BWW Interviews: Shaun Taylor-Corbett, HEIGHTS' New 'Sonny'

There’s a new kid on the block—the block of 181st Street where In the Heights takes place. Shaun Taylor-Corbett has joined the Broadway cast as Sonny, Usnavi’s scampish cousin who’s out to raise the consciousness of everyone in Washington Heights. Taylor-Corbett is actually rejoining the Broadway company, since he was in the original cast as an ensemble member and understudy for Sonny, Usnavi and Piragua Guy. He’s come back to New York after playing Sonny on the national tour for nine months.

Taylor-Corbett was with In the Heights during its off-Broadway run in 2007, understudying Usnavi and Sonny (he still covers Usnavi). The prior year, he performed in another off-Broadway hit, Altar Boyz. He’s also done some classical theater, including Romeo and Juliet at Princeton’s McCarter Theater and Ubu Roi with the Southern California company A Noise Within. On television, Taylor-Corbett was a costar of the Discovery Kids series Hi-5, which featured five young performers teaching children academic and life lessons through musical, colorful skits.

A second-generation Broadway artist, Shaun is the son of Lynne Taylor-Corbett, who choreographed Titanic and Swing! on Broadway (she also directed Swing!) as well as such films as Footloose, Bewitched and My Blue Heaven. He sat down to chat with BWW in midtown Manhattan’s Sony Plaza Public Arcade the week of his return to Broadway’s Heights.

In the Heights is a very New York show, between its uptown  setting and its Latino cast of characters. How’d it go over elsewhere in the country when you were on the tour?
There was such a wide variety of reactions. I’d say the majority of the time it was huge roars of applause and laughter, but there were definitely some cities where the reaction was kind of a letdown. In St. Louis, there’s a 4,000-seat theater, the Fox. They’re probably used to more traditional musicals, so when Usnavi comes out and starts rapping… Then it’s like: [sings last words of opening number] “…in Washington Heights!” and 4,000 people go [he claps calmly and slowly]. By the end they were with us, but I like to think of it more as an education. We brought the message of In the Heights, of Latin culture and pride, something new to them. But then we’d go to Minneapolis, which I thought, They’re not going to like it here, and they loved it. Zero Latinos in the audience, and they went crazy. Minneapolis was probably one of our best cities on the tour. We went to Orlando and, omigod, I think there was like 90 percent Puerto Ricans in the audience. Just freaking out, loving every minute of it. That was probably the biggest reaction we got on the whole tour, Orlando. And then we’d go to retirement communities in Florida and it was…an appreciation. I don’t think they got Sonny. They were looking at Abuela and the parents.

What characteristics do you have to bring out in Sonny but suppress when playing Usnavi, and vice versa?
As Usnavi, I have to bring the groundedness of being a man, taking on the weight of the world, and dealing with financial issues, with being in love and trying to balance work and love, trying to take care of the young people in your family and give them a good example, and at the same time trying not to lose it. With Sonny, I’ve got to feel like I have the world in my hand and I can do anything, and the sky’s the limit—there’s no limitations. I’m the truth teller; I’m bouncy, I’m just jumpin’ around.

Do you speak Spanish?
I do. It’s my second language. I studied it in school, then I lived in Spain after high school for six months. My mom sent me. I lived with some friends in Madrid. Then I lived in Colombia for a month during college, during winter session. I like to say I’m Latino at heart. Like in the show: an honorary Latino. That’s what they call Benny, and that’s what I am. The Latin culture is a part of who I am. My last two roles have been Latino roles. [The previous one was Juan in ‘Altar Boyz’.]

You’re of Native American—not Hispanic—descent, right?
My dad is part Blackfoot…his father’s mother. My mom took me to Browning, Montana, where our reservation is, when I was about 15. Darrell Kipp, who’s a scholar on the reservation, and Redman Little Plume took me in, as if I were a Blackfoot kid on the rez, and taught me a lot of things about the tribe and said come back whenever you want. I went back there about a year ago. It had been like nothing had changed, they took me in again, and I got to explore the whole reservation. I’ve never felt pride the way I felt when I went onto the reservation. I felt a connection with the land, I wanted to take care of the kids.
What In the Heights did for Latinos, giving them a voice and allowing them to feel so much pride for their background, I want to do that for Native Americans. In the Heights inspired me to write a musical with people on stage that are part of my background that don’t have a voice on stage. So the musical is about a young kid who gets taken away from his tribe, and he goes back as a man to find his father, and all of the things that happen when he goes back to the reservation. I’m collaborating with my mom. She’s helping me write the book and obviously I want her to direct it and choreograph it. I’m co-writing the songs with my writing partner, Chris Wiseman. We have the first draft of a back and are getting ready to have a demo pretty soon.

Has Lin-Manuel Miranda mentored you at all in creating a musical?
Being on the inside and seeing him work and make changes [to In the Heights], I got to understand his process a little bit. I didn’t have in-depth meetings about my musical with him, but definitely from watching him and observing him and asking him questions about the demo and how to best present something like this to someone, he’s helped me tremendously. Also, I’ve done, maybe, more than a thousand shows of In the Heights. I study the story and why it works, and how they move things around, and I study the documentary and the creative process of Tommy Kail and Andy Blankenbuehler and how they talk about the material and what they need from Sonny in the show. I study these examples of characters, and look at my characters and say, “Do these characters accomplish the same thing for this story?” I used In the Heights as a model. It’s got so much depth but it also makes you joyful.

Why do you think In the Heights has been so successful, going from off-Broadway to a long Tony-winning run on Broadway?
It’s true to what it says it is. You’ve heard it a bunch of times: The show’s about family, the show’s about home, the show’s about appreciating where you come from, where you are now and the people that got you there. They cast people that are open to that message. And it’s not just on stage. It’s off stage. When you go through this show, it changes your life. It’s not just another gig. I’ve done the show for three years. People don’t want to leave this show, because these people are your best friends for life. The people that are going to be at my wedding are the people from the show. We circle up before each show and we get connected. I’ve gone from being an offstage standby to playing Sonny on Broadway. It was a long journey, but all throughout that process I became my own man. I understand why Usnavi’s like, This is my home. I understand deep down inside what that means. And people in the audience see that. It’s the message, and the responsibility we set out from the beginning, so that this show tonight is just as important as opening night.

What did you miss about New York when you were on tour?
The familiarity. I missed seeing the shows, seeing all the new stuff coming out. I missed the fact that you can turn any corner and go to a new restaurant. Being in one place, too, people undervalue it. If you’re in one place, you don’t miss birthdays, you don’t miss anniversaries, you get to visit Grandma and see your dog.

Did you hang out at theaters where your mother was working when you were young?
Yeah, I always did. I remember especially Swing!—living in the theater during tech, the cool air-conditioning, I remember just being frozen in the theater, but loving every minute of it. I remember during Titanic being backstage and talking to Michael Cerveris, and then he would go on and sing a solo, and I was like, How does he do that—just have a conversation and chat away, and then go on and do a whole performance in front of all those people? I also remember going to Alvin Ailey and ABT and my mom would be choreographing something and I’d be playing with my G.I. Joes and having ballerinas babysit me in the corner. And hearing that beautiful piano playing for class while I was out in the hallway reading. I thought everyone lived that life. And I think more than anything, wanting to do this career was for that just as much as the performing. I love performing, but I love the world. The magic of teching and seeing it behind the scenes. Growing up, I was on the set of Footloose the movie with Kevin Bacon. I very vaguely remember my mom teaching these wacky dances to Kevin and the rest of the cast. It was something special. I knew that I always wanted to be around the people.

Yet you didn’t major in performing when you attended the University of Delaware.
No, I thought it was be too hard of a lifestyle to maintain. I saw all my family go through it, and as many ups as they have, there are always challenges. I traveled a lot—my mom took me to Japan and Europe—and I thought, I’ll be an international relations major. I’ll be a diplomat and save the world. I’m good with people and cultures and languages, so I could probably help them resolve the conflict in Israel and Palestine. So I majored in that, and all of my professors thought I was absolutely crazy when I told them I was going to be an actor. Four years, and then my last year in college I got the lead in the school production of Pippin, and I was like: Oh, I can do this. This is easy! Then I went to New York and I was like: Whoa! This is going to be tricky. There’s a lot of talented people here. But I’m going to give it a year, and lo and behold, I got Hi-5, the kids’ show. That was my break.

Does your father work in entertainment too?
He was in the music business. He worked for Columbia Records, in what they call A&R—artists and repertoire. He would hire new bands. And he would write music; he was an artist as well. I did that, too—I went to recording studios when I was a kid. I hung out with Mariah Carey, before she was who she is now. I don’t remember this, but my dad says we went to Disneyland together.

Did your mother teach you to dance, or encourage you to train?
I rebelled against it. She tried to put me in some ballet tights when I was 6 or 7. The only boy in class, and I was like: This is not for me, twirling around. I couldn’t do it back then. But after college, I was like, I’d better take some dance classes! So I went to Broadway Dance Center for, like, three years. I took jazz and hip-hop and salsa. Thank goodness I did. I wouldn’t have been able to get Altar Boyz if I didn’t, or In the Heights.
She’s given me critiques. She taught me a few ballroom things. But I think it was one of those things that was just too sensitive: “Mom, don’t tell me what to do!” She knew I was more of an actor-singer, anyway.

Have you worked with your mother?
I’ve worked with her on, like, three shows. [One was] a workshop of Lion King that Disney hired her to direct at their theme park in Hong Kong. I was Simba in the workshop. One of the coolest pieces I’ve ever done, she was choreographing for the North Carolina Ballet, and she hired me to be the narrator of Hans Christian Andersen’s “Ugly Duckling.” I love working with her. It’s not one of those harsh things. If anything, I feel the most comfortable working with her, because we know each other inside and out. She knows how to direct me, and I know how to take her notes without getting sensitive.

Speaking as a performer and not a son, how would you assess her as a director?
She knows how to treat people. Everyone I’ve ever talked to who’s worked with her [agrees]. She knows how to work with people and how to convey her message with kindness and heart.

You’ve done some nonmusicals. Do you prefer them?
Nothing beats the excitement of great musical theater. The ideal thing for me would be doing all these things—a musical, a play, a movie, a TV show. To be honest, musicals kind of fell in my lap. I did start auditioning for musicals first, but I love plays. I really feel like an actor who is able to do musical theater. Sometimes I’ll walk into auditions for some plays and they’re like, “Oh, you can do plays?” or “You want to do plays?” You get a stigma as a musical theater performer that you can’t act. What people don’t understand is musical theater actors have to act just as much as any other actor. Usnavi is one huge Shakespearean soliloquy. Some of the best actors I know are in musical theater. You can do musical theater and you can do plays. Look at what Michael Cerveris is doing now.

You’re getting married in October. Who’s your fiancée?
Noemi Del Rio. She did the show with me for about seven months on Broadway. She was in the ensemble. And then she came out on the road as a vacation swing for, like, two months. Right now she’s working with the LAByrinth Theater Co. She did a play [Knives and Other Sharp Objects] with them last year at the Public. She’s doing a retreat with them [this summer]. They go off to Bard and do readings of plays.
We were good friends first and then we started dating. In March, while we were on the road, we had a day in New York and we came back, and I proposed on the stage at the Richard Rodgers, where we met. It was just us, before the show. I know the doormen really well, and they let me go in. They didn’t know what was going on. I was taking pictures, and I said [to Noemi], “Come over here where we met and take a picture.” And then I asked her. This show is such a part of my life and her life and our family’s life, because her brother is David Del Rio, who’d played Sonny for the last six months on Broadway.

I see you’ve got some light summer reading in your bag—David McCullough’s John Adams biography.
I miss what I used to study—international relations—and I have a longing to go back into history and read [about] these great people. Also, David McCullough was the keynote speaker at my graduation from college. And his writing is incredible: He writes history like fiction. I read his 1776, which is why I got this one.

Back to In the Heights…another new cast member in New York is American Idol winner Jordin Sparks, who’s now playing Nina. How do you feel about that?
I’m so excited. Even before I knew she was joining the show, I was a fan. I loved her music—all her songs, like “Battlefield.” I’m a huge American Idol aficionado. And the cool thing is Sonny and Nina interact a lot on stage.

Photos of Shaun, from top: as Sonny in In the Heights; with Lin-Manuel Miranda during the Heights performance on TBS’ Lopez Tonight earlier this summer; with friends on the Blackfeet reservation in Montana; center, kneeling, with the In the Heights cast; with his mother, director/choreographer Lynne Taylor-Corbett; with his fiancée, Noemi Del Rio.