Interview: Matt Doyle, Broadway's Future Frank Sinatra, on Conversations with Mother

Matt Doyle is one of Broadway’s most in-demand performers, with major roles in Spring Awakening, War Horse, and Company (for which he won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical), while also working with symphonies and in concert performances.

Now, he’s taken his big talent to a small space –Theatre 555 – for Matthew Lombardo’s two-character off-Broadway dramedy Conversations with Mother opposite stage and television favorite Caroline Aaron.

Doyle recently spoke to TheaterMania about this unusual project, the biggest plus of winning the Tony Award, his desire to do Shakespeare, and the future of the long-anticipated Sinatra: The Musical.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

How did you get involved in Conversations with Mother?
I received an offer while I was in Maine doing My Best Friend’s Wedding last summer, and when the script popped up inbox, I was so excited to read it. I loved that it studied this mother and her gay son who have this really special and profound connection. I get that, but you have to be very vulnerable to your parents at a young age for that to happen. I came out to them at 16 and doing something so deeply personal really triggered my close friendship with my mom. I literally still tell her everything.

How is the experience of being in a two-person play as opposed to a big musical?
I don’t think I’ve ever been this tired; it takes so much physical and mental energy. I never really leave the stage. Originally, it felt like a lot. One day, Caroline and I looked at each other, and I said it first about how hard this is. Caroline thought it was just because she’s older. But it’s nice stretching these muscles I wasn’t prepared to use. And personally, I need to be tired, or I am a nightmare to be around. I’m the kind of person who, in real life, thinks relaxation is stressful.

Tell me more about working with Caroline?
We were both cast immediately, so it’s like an arranged marriage. Luckily, we hit it off on day one. She’s amazing. But her process is so different than mine; we’re totally opposite in how we work. I slowly shade in my character from an outline, while she had every color out on the table from day one. Our director, Noah Himmelstein, has been so sensitive, making sure that our ideas came together and that we always feel connected. I would play with her again any time!

How has your life changed the most, either professionally or personally, since winning the Tony Award?
It has calmed me down. I’ve just dropped my shoulders, because I don’t have to prove anything. If you don’t like me in something, that’s fine; sometimes it hits, sometimes it doesn’t. I do think that actors who have stayed in theater for a long time—I came to New York when I was 19—just develop this attitude. But I am so grateful for that award in so many ways.

Has this project ignited your spark to do more plays?
Absolutely! My goal is, within the next 10 years, to play Benedick in a phenomenal production of Much Ado About Nothing, and, hopefully, an experimental version of Pericles, because I love the idea of taking this big heroic journey!

I think those shows may have to wait until after you do Sinatra: The Musical, which premiered last year in England. Tell me about the show and what plans there are for its future?
First, we’re aiming for next season, but we’re waiting for the right house on Broadway. Kathleen Marshall, our director, and her husband Scott Landis, our producer, are so smart and they know being in the wrong theatre can kill a show so easily. Otherwise, everything else is set.

Playing Frank is a dream come true, partially because it’s so different from my other roles, and partially, because I am actually half-Italian. I love that audiences might not look at me and immediately see Frank. Vocally, I’m not impersonating him, but understanding his intonations. And we’re not changing keys. I also love the show’s dramatic elements, I am playing Frank from 19 to 38, and we explore how he got in his own way both career-wise and in his personal life, like cheating on Ava Gardner, in his earlier years. We’re very lucky our book writer, Joe DiPietro, really understands what is to be a New Jersey Italian guy.

At the end of the day, it is a huge relief to have this life-changing show in my back pocket and I know it will happen at the right time, just like Company did after the pandemic postponed our opening.