The Intersection Of Comedy and Tragedy; or Why I’ve Spent Five Years Reviving A Scientology Pageant Off-Broadway

Me and a neighborhood kid named Dever in Winter sometime in the late 90’s in my hometown of Mountain Lakes, NJ.

Chances are, if you've clicked on this link, you probably know already that I'm Directing, Executive Producing, Adapting, and Production Designing A VERY MERRY UNAUTHORIZED CHILDREN'S SCIENTOLOGY PAGEANT - LIVE! by Kyle Jarrow (based on a concept by Alex Timbers) Off-Broadway at the 14th St Y as a TV special in the style of NBC / FOX Live! that will be distributed by IFT Network later this November. I have to raise $22k for it and I’m self-producing this myself, and for reasons dealing with unions and other stuff that’s not worth going into, I can’t profit off of it in any way. So first and foremost, if you can, I’d love your help. You can donate here to our crowdfunding campaign, or if you’d like to make a tax-deductible donation or donate through Paypal or Venmo, you can do so here.

What’s cool about this is that this doubles as both a TV and Off-Broadway credit since it's being taped for a live audience of over 100 (Off-Broadway is defined as being in Manhattan having 100-499 seats; anything else is Off-Broadway. If we weren't taping it, this would just be considered a one-night-only Off-Broadway show hence why I say it doubles as both). While technically, I directed an Off-Broadway show in 2017 at Theatre Row as part of a theatre festival, I would consider VERY MERRY to be my first true Off-Broadway—and also television—directing debut (and Off-Broadway Executive Producing and Designing debut as well…) since I'm in total control of how it's all going down.

I don't want to spend too much time talking about the history of this show because this essay is really about ~me~, but context is key. 

Ali Klein as the Angelic Child in the original production of VERY MERRY, dir. by Alex Timbers (2003).

A VERY MERRY UNAUTHORIZED CHILDREN'S SCIENTOLOGY PAGEANT by Kyle Jarrow (based on a concept and originally directed by Alex Timbers) was a massive success in the early 00s. I worked with one of the actors, Ali Klein (pictured above), who was in the original production when I directed/adapted a (bad) non-musical production of Stephen King's CARRIE in high school one summer at The Darress Theatre in Boonton, NJ. 

My friend Jay, Maya, and I sometime after CARRIE around 2009. Jay is wearing our production’s t-shirt.

The title on Ali's resume always stuck with me—it’s not one you really forget—so that's how I knew about the show, and I mentally put it away in the back of my brain. The original production won the OBIE (Off-Broadway Tony's, basically) Special Citation Award in 2004 and had a successful run in LA, and then a remount at New York Theater Workshop (the theatre famously known for developing the musical RENT in the '90s before it went to Broadway) in 2006.

I rediscovered the show after GOING CLEAR—the famous anti-Scientology documentary—came out in 2014 while I was in college. I was like, Wasn’t there that musical about Scientology a few years back Ali did? Then, I did some googling, found the cast recording on Youtube, and had my heart set on directing it.

Fast forward to 2017, when I was given the opportunity to direct a concert of the show at 54 Below (a year later, I would direct it at Greenroom 42 with a mostly new cast), which then got me started on a five-year tumultuous journey where I became determined to get the show back Off-Broadway. Getting a taste of directing this wonderfully wacky, weird musical early on in my directing career with the most insanely talented children from Broadway, Off-Broadway, National Tours…etc was such a fantastic experience. Plus, the show was so well-received, even in our short concert runs, that I knew it was too good to give up.

From L to R: Nikki Wildy, Ava Swinton, Anthony Rosenthal, Ali Baldacchino, Graydon Yoskowitz, Jeremy T. Villas, Greg Diaz IV, & Presley Ryan in VERY MERRY…IN CONCERT at 54 Below (2017).

Now I'm doing it, and I've gone through SO much to get it here. Y'all have no idea. I thought it would never happen, and sometimes, I still can't believe it's happening.

But first, let's go further back than my teenage years. Let's talk about my childhood.

When I was around 10, I was a serious musical theatre kid. I was not in anything famous, though I desperately wanted to be. I would've gladly pushed MYSELF into child stardom, no stage parents necessary.

However, I did manage to be a touring show that I toured in for three years that eventually went Off-Broadway when I was 14, which had a super limited run that 10 people and my parents saw (I'm being hyperbolic, but it's basically true). Other than that, I did a ton of community theatre and school plays, and my friend Robbie and I would make movies on my crappy early 2000's Panosonic camera where I was always the lead that I basically forced him to make with me. But ever since I got a taste of being in an Off-Broadway show as a young teenager, I knew I wanted to make my way back there even more extensive than I did in the first place. 

Let's rewind a bit.

I wrote my first play when I was around 9 years old. It was a parody of the nativity called THE BIRTH OF JESUS.

From L to R: My neighborhood classmate Jamie Houghton, Katie Nelson, my mom, Moriah Anderson, Moriah’s mom Mary (as Judy Garland), Jamie’s younger sister whose name is escaping me, & Ginger in THE BIRTH OF JESUS at St. Peters Church in my hometown of Mountain Lakes, NJ in 2001.

Let's break that down:

At age nine. I wrote. a parody. of. the. birth. of. Jesus. Christ. 

It was a rom-com about Joseph and Mary meeting and falling in love…Scrooge and Judy Garland were characters. I wanted my family dog and neighbor's dog to appear as Christmas elves. Still, they got cut due to logistical concerns (“the number one rule of show business is never working with kids or animals—and the Radio City Christmas does both”). 

I somehow roped my friends and their parents into being a part of it. It was staged at a local Episcopalian church, St. Peter's, on Christmas Eve. My family and I didn't belong to St. Peters at the time because we were Catholics, but later, my family converted to being Episcopalians and became members there after ditching Catholicism. After all, I complained about going to CCD, aka Christian Hebrew school, because I had a terrible time there. It happened to work out because my mom was also not vibing with Catholicism (she only converted to Catholicism to appease my dad's mom, my Nana). Me hating it too was a great excuse for my mom and I to get out of it. 

BTW, while I went to CCD, I appeared in 2-3 church pageants that I 100% sleepwalked through and did not have any sense of what I was performing in at all (I was also baby Jesus in a Christmas pageant once in pre-school, which for obvious reasons, I don't remember). Here's some photographic evidence of me in one:

Me as one of the kings. I was in love with this costume, since red has always been my favorite color. I also loved having that genie’s lamp.

Anyway, my mom and her friend Ginger "directed" this absurd nativity pageant play I wrote--THE BIRTH OF JESUS.

I had a specific vision for how the show would go, and it did not meet my ridiculously high nine-year-old standards. I remember crying when the actor playing the Virgin Mary didn't have a baby blue robe, and we had to settle for a white one. Even back then, I had VERY specific tastes in theatrical design. It was performed for my babysitter, Carmen, and, like, five other people on Christmas Eve.

From L to R: Katie Nelson as Mary, me sticking out of the center curtain, Patrick O’Shea as Joseph.

Anyway, I don't know about y'all. Still, it blows my mind that my first play was again—a parody of the nativity—that I wrote when I was a LITERAL CHILD; that it makes complete sense that 20 years later, my first Off-Broadway play would be a parody of Christmas pageants (and in turn, the nativity) with all children. Following THE BIRTH OF JESUS, I directed my next play at 14, also at St. Peters—an unauthorized adaptation of the Disney movie RETURN TO OZ—which, by all accounts, was a complete disaster and a story for another time. 

Moriah Anderson as Bilina, the chicken, in RETURN TO OZ (she was also in THE BIRTH OF JESUS) with Gabby Kirk as Dorothy at St. Peter’s Church in 2006.

That said, after RETURN TO OZ, I made my Off-Broadway debut as an actor at The York Theatre. 2006 was a big year for me, I guess. And ever since I performed in that Off-Broadway show, although I was acting, I knew I wanted to be a director or writer. I had decided then and there that if I ever got back Off-Broadway, it would be in my own show on my own terms. I didn't want to serve someone else's vision. I wanted to create my own.

The summer following RETURN TO OZ, right before I turned 15, I was forced to move to North Carolina at the beginning of the 2007-2008 recession. 

Living there was a horrible experience, and I remember my freshman year of high school, hundreds of miles away from a city that was once a 40-minute drive away from me; I dreamed with every fiber of my being that by the time I turned 30, I would make my way back to the concrete jungle and I would have an Off-Broadway show that was mine. I didn't care if I wrote it or directed it (or both), I just knew it had to be mine, and I would know what that meant when the time came.

Me as a freshman in high school at Durham School of the Arts during the Durham years (2007-2010). This picture is from 2007.

Anyone who has been in entertainment for a while can tell you that rejection is a constant, a throughline that weaves throughout even my successful projects. 

People have often told me they're impressed with the amount of stuff I've done. Still, frequently, I look back at all the plays I've either written, directed, and/or produced in the last 16 years (if we're counting RETURN TO OZ in 2006 as my directing/playwriting debut, which I do—because I took it super seriously and there was a paying audience), I wince at a majority of them. There's really only a handful of projects I've created that I'm genuinely proud of. And some of the ones I am proud of didn't take off how I wished they would. Some of them were also very bad, and I'm sorry if anyone reading this was subjected to taking part in them or watching the bad ones.

Me as a very cute baby in 1993.

One of my favorite stories that seems like it sums up my life is that, according to my parents, I was "scouted" by an agent who wanted me to be a baby model. So, my parents paid a mysterious amount of money to have these absolutely absurd portraits done to prove to this agency that they were seriously interested in having me signed. (See the picture of me below in a potted plant). But, according to my parents, they never heard back from the agency after they mailed them. This feels like the story of my life in a hilarious and sad way. Literally, ever since I was a baby, I've given something my all and STILL gotten rejected in the industry. FROM DAY ONE. Yet, for reasons that sometimes I'm not even sure of at age 29, I keep coming back, putting myself out there, and nine times out of 10—I am rejected (the reason btw is because I love storytelling and because I've been doing it for so long, it's the medium I know how to express myself best).

Me as a baby in one of those glamour shots my parents paid for.

This story about being rejected as a potential baby model lies at the intersection of comedy and tragedy, where I find most of the things I create come from.

While I wouldn't say it's "tragic" that my parents were given false hope that I was to "make it" as a baby model (???) and spent money priming me to be one (this was, by the way, their last attempt into trying to get me into the business. My mother insisted I had a "normal childhood," that meanie!). Still, it's hilarious because the child stardom world is absurd and silly. But crushed dreams are also sad. I find in life, the pendulum of good things happening, having dreams come true—while also having heartbreak and bad things happen—swings both ways, sometimes in the same window of time. 

Me as Harry Potter in 2002 going Trick-Or-Treating.

I remember crying in my mom's car in a Toys' R Us parking lot when I was around 10 years old because I wanted to be Neville Longbottom's stand-in for Harry Potter. I wanted it so bad that it made me cry that I would never be a movie star. Keep in mind--my dream was to be a stand-in (how I even knew what that was, I'm not sure) because even then, I had the sense that being Neville Longbottom would be a reach. It also feels telling that my goal was not to be Harry or Ron but one of the only other fat kids in that franchise (besides Dudley, but no one wants to be Dudley). I knew my type, I guess.

Not long after my Neville Longbottom-related meltdown, I appeared as a dancing Santa Claus in our Christmas concert. I thought it was SO cool and funny to be the center of attention, but once one of the kids tried to trip me as I was break dancing in a Santa costume, it became clear to me that it was uncool to be a break dancing Santa. Again, tragic and hilarious. 

Following this, I was in the "fifth-grade opera" called THE FRIEND SHIP, about a group of children who became best friends on a cruise ship written by my music teacher, Ms. Jonas—someone who I have no idea if she is alive or dead—but either way she used to wear this hideous crocheted Heinz Ketchup sweater that is etched into my brain because of how ugly it was. 

You have to understand—the fifth-grade opera was a big deal at my school. I don't remember trying out, but I got a callback for it, and that was the first time I even heard that word, and someone explained they wanted to see "more of me." 

I was so excited that I immediately started fantasizing I would be the lead and everyone would love me. 

Spoiler alert that did not happen even in the slightest. 

Instead, I was given the role of a security guard at the end of the play who sang a parody of the song "Stop In The Name Of Love" called "Stop In The Name Of The Law" about checking the villain's bag (which was filled with stolen money). My security guard didn't even have a name, so in rehearsals, I gave him the name Bob Goodybooger.

At first, I was HEARTBROKEN. I did NOT want to be security guard Bob Goodybooger. I wanted to be the lead, dammit!  

I remember I came to Ms. Jonas, and in the most MELODRAMATIC way possible, through tears, I asked her: "my question isn't how. But why?" I couldn't even finish after "but why" (which I imagine I would've said, "but why would you cast me as some small security guard and not the lead"?). I even remember that my town's newspaper published an article about the play and mentioned every kid by name but me. 

I was so hurt I called the newspaper and left a message on their machine asking why I got left out. Again, this story is both tragic (I was heartbroken) and hilarious.

I KNOW THIS HAS GOTTEN LONG BUT STAY WITH ME. I'M ALMOST DONE.

Me at my fifth grade graduation with my math teacher, Ms. Hussein.

Following THE FRIEND SHIP, came the show I toured in, and then a bunch of other community theatre and regional theatre productions. I had experiences that ranged from awesome to "why the hell did I let anyone treat me like that, and why didn't any of these adults act like normal people?"

I worked with some TYRANNICAL directors as a kid, and looking back, I can't believe several of these people were allowed to work with children. Some of what I learned about some of these directors is too heavy to get into, but know they were terrible people that did horrible things to kids--and I'll leave it at that. But I'd like to share one last quick story.

In sixth grade, I started going to Worth-Tyrell Studios in Morristown. It was run by a woman named Caroline Worth Tyrell, who has since passed, so I feel okay about talking about her as she truly was. Caroline literally looked like a fat Liza Minelli. She wore sequins and tights and had short black hair, JUST like Liza. Her parents were in the vaudeville circuit on Broadway, and she was born and raised show business. But, reader, this woman used to SCREAM at us. 

During a production of THE PAJAMA GAME (a show about union organizers that made no sense for a cast of all children to perform), I broke my ankle, and her concern was not my health—it was that she didn't want me to be on crutches during the show. I remember she must've asked me when I was going to have them gone, and I think I must've lied and said by the following weekend—and when I came in that weekend, she screamed at me, "GET OFF THOSE CRUTCHES! I DON'T WANT THOSE CRUTCHES IN MY SHOW!” Caroline had made me cry a few times, but this time felt particularly unjustified.

I knew immediately after that—and at that point, I had done three shows with her—that I never wanted to do a show at Worth-Tyrell again. I was around 12 and knew it wasn't normal to leave a place I was supposed to enjoy feeling afraid and scared of the woman who ran it. I liked doing plays, but it was not worth the cost.

I tell this story because it is both tragic and hilarious. It is tragic that I had an injury that caused me to be on crutches on and off for basically all of the sixth grade—I literally fractured my growth plate—and the comedy is that my injury made this 50-something-year-old woman wrathful; as if this all-kid production of THE PAJAMA GAME was going straight to Broadway and me being on crutches was ruining the aesthetic.

With that in mind, I guess the reason I'm doing this show can be summed up in the following list:

1. I like to make art that is messy—be that literally or physically—and art that is both hilarious and tragic at the same time since it's the only way I know how to cope with some of the darkest, most fucked up things that have happened to me/around me. It isn't funny that people have been abused and have even committed suicide because of Scientology. Having the story of L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology told through the mouths of babes in a very deadpan way, almost as if they are sleep-walking through it, is very funny and makes for great social satire/commentary about the importance of thinking for one's self. Kyle, the author, once said that the show represents how when people turn to cults, it's like they're seeing the world through "childlike eyes" because their perspective has been altered so much, which I think is such a brilliant metaphor. My version of the show is staged in a nebulous child Scientology detention center/prison. It is tragic and hilarious to me because there are Scientology prisons, and it is tragic and hilarious that people are LITERALLY PAYING MONEY TO BE IN JAIL because they have a non-existent sense of self-worth. They actively pay money to be abused. I could argue the same thing of a lot of acting programs as well (see: Worth Tyrell Studios).

2. I'm fascinated by cults and mob mentality. I didn't cover this above, but I used to say that this show represented losing members of my family to a Trump cult, which isn't untrue but is no longer the leading reason why I'm doing it; simply one reason out of many. I should say, though, it does feel like certain family members were different people before Trump came in. Even still, they can't seem to entirely disown him, which, after everything he's done, feels incredibly cult-like and sad to me (but also…in its own right…hilarious because Trump is such a blatant narcissist and an inarticulate one at that).

3. Given my background as a child actor in spaces where directors abused their power—and in turn, me and the other kids around me—where boundaries between art and personal were extremely blurred in messy and ultimately harmful ways, I'm determined now that I'm in the director's chair working with kids to be aggressively positive and go in the other direction from what I experienced. I'm committed to breaking this cycle of abuse in our industry that, in a way, feels baked into how theatre and films are made. I wish I was told as a kid that when adults yell at you and throw temper tantrums, it's rarely--if ever--about you. Inside every adult is an inner child, and if their inner child was treated like shit, then they will treat the people around them like shit. Yelling, screaming, insulting people--this kind of behavior is learned behavior. I often think about how Caroline Worth Tyrell's parents were in the vaudeville circuit, which makes me think about how her parents must've been raised and how far back this horrible behavior goes. I can't fathom how far back this abusive behavior goes, and it's all the more reason why someone has to break this generational cycle of abuse. I can't promise I won't ever raise my voice or get frustrated and short with people because I'm only human. I can promise that I will create an environment that reminds the kids I'm working with that they are special and awesome, to not let go of what makes them shine and that they can say "no" to things. There is such power in saying no--I have always believed that.

4. On that note, while abuse isn't funny, the way that people like Caroline Worth-Tyrell treat school plays, pageants, community theatre, and dance recitals (think Abby Lee Miller from DANCE MOMS or Mr. G in SUMMER HEIGHTS HIGH) with kids as life or death stakes is funny. No one MADE me do kid's theatre, and no one forced me into it besides myself. In fact, my parents used to ask me to do less plays. I pushed MYSELF into it and still allowed myself to be treated like shit by adults who clearly had unresolved trauma from their own upbringings and childhoods and projected it onto us. I touched on this a little, but inside every adult is an inner child. If that inner child has experienced abuse and been rejected by their families and other institutions (school, the medical system, etc.), they will seek a community where they can. Frequently these people are also traumatized and seek answers from a spiritual perspective that can make sense of the horrible things they've gone through. Cults are a one-stop shop: they provide community and answers to life's difficult questions. They're a breeding ground for people who have been mentally broken.

5. There's nothing more American to me than Scientology. Cults, marketing level marketing, get-rich schemes, fast fads, Ponzi schemes, and snake oil salesmen like L. Ron Hubbard are embedded into the fabric of American culture. People who knowingly rip off vulnerable people who don't really have money and getting rich off of it is as American as cherry pie, and it makes me sick. So how do I cope with it? I make art that illustrates the hilarity of pain--because if we don't laugh, we weep.

If you've gotten this far, THANK YOU. And please, for the love of god, help me make this happen. Because we're over budget, I can use every last cent, if not more. 

Love,

Sean