THE FRIDAY SIX: Q&As with Your Favorite Broadway Stars- NYMF Edition with Heath Saunders

Welcome to THE FRIDAY SIX: Q&As with your favorite Broadway stars. Want to know what hooked them to a career in the theater? Their dream roles? Their Broadway crushes? Read on!

In this week's edition, we caught up with Heath Saunders, who wrote the new musical NEWTON'S CRADLE, playing at NYMF now through August 7.

What was your first "live onstage" taste of theater?

First time I was live onstage had to be playing cello in a recital when I was 4 or 5. But I don't think I really caught the performing bug until junior high, when I got to play Peter in Peter Pan - the original Mary Martin version! In the original Mary Martin keys! ...I was a late bloomer in the "voice change" department...

What is your favorite pre-show ritual?

I tend to play ridiculously simple games on my computer or phone right up until 10 minutes is called, when I'll finally start getting dressed for the show. It seems like I'm being lazy, but those simple games help me clear my head - sort of like meditating in the 21st century.

What's your most memorable "the show must go on" moment?

I was asleep when I received a phone call at 11 am from my stage manager that woke me right up: "Hey, how soon can you get to the theatre?" I was in Spamalot at 5th Avenue in Seattle at the time. As it happens, the actor who was playing Sir Bedevere had come down with extreme food poisoning, and that actor had no understudy. So the plan stage management had come up with was for me to go on in a split track that I needed to learn in the next 3 hours.

The show must go on indeed. Now, in general, this went okay - I studied the script and the archive video as much as I could before places, and I met with wardrobe and wigs and stage management; I was ready.

Act 1 went incredibly well, all things considered, jumping back and forth between the track I knew and the new material, but as we got to the end of the act, and I was preparing to jump back into my normal track for the Act 1 Finale, I ran into a small hitch. I was standing onstage trying to figure out when I exited next to change, when I realized that Sir Bedevere...didn't...exit. There's nothing quite like the real life actor nightmare of staring out into a full audience and realizing that you have no clue what to say or do. Fortunately, my brilliant castmates picked up on the fact that I had no idea what was going on, and I, soon enough, truly came to understand the meaning of the phrase "shove with love."

What's your dream role?

My dream role - that's very tough. Pippin, Mercutio, or probably, what with this new phenomenal musical sensation, Aaron Burr.

Who's your theatrical crush?

I can't tell you who my theatrical crush is, because they might read this article and I would be mortified. Or Marianne Elliott!

Share something about yourself that would surprise people.

When I applaud for things, I do it in groups of 7 claps at a time.