Interview: Tyce Green of NEXT TO NORMAL at HOUSTON BROADWAY THEATRE

Tyce Green started his acting career in Houston with several companies, including Theatre Under the Stars. He ran off to New York City, and when there, he became a model, an actor, and a singer. He has tons of hits with his rock and roll-style cabaret performances. He even made an album with legendary producer and writer Jim Steinman, who has written for Meat Loaf, Bonnie Tyler, Celine Dion, and Barbara Streisand. Tyce has appeared on Project Runway as one of the male models for several seasons, and one of his biggest and latest gigs was the national tour for Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar. Tyce Green is returning to Houston as a producer and founder of a nonprofit theater company called Houston Broadway Theater. They are debuting their first production on the weekend of July 26th at the Hobby Center in their Zilkha Hall, and it is the rock musical NEXT TO NORMAL. Broadway World writer Brett Cullum got a chance to talk about making rock and roll dreams come true with Tyce Green. 

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Brett Cullum: So tell us first about Houston Broadway Theater. What is it? What is its mission? 

Tyce Green: Here we are, a brand new theater company in Houston. I'm from Houston originally, and I was in New York full-time for the better part of about seven years, and then, after the pandemic. So many things changed. And I thought, “You know what? I like driving to HEB.” So I'm spending half my time here and half my time in New York. And it's really wonderful because I get all the wonderful, amazing things, and then I get the craziness of New York. But I don't have to be stuck in either of those places; they're so different. 

When I started spending time after the pandemic in Houston, I started asking around, “What does the theater landscape look like?” I spent about a year getting reacquainted, and what I found was, back when I was here, you had a couple of different theater companies and series and things that were going on that had high production value in intimate spaces that mixed Broadway artists and local artists. And then I came back, and I was like, “Oh, I wonder where that is? It doesn't really exist anymore!” I spent a lot of time doing shows at Zilkha Hall at the Hobby Center [when TUTS did their “Underground” series]. 

I was trying to figure out if is there a gap. Is there something to be able to fill here? And through talking to a lot of really smart people, the answer was “Yes!” I bared my soul and told everybody about what my idea was, and I asked trusted people and said, “Look, hey! Do you think this is a good idea?” And everybody was like, “Yes, please!”

Houston Broadway Theatre, our mission is to produce really high production value, the same that you would see if you were going to go see a Broadway show or an off-broadway show in New York. We're trying to achieve that technical quality. We have also built into the mission of Broadway professionals working with Houston professionals. And that's on all sides. This is on the creative team. This is on stage. It's backstage. It's everything. So we're sort of on a mission to create the off-Broadway of Houston kind of. 

Brett Cullum: Well, you're right. A big gap was created when TUTS Underground disappeared, and that's what you're filling. I feel Zilkha Hall offers so much, and so little programming goes into it.

Going back to NEXT TO NORMAL. It's a rock musical that deals a lot with psychiatric issues. Bipolar issues challenge a family when their mother suffers from it. Many of the grief and different things happen when these issues arise. It's a heavy show. It's interesting that you picked this to launch your theater. What was the message of this piece that made you want to do NEXT TO  NORMAL? 

Tyce Green: Yeah. Well, you know, here's the thing about NEXT TO NORMAL. One of the things that we really want to do is put shows in front of people that perhaps other theater companies might not take a risk on. NEXT TO NORMAL is such an interesting and beautiful show. I remember seeing it on Broadway. It was on Broadway in 2009. It won the Pulitzer and won three Tonys. 

What is really amazing about the show is that it covers a lot of talk about mental health. There is grief that's obviously covered in the show, but I call it a dramedy because the thing about life is that even when we are going through some of the tough challenges in our lives, there is always humor in it. It's not just one thing, right? We're not just the little Zoloft cloud that's walking around. Do you remember those commercials, that little sad cloud? It isn't just like that all the time, right? We're always trying to find the positive. We're always trying to get out of that. This show is written in such a beautiful display of what happens when a family is going through grief. 

Brett Cullum: Who all is in the show? Tell me about your cast. 

Tyce Green: The two leads in the cast are Broadway’s Mary Faber! If folks are familiar with Green Day’s AMERICAN IDIOT, Mary was in that show's original cast.

Dan, the husband, is being played by the incredible Tony Award-nominated Constantine Maroulis, who most folks would know from AMERICAN IDOL. He's the long-haired rocker guy from Carrie Underwood’s season.

Then we also have a son and a daughter. The son is actually being played by yours truly, Tyce Green. Because, you know, I have to do eight million different things. Then, the daughter's role is played by Mary Caroline Owens. Her boyfriend is being played by Josiah Thomas Randolph, who just recently is literally coming off of the HAIRSPRAY tour.  

The doctor is being played by Manuel Stark Santos, a Houstonian originally; you would know him from WEST SIDE STORY on Broadway. He just finished touring with HAMILTON. It's a really cool cast.

Brett Cullum: I read and don't know if this is right. But you had a hand in helping to produce the current Broadway production of The Who's TOMMY. Is that right?

Tyce: I am a producer on the new TOMMY. Yeah. That's correct.

Brett Cullum: Okay. So, TOMMY, JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR, NEXT TO NORMAL, and collaborating with Jim Steinman, you are like this rock musical god! You're not really doing typical Broadway stuff. You're doing a lot of rock stuff. How did that kind of trajectory hit you?

Tyce Green: I grew up loving theater but also being obsessed with Anne Wilson from HEART! When I was trying to learn how to sing I would listen to her singing “Barracuda,” and then I would sing it in that same key as loud as I possibly could in the shower every single day until I could hit the notes. Somehow, I ended up figuring it out. Who knows? Biology is bizarre like that! So I've always, always, always had an affinity for rock music, and that's also what was playing in the car at all times with my family. It was always always Eighties Rock. And that is the kind of music I learned to sing on.

I was very fortunate to work with Jim Steinman back in the day, and unfortunately, he's no longer with us. But he produced an album for me called HERO, which was just unbelievable, and when I was doing that, we were going out and promoting the album. I was actually able to open for some incredible bands. So, I opened for Nancy Wilson of HEART. I opened for AIR SUPPLY, and I opened for BERLIN. I'm out there doing band gigs! But yeah, I love rock music. 

Brett Cullum: What is your favorite Jim Steinman song to perform? 

Tyce Green: “Objects in the Rearview Mirror” is my favorite song to sing, but I will say my favorite song that we recorded on the album was “I'm Gonna Love Her for Both of Us.”

Brett Cullum: You are an electric performer, but what is the attraction for you to produce as well?  

Tyce Green: Look, here is where I am. I knew straight away I just wanted to make things happen. And to make things happen. I had to learn how to do them. And then I had to go out and do them, which sounds really simplistic. But that's really how I learned to be good at business. Everything that I learned I learned from just researching it myself.

I grew up with a single mom. And we did not have a lot of money. We weren't at the poverty level, thankfully. We weren't sucking on fumes, necessarily. But we couldn't afford for me to take a bunch of expensive voice lessons and workshops and things like that, like creatively for acting and things like that. So all of that stuff I had to go out and just try to figure out. I had to ask friends for help. I had to look up to the other people I was just in the room with, observe and take notes, try to emulate that, and do it from watching TV and stuff like that. So, I learned very early on anything I wanted to learn how to do. 

Something said in my head, “Actors do not make a lot of money. So if you want to have the freedom to do the things that you want to do, you've got to figure something else out.” I knew that I didn't want to give up performing. I knew that I was like, “Well, I can't ignore the fact that when I wake up in the morning, all I want to do is be on stage.” That is just in my bones. 

And so I said, “Well, then, great! I've got to work around it. I've got to put myself in a position where I can do that and also do this other thing. And so what I found was by creating different small businesses. I would identify different gaps in my industry. 

I now own a company called Broadway Plus which is a company that's based in New York City, and we sell official group tickets to Broadway shows. We do official VIP partnerships with Broadway productions. If you wanna buy tickets to HAMILTON, you've got a school group 100. We can do that. 

I do a lot of things. I always knew that I wanted to put myself in a position where anything that I wanted to accomplish creatively. I never wanted to feel stifled by a financial burden.

I love business, and I love making shit happen. It allows me to be able to make things happen for other people that I know. Things should be happening for them, for I love being in a position where I am able to start a not-for-profit organization and be able to like work and be able to have autonomy over choosing people that are in the cast and working with a team that I wanna work with because I know that those people are going to respect each other. 

NEXT TO NORMAL only runs one weekend and for five performances at the HOBBY CENTER. July 26th through the 28th. Mary Faber, Constantine Maroulis, Mary Carolyn Owens, Tyce Green, Josiah Thomas Randolph, and Manuel Stark Santos. It's a stacked cast. It looks like it's going to be a great show. Tickets are available at the Hobby Center and the Houston Broadway Theatre sites and through the link provided below. Tyce's album HERO is on streaming platforms, and available on Amazon. 

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