Tony Nominee Q&A with Stark Sands

Congratulations, how did you get the news about your nomination?

It's an exciting day. I woke up to use the bathroom and was heading back to bed, and thought, oh, it's 8:30, I wonder if they televise the announcements? I had never watched them before cause I was living in LA, so I decided, should I go back to bed? Nah, I'll watch them and then I'll go back to bed.

So I was wiping the sleep out of my eyes, and keeping my fingers crossed for the show and boy did I get a lot more than that. I was shocked because I wasn't really expecting it, so I was by myself on my couch in my boxers just freaking out.

I'm guessing that you didn't go back to sleep?

The calls didn't start for a while because I grew up in Dallas, and they were all sleeping. I started calling right away and waking them all up though.

The only person who called was my press agent who 5minutes after the call said "Scott, get ready, you have 1 hour, have breakfast, shower and then you're going to work."

Was he right?

Yes, and luckily I have Boyd (Gaines) who's done this before, and I could probably handle this on my own, but I've had him since the start advising me on all of this awards stuff.

Has he been a mentoring help throughout the whole production as well?

Just doing this production, my character is the new guy and it's continuing and I'm just the new guy and he's done it all. In the rehearsal process, I knew I could just look to him and I'd get a thumbs up or a wink because he just knows his stuff and going into performances I knew that he had my back and now he still has my back and has been a huge help as well with preparing me for this crazy awards season.

The show and the cast have all gotten many kudos – what has the whole experience been like?

I have to say that it's a bit weird being singled out above the cast, because I think that everyone's deserving of this experience and it's a bit bittersweet as a result, but I'm still very happy to be here.

Photo by Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.