Guess what! The upcoming performance of You're a Catch is set to take center stage as one of the challenges on Broadway Bound Live. As part of the competition, the cast will be performing this fresh and captivating musical that explores the journey of a young woman named Becky, and her adventures in the world of 21st-century dating. As one of the contestants for Broadway Bound Live, I had the pleasure of interviewing Sarah Wynen, the talented writer behind You're a Catch! She shared her inspiration for the musical, what she hopes to see from the cast's performance, and much more. Join me as we dive deeper into the world of You're a Catch and gain insights directly from the writer herself.
During the interview, I asked Wynen what expectations she has for the cast that is performing her play at the finale of Broadway Bound Live and this was her response.
I’m not used to hearing American accents in my work because when I write in Australia, I’m quite adamant about people using their natural and authentic accents and voices. So I’m really interested to hear that element of it, but apart from that I have no expectations, and like I said I think it's quite a blank canvas of a show that you can really do a lot of different things with so I am excited for my expectations to be broken, shattered, exceeded. It's gonna be great! You guys are gonna do amazing!
When I asked Wynen what inspired her to write a musical about the struggles of online dating, this is what she had to say.
When I started the musical I was single, and by the time it had got its second production on I was engaged, so you know, I write from my own personal experience because I feel like I am quite qualified to write about that, for example, if I were to write about Roman history I would need to research that topic super heavily, and I’m pretty lazy and I don’t like researching. So if you write about things that are your lived experience, you are literally the expert and the best person to tell that story right from your experience. So when I was single I had a lot of adventures, I was dating, I was out there doing all the things that happened in the show you know, and I met a lot of people on that journey. I met a lot of strangers, I met a lot of people from Tinder, I met a lot of people I never thought I would get to meet and I was just blown away by the fact that everyone has a story and everyone has a reason that they're on tinder or they're looking for love or they're okay not looking for love, or something that's holding them back, or something that ignites them to put themselves out there. Everybody has some weird cooky little story and so the idea was sort of born out of that. Everybody’s got a reason why they're in this group of people we call single, and they're all different reasons flavored with good things, bad things, wacky things, crazy stories, funny stories, and I wanted to sort of showcase the variety of people out there in this situation and tell some of those stories.
I then asked her what advice she has for anyone interested in being a comedy performer and this was her response.
My advice for any performer would be firstly, make sure that you really love performing. I believe that the only people who do perform are people that love it because there's no other reason to do it. It doesn't pay great. It’s really really hard work, it’s excruciating, you gotta keep up your training you gotta constantly be searching for work. I mean being any kind of performer is so hard if you don't love it, like, there's no other reason to be doing it. So I would say make sure you love it.
In the show, I play the role of Nathan who is the typical cocky and offensive man talking his mouth off about how he knows all the best tips and tricks to get a girl when he’s really making those girls uncomfortable and nervous to even be around him. I asked Wynen what insights she had on the character and her reply was interesting.
I think that this show does have a lot of social commentary and tries to make a lot of points and I think this monologue is a good example of that. I think the point of the monologue is like, sexism exists, and men who think women are nothing and treat them like absolute crap exist and it's about how you make that point by sort of saying the complete opposite. I think if you stand up on a soap box in front of an audience and say “These are my opinions and you should listen to them and I believe in this, the world needs to change in this way” everyone’s just switching off. So for Nathan, he’s a dick, I hate him, but also I love him, I mean like, what a great character! So much fun to play, but you as the actor probably couldn't say these things in your everyday life. But you as the character can get away with saying an awful lot that's actually discussing a really important issue so it’s kinda complex.
The next question I asked was, “What would you say is your proudest accomplishment in your musical theater career and why?”
I mean at the moment, probably that you guys are performing my show. And the reason is that where you are right now feels very far away from where I am and where I’ve come from. So the idea that my music has traveled continents and traveled the globe and that its going to be put on somewhere else is really really exciting to me because I sort of set the expectation very low. When you get into this you think, “If i can just put on a show with a few of my friends, and we have a good time and we make a few people laugh, I’ll be happy, I’ll be set, I’ll think you know what, I’ve made it.” But to actually be able to share that with more people and when it starts to escape your inner circle and other people can share in that, it’s really special. But aside from that, I would say actually just getting through a show. To write a show is a really long process. For me to have written multiple shows and actually gotten through that and gotten a finished product, I think I’m pretty proud of that and I think it takes a lot of persistence to take an idea from concept to not only a script but to music that then gets arranged, that then gets engraved and formatted and backing tracks made and demo tracks made and even just to put together the resources that you need as a bare minimum is such a long journey and arduous process. Anytime I get any project to a finished final product, that is a really satisfying moment, let alone to then see that transferred to stage.
Before we closed I made sure to ask what she is currently working on and what the next big step in her career is.
At the moment I’m actually about to go on a National UK tour for acting, so that's pretty exciting because I’ve never really performed in the UK, I’ve never done any touring so I’m really really excited to just do some performance for a while. I feel like once I graduated from drama school and went out into the big wide scary world, covid hit for like a good three years and I didn't really do like a lot of acting and whilst I think writing is what I love to do, I also really love to perform. But in terms of writing it's always on in the background and it's always sort of searching for stories, and searching for the next thing that you love. Once you decide to write a show, it is such a long process and you can only get to the other side if you really believe in the story and you really feel like you’ve got to write it. After You’re a Catch which was very much like real-life relationshippy stuff, I feel like I would like to do something completely different and something a bit more fantastical or otherworldly, so at the moment I’m just starting to formulate ideas for something new and I’d love to explore a totally different genre and different musical sounds.
If you enjoyed this interview with Sarah Wynen, you may be interested in the live performance of Youre a Catch which I will be acting in on May 20th and 21st at the National Hispanic Cultural Center. This is a part of the Broadway Bound live reality tv show where 4 contestants will be awarded up to $60,000 in scholarships to AMDA College of Performing Arts. Come see the show on the 21st of May to see who will win!
You can also check out the full video interview on Youtube through the link below. Thanks for reading and have an awesome week!
Daniel Ward is an actor, writer, and contestant finalist of Broadway Bound Live Season 2 and can be contacted on Twitter @wordsofward34 or Instagram @wardledorp
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