I haven’t posted in a while. That wasn’t laziness.
Rehearsals for Cats: The Jellicle Ball started February 9th. Over the past few weeks we moved into tech, and now we’re in previews. The whole stretch has been cast rehearsals during the day and shows at night. My days and nights have been locked in ever since.
I’m going to write about all of it. The full process, start to finish. And I want to share some things I noticed this time around that I hadn’t paid close attention to before. Details that even people who’ve been in this business a while don’t always stop to think about. I think you’ll find it useful.
But something happened tonight I didn’t want to sit on.
One of the things that makes this show special is how many people are making their Broadway debuts. It’s really something to see. The excitement on their faces is real and it never gets old.
Robert Silk Mason plays Mr. Mistoffelees in our show. Tonight he was out, and his understudy Kendall Stroud went on for him. Tonight was Kendall’s Broadway debut.
I was doing what I always do after a show. Packing up fast, heading out. Then Kendall came downstairs, ran into some of his castmates, and I stopped to watch what happened next.
He was crying. Not from stress. Not from nerves. From joy. He’d just made his Broadway debut. He was hugging people, taking it all in. I jumped in too. You could feel exactly what that moment meant to him.
It took me straight back to Memphis: The Musical way back in 2009. It was my own Broadway debut.
I was coming out of one of the hardest periods of my life. A bitter divorce, navigating co-parenting with someone who wanted to make my life as difficult as possible. It was a lot to carry. But at the same time, I found myself part of something that had no business being as good as it was. That show was the little engine that could. Started with an out-of-town tryout in Seattle. Got to the Shubert and just kept building. Next thing you know, four Tony Awards, including Best Musical.
Landing that show was the beginning of one of the best chapters of my life.
Memphis had a song called "Memphis Lives in Me." Simple title. And completely accurate. That cast, that run, that whole experience — it got into your blood. I never left it fully behind when I walked offstage each night. Ten years later the producers pulled everyone back together for a reunion at the Cutting Room and the room felt exactly the same. Same love. Same people. You don't forget something like that.
Memphis lives in me and it sure does for most of us who were part of it.
And here’s one more thing about that show I don’t talk about often. Right around the time Memphis was closing in 2012, I happened to meet the woman I would eventually ask to marry me. After what I had just been through, I honestly didn’t think I’d ever say those words again. The marriage I had gotten out of was that bad. That chapter had left a mark.
But 14 years later, things change. People change. And sometimes life surprises you in the best way possible.
If you stay in this business long enough and do the work, something shifts. You stop just trying to make it and start becoming someone others look to. And one day you look around and realize your job now is helping the next person find their way up.
That’s where I am now. And honestly, I’ve grown to love that role more than I expected. There’s something about getting older in this business that shifts your perspective. The hustle is still there, but what drives me now is different. I want to be the person I didn’t have when I was coming up. The mentor. The guy who tells you what’s really going on so you don’t have to figure it all out the hard way.
That’s why I started Broadway Drumming 101. That’s why I wrote Broadway Bound and Beyond. Because the information exists — it just lives in the heads of people who’ve been in the business for decades and don’t always think to share it. I want to change that.
This is my fourth Broadway show. Memphis, Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, Ain’t Too Proud, and now Cats: The Jellicle Ball. And watching Kendall tonight brought me back to a specific moment I’ll never forget.
The 2010 Tony Awards.
We performed live on national television, and that night Memphis won Best Musical. I was out there acting a complete fool afterward. The party, the people, all of it. Then I got home, sat down on my couch, and watched the performance I’d taped. And it hit me. Not just that we’d won. But that I had played live on the Tony Awards and gotten to the top of my profession. That I was part of a show that had just been named the best on Broadway.
I sat there in that chair and started crying. Just like Kendall did.
A lot of people say all they want is to make it to Broadway. They just want to make their Broadway debut. That moment is real. It means something. And when it happens, slow down and take it all in. Don’t let it blur past you.
What I know now that I didn’t know then is that the moment doesn’t have to be the finish line. It can be the beginning of something even bigger.
I’m on my fourth Broadway show and it still feels good. But I feel it differently now.
There’s a concept called compersion — it’s the genuine joy you experience from watching someone else succeed. Not because it benefits you. Not because you had anything to do with it. Just pure happiness for another person’s win. I felt that watching Kendall tonight. I feel it every time someone in this cast steps into their moment. And I feel it when people who’ve been following this platform tell me they landed the gig, got the call, or finally made it to where they were trying to go.
That feeling is real. And it’s one of the best parts of where I am right now.
I’m mentoring people now. Through this platform, through the podcast, and through Broadway Bound and Beyond. I’m having conversations with musicians at every stage of their journey and helping them navigate the things nobody told me when I was coming up. The business side. The relationships. The mindset. The stuff that lives between the notes, and the shows.
I started Broadway Drumming 101 because I wanted to be the person I didn’t have. And writing the book was the next step — putting everything I know in one place so you don’t have to figure it all out the hard way.
I want you to feel what Kendall felt tonight. I want you to feel what I felt after the 2010 Tony Awards, sitting on my couch alone watching the performance I taped, realizing I had gotten to the top of my profession.
That feeling is out there for you. Go for it.