INTERVIEW: Matt Rodin on his eight-year journey with ‘Beau’
Photo: Beau: The Musical stars, from left, Cory Jeacoma and Matt Rodin. Photo courtesy of Valerie Terranova Photography / Provided by The Press Room with permission.
Beau: The Musical is one of the most talked about shows of the off-Broadway season. The musical, which has been extended to Sunday, Aug. 3, follows the character of Ace Baker, a young queer man who has an earth-shattering revelation hit him: The grandfather he thought was dead is actually still alive. This discovery leads Ace down a journey of family secrets and inner-struggles, but he thankfully emerges from the melee a better, more confident person — with a guitar in his hand.
Matt Rodin plays the character of Ace. The actor has been with the musical, in one form or another, for eight years. He’s particularly thankful to Douglas Lyons, credited with the concept, book and lyrics, for believing in him early on the process. Lyons also co-wrote the music with Ethan D. Pakchar, and Josh Rhodes serves as director and choreographer.
“I did another off-Broadway show immediately before this, and a similar thing happened where the first couple weeks you sort of don’t know what the response is going to be like,” Rodin said. “What’s the vibe? We didn’t have full houses, and then as word started to spread, it’s just been so overwhelming and so much fun. And to have these sold-out houses and people coming five, six, seven, eight, nine times just because they want to experience what this is over and over again, and having people from the industry come in and be moved or surprised or just excited about what we’re doing down in this little 78-seat theater in a basement in the West Village, it’s rewarding. It’s really exciting. I’ve been working on the show for eight years, so to finally be sharing it with people and to have this kind of response is more than I could have imagined.”
That 78-seat theater is Theatre 154, and the run is produced by Out of the Box Theatrics. This latest step in Rodin’s journey comes after many different iterations of Beau over the years. He remembers day one as if it were yesterday. He was hosting an event at the W Hotel in Times Square, and at the end of the night, he got up in front of the crowd and performed a cover song. Lyons was in the audience that fateful night.
“And he came up to me after this night and was like, ‘I have a show that I’m working on, and I think you’d be perfect for it.’ That happens in New York sometimes,” Rodin said. “A couple months later, I ended up in a rehearsal room with him, now Tony nominee Jeb Brown and the other writer Ethan Pakchar, and I think maybe a producer. And we read what was the first iteration of this. I don’t even know if the show was finished yet. The songs definitely were not, but it was the first draft of what Beau would become.”
The frame of the show has always been a concert, and the actors double as musicians on stage. Rodin was entranced by that idea, and he impressed the creative team in that initial rehearsal with his acting, singing and guitar-playing. He has stayed with the property ever since.
“And this many years later, it’s basically a second skin this character and this role,” he said. “I’ve done every iteration of this show. We did a developmental production up in the Adirondacks in 2018 or 2019, and we actually filmed a movie in 2021. They did a concept album of the show, and I’ve been every part of that process, which has been fun and exciting to get to watch it bloom and blossom.”
Rodin, who recently appeared in Keen Company’s All the World’s a Stage, loves that his character of Ace is a queer person who has found comfort in his own queerness. He simply settles in to who he really is, and Rodin loves that about the role.
“And what that means is that it doesn’t fall into hopefully any of the tropes that the last 30-40-50 years of gay characters have a lot of times gravitated toward,” Rodin said. “He’s an individual, and obviously it’s a redemption story, in the sense that this is a kid who gets bullied and is othered and feels different and knows that he’s different but doesn’t quite know why. From the beginning of the show, because of the container of the piece being a concert, we as an audience subconsciously know that things are going to turn out OK. So even through the turmoil of the story and the unfolding of this really intense experience of being a teenager in the south growing up queer, we know that there is light on the other end because we’re at this concert. At the beginning of the show, he comes on stage, and he’s telling us this story. And so even if we don’t know that consciously, there’s a part of us that knows that it’s going to be OK.”
Rodin, who also appeared in the national tour of Company, said the audience watches as Ace reclaims who he is, encompassing not only his queer identity, but also his love of music and life. In the show, the character of Beau gifts Ace with the magic of music, and this gift has struck a chord with Rodin.
“Our director, Josh Rhodes, said that everybody has in some form or another a Beau in their life,” he said. “Somebody who has gifted them … something that allows us to find a deeper understanding of who we are, whether that’s books or movies. Typically I find it’s some form of media. Maybe it’s even flowers. There’s something that is gifted to us from someone of another generation, someone older than us that gives us the permission and the ability to access a deeper part of ourselves then we were previously aware of.”
Rodin added: “That passage from Beau to Ace of music, and music then being the catalyst for him discovering who he is and then ultimately sharing who he is with the world, I think everybody can touch into that in some way. That’s the experience that I’ve had in the show is that everybody that comes tends to gravitate toward either Beau’s character or Ace’s character or Larry the stepfather or Raven the mother just in that there is something to latch on to that we inherently understand about the passage or gifting of music or something that allows us to more deeply understand who we are.”
Rodin has been with the show for almost a decade, and one wonders when Aug. 3 comes around, whether this off-Broadway run will be the final step of this journey. The actor admitted that he hopes there are more horizons for this project.
“Obviously you never know,” he said. “There are no guarantees in this business, but I do think there are next steps. I have a feeling this is not the end of the road for this show based on the response and the types of people that have been coming to see the show. I’m hopeful that there will be more life for this show. I don’t know if that means another off-Broadway run. I don’t know if that means internationally. I certainly think eventually the show will get licensed and will hopefully get to be seen by more places around the country, but I do think it will have a life beyond this. And I hope to be a part of that. I’ve been a part of it for so long, and it feels like so much of a part of me that I’m hopeful that I’ll get to continue on whatever the next step is.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Beau: The Musical, starring Matt Rodin, continues through Sunday, Aug. 3, at Theatre 154 in the West Village of New York City. Click here for more information and tickets.
