. And I thought, how is it possible
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that this man who I have never heard of or met in my life is telling my life story
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so after the extraordinary show with the songs we all know now because by the way this is the
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show folks that became tick tick boom that became the movie starring andrew garfield directed by
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lin manuel and um i wrote him a letter the next day saying i want to produce your musicals
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and that's um one of the three meetings that changed my life and the letter is in the book
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and the whole journey and story about going to his apartment and starting to work together and
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ultimately leads to Rent. And then you're literally, I don't say this in a cheesy way
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you changed Broadway. And you write about it in a historian perspective about how much danger
17:29
Broadway was in, especially during the AIDS pandemic, especially during the 70s and 80s
17:34
when things started to get rough. And then Broadway, you're this show and the work of
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Jonathan Larson and what you did, Rent changed and ushered in a brand new Broadway. And as
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youngsters like me, it changed our lives. I give all the credit to Jonathan, who said about shows
17:55
that were happening at that era, those aren't our stories. Those aren't our characters. That's not
18:01
our music. I want to change that. I'm going to be the revolution. And I was like, I think you talk
18:05
a little bit too highfalutin. But you know what? He did. Well, you did it again
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He, well, he, but all those shows, you know, In the Heights exists
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because when Lin-Manuel took his girlfriend to see it in high school, he looked at that stage and said
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oh, I can write about my family, my friends, my neighborhood. And all of our contemporary musicals Next to Normal Dear Evan Hansen My Avenue Q none of these shows happen without Rent
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And as we know, life is a chain. So without Rent, there's no In the Heights
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And without In the Heights, there's probably no Hamilton. Yeah. Absolutely. And all of these shows, everybody
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That we're talking about From Avenue Q To Last Ship, to Hamilton
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To In the Heights, to Sweeney Todd All of the details, all Jeffrey's story
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Is all in the book Avenue Q, one of my favorite shows of all time
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Me too I still sing My Girlfriend is from Canada I still sing it whenever I sing
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You know, that was such a The shows that I grew up with
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And you have such a hand in You must hear it a lot I know you hear it now a lot from the people you work with
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I know how much your work Lin-Manuel Miranda has watched and looked at Jonathan Larson's work and been inspired
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You must hear it a lot from performers and people out on the street that what you do matters
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What's it feel like when people tell you that the hours you put in and finding these shows makes a difference for them in their life
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I, I want to say I don't spend, you know, it's, it's probably not too healthy to spend too much time patting oneself on the
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back. So, you know what I'm doing? I'm trying to figure out I'm a student American musical theater
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I am a student of the musical. I want to make a good one. So to be honest with you
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I'm spending more time figuring out how can I make another good one? I love that. And we're ready for it too. So for you
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you also tell a lot of personal stories. You tell a story about your partner, Kevin McCollum
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and what goes on with that. You talk about Andrew Lippa, which you talked about before. You talked about children and your own family. Was that the hard part? What's the hardest part
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to tell the story? What was the hard part to write? The hardest part to write was
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my shame at being poor and my bewilderment and fury at my father's behavior
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It's a very moving, it's very moving. You know what? The most beautiful thing for me
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is when my father takes me to the airport to move to New York and, you know
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parents can still come to the gate in 1986. And he takes me to the gate and he said
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son, I'm just a up. But you're the best thing that ever happened to me
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Oh, it blows. It is one of the most beautiful scenes and stories. And the complex relationship
21:22
of parents and kids is told so beautifully by you in this. It moved me. You know what I loved
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about the book, if I may take a moment more to say, is that a lot of people who are an art
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who love Broadway, you know, we think of the big, scary producer, the man behind the money
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and the show as this, you know, cigar chomping, ruthless, you know, you know, you know, this
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the stereotype of what a producer is and you're humanized and your love of the art and your love
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of the work and why it meant so much to you and what your escape was and how it's been used in
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your life is so evident. It's just a beautifully telling of a man and his journey. And it's just
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It humanized the whole, like, now I'm not scared of you, Jeffrey. No
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I want to hear about, and the listeners don't want to hear it, but you got to give me a few minutes on what's going on in your life in Detroit
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I love that you're living in Detroit. I met Darius at Motor City Pride
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He booked me for Motor City Pride here in Detroit from New York. What was Motor City Pride
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It was like, it was their pride weekend? Yep. Yep. And I performed a single that I had and I met him and we long distance dated for three years and we get married on May 25th
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God bless you. So I run an English department in downtown Detroit, right
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An alternative school in Detroit. And I get to still do all my Broadway fun on the side
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God, that is so beautiful. And we fly home and I buy tickets to see shows and we go to everything at Broadway in Detroit
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So shout out to everyone at the Fisher for keeping me still in time and linked up with the theater world
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And I get to talk to amazing people like you. Wow. I love your journey
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And you live at Seven Mile and Livernois. Seven Mile and Livernois, right there
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And you know, Livernois is just another word for Main Street. I learned this
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Jeffrey, I don't call it pop. I didn't know what a Coney Dog was. You didn't call it pop
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No, I still can't. I say I wear sneakers. They tell me they're called gym shoes
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They get a lot of things wrong here. Jim shoes. I say Jim shoes still
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And people are like, what? See, because you're in New York. See, I don't get it
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I don't get it. I will be spending the rest of the night and tomorrow binge finishing this book
23:33
I am so excited to get to the rest of it. I'm at the juicy part
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I'm right where rent's about to explode. Yeah, I know. I could say you ain't seen nothing yet, but it's getting really good
23:44
Thank you so much for spending time with us. It was a real honor. I was so excited to talk to you
23:48
I'm so excited for the book and for people to read it. Theater Kid is now available wherever books are sold
23:53
We're going to follow Jeffrey on Instagram. We're going to go to Jeffrey. You've been on the road, too
23:57
There's a lot of events and book events that are taking place. All that information, Jeffrey Sellard
24:01
That's why he's here in Detroit. JeffreySeller.com is here. And the book is available
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And shout out to your family and the beautiful kids you have. And they're now superstars themselves and out here with you
24:13
Is it interesting? Has it been transformative and healing to become a dad
24:17
Well, you know, becoming a dad is an understatement because my kids are now 22 and 21 years old
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And my son, I got to call him back as soon as this is over. And you know what is so transformative
24:29
This notion that I'm going to stop thinking about myself all the time and give to others
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And that's what I've been trying to do for the last 21, 22 years. Well, we thank you
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And I look forward to seeing you around Detroit and seeing around New York City as well
24:43
It's an honor to have you here. Congratulations on the book
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