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[0:00] Alan Seales: Welcome to The Theatre Podcast, intimate personal conversations with theatre's biggest names and now part of the Broadway Podcast Network. This episode is with Andrew Polk, who may or may not be a household name to you, but he has been a working actor in the New York scene for decades. This guy actually just made his Broadway debut at the age of 54 in The Band's Visit, and he was Avram, just this wonderful role, very comedic role. But if you Google him or IMDB him or IBDB him, you'll see he's just been cast over time as like the bad guy, the dark guy. He's in Billions right now. He plays the sidekick to Alan Cummings in Instinct. He just has this career where he's just worked and worked. And like I said, he's got these really dramatic roles on his resume, but he's really funny and a really personable guy on the outside.

And it's interesting. He tells a story in the episode of basically through kind of luck a little bit, he fell into The Band's Visit and it allowed him to make his Broadway debut at age 54, like I said. So an incredible story, a great conversation. Before we get going, as always, I encourage you to visit me online at thetheatrepodcast.com or ttp.fm for short. Please show your support. Patrons have allowed me to start adding transcriptions for the most popular episodes. So I'm going back on the website and getting all that taken care of. So thank you to those who have been supporting the podcast so far. You can check out the benefit tiers via ttp.fm slash Patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N. Now, everyone, please enjoy this episode with Andrew Polk.

Currently co-starring on Alan Cummings' Instinct on CBS as Alan's wacky sidekick, he just finished his Emmy-winning run as Avram in The Band's Visit on Broadway. He is also in the midst of roles on Showtime's Billions and City on a Hill, in addition to Amazon's Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. He's the Broadway guy on pretty much every television show, including past appearances on some of my favorites, 30 Rock, Law & Order, The Closer, The Blacklist, Person of Interest, The Good Wife, Madam Secretary, House of Cards, and so many more that I had to leave off because we'd be here all day. Andrew Polk, welcome to The Theatre Podcast.

[2:27] Andrew Polk: Hey, it's great to be here.

[2:30] Alan Seales: Thank you for coming out. So tell me from the very beginning, let's start with Little Andy.

[2:36] Andrew Polk: Little Andy.

[2:38] Alan Seales: Little Andy, where did you get into performing?

[2:40] Andrew Polk: Little Andy was an annoying show-off, and my parents didn't know what to do with me, pretty much. But I did a lot of different things, but really when I discovered that this is what I wanted to do was I grew up in San Francisco, and they have a professional theater company there called the American Conservatory Theater, and they had a program for high school students. So after school, I would take a bus into San Francisco from Berkeley where I lived a couple times a week and just take classes, and that was it. And my mom, who didn't want me to be an actor, she just didn't know what to do with me because I was constantly putting on shows and imitating people, and I think she just out of desperation got me into some kind of acting class. And unfortunately for her, it stuck.

[3:33] Alan Seales: Why didn't she want you to be an actor?

[3:35] Andrew Polk: I don't know. I think she always wanted me to be anything but a lawyer. I was a musician at one point. She wanted me to pursue music. So I never listened to my mom, so it all worked out.

[3:51] Alan Seales: And what did your dad want you to do?

[3:54] Andrew Polk: My dad didn't care. He was fine. He was pretty supportive. They were both supportive, ultimately. But it didn't matter. It didn't matter. I was going to do what I was going to do.

[4:05] Alan Seales: We were talking about kids a second ago before we started recording, and my kids are little. I feel like I'll give them the advice at some point of whatever the modern version of, you should be a doctor or a lawyer is, which now is probably be a programmer, learn how to write some code. But me being so into theater, as much as I am, it's inevitable they're going to try something.

[4:29] Andrew Polk: Isn't that funny? Because my daughter right now, she wants to be an astrophysicist, and I'm like, yes, please. But I know that she's just going to end up being a screenwriter or something. But she's going to direct movies. That's probably inevitable. Both my wife, Zoe, who's a wonderful playwright, and I'm an actor. What do you think we're going to make? Astrophysicists? I mean, it's possible. Some kids, they're like, I see the struggle my parents go through, and there's no way I want to do that. So they do go be the doctor. I don't know. Parenting is funny. It's just I feel like my challenge is to try to get out of their way and just let them not mess them up too much.

[5:11] Alan Seales: I'm going to take that as advice, actually.

[5:13] Andrew Polk: That's what I'm learning. What I learned is I started to figure out that they don't listen to anything you say.

[5:20] Alan Seales: They don't.

[5:24] Andrew Polk: But they watch what you do very carefully. So they see me, for instance, doing The Band's Visit and leaving every day, which is hard for them. But they see me doing it for something I love. That's an action. I think I'll stick with them.

[5:36] Alan Seales: My dad laughed every day to do something that he loved.

[5:40] Andrew Polk: What did he do? Me. I'm talking about me.

[5:44] Alan Seales: When you were a kid, what did you get out of performing? What was it that really spoke to you about being the show-off?

[5:51] Andrew Polk: Thinking back as an adult?

[5:57] Alan Seales: Yeah, it's funny how the nature of what you do tends to change a little bit. But definitely the appeal was to become someone else. I just loved it. I loved escaping into other people and doing all the things I could do to do that. I was always pretty good with accents. I liked all the external things, just to be someone else and all the craft that went into it.

[6:29] Alan Seales: Well, it takes a lot of work. Okay, so you went to Tufts University, which is in Massachusetts.

[6:35] Andrew Polk: It is.

[6:37] Alan Seales: There's performing in Massachusetts. I guess it's close enough to New York.

[6:42] Andrew Polk: I applied to some drama schools, too, out of high school and got in, or more well-known theater places like NYU. But I went to Tufts, and I'm so glad I did because I really wanted to get a good education. They happened to have a very small but really good drama department. I ended up going to college with these amazing people like Hank Azaria, Oliver Platt, Bob Krakauer, Joel Bischoff, people who are really active and successful in the business now. We had this incredible small group. What that allowed me to do is I just did four or five plays every single year, and I learned a few things, took classes. But basically, I was in that drama department really just doing it, and there's some value to that.

[7:34] Alan Seales: Yeah, well, you were working hard, and then out of that got a Fulbright scholarship.

[7:40] Andrew Polk: Yep.

[7:41] Alan Seales: Right, so you went over to London at the Weber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Arts.

[7:45] Andrew Polk: Yes.

[7:46] Alan Seales: What happened at that point? How did you get that, and then how did that change your trajectory? Did it at all?

[7:52] Andrew Polk: I don't know if it changed my trajectory. My trajectory is my trajectory. I didn't get into Yale. I didn't have much of a plan. My plan was get into Yale Drama School, and then I don't know. And then I heard about – that there was a Fulbright scholarship for performing artists in London on top, right? And I just – I'm so grateful I got that because it was a full ride and all expenses paid and a stipend. And I got this great British theater training, which was different than I think I would have gotten here, which is quite physical, quite rigorous kind of external-based, I'd say, classical theater training. And then when I was ready, I'm like, I'm ready to come back, and I got very lucky when I came back. I got a job right away. But it really prepped me for the rigors of theater, which is if you're lucky enough to be working in a big theater for a long time, you really needed those physical tools that I got.

[9:00] Alan Seales: So that was great. In London, too, I think the musicals are not as big over there, right?

[9:08] Andrew Polk: Yeah.

[9:09] Alan Seales: So they want the drama. They want the street plays. They want intellectual –

[9:14] Andrew Polk: It's a whole other thing, too. Such a tradition of theater there. When I was there, you could go to the National Theater and see a play with Ian McKellen for five pounds. And it was amazing. I saw everything. I remember seeing Shakespeare at the Royal Shakespeare Company with sold-out audiences and people gasping and hanging on every word that was being said because they know it. They know these plays inside out, and that was such a great thing for me to experience.

[9:46] Alan Seales: Wow. Yeah, so then coming back here, I read off so many of your TV shows in the intro there. Coming back here, were you trying to go back into theater at that point, or how did TV sort of fall in your lap?

[10:03] Andrew Polk: Honestly, the TV stuff, and I'm really grateful for it, and I've been really busy doing it. But it's really been only the last – mainly the last 10 years that I started, for whatever reason, coming into my own on film and TV. I definitely went for – I moved to New York, and I wanted to do theater. TV at the time, you may not know because you're a young guy, but there was no TV here. It was law and order. I mean, that was it. And now there's 67 shows being shot here. So the business has changed here in terms of the film production, which is fantastic. But back then, there wasn't much, and so really it was theater, and that's what I did when I could.

[10:50] Alan Seales: So what year was that when you came back? Do you remember?

[10:52] Andrew Polk: 19 – I came back – well, I came back in 1985, and that's when I got Biloxi Blues, right when I came back.

[11:06] Alan Seales: Right. So 85 to 2017.

[11:12] Andrew Polk: Yeah.

[11:13] Alan Seales: 2017 was your Broadway debut.

[11:15] Andrew Polk: Yeah.

[11:16] Alan Seales: So I am an overnight success, clearly.

[11:19] Andrew Polk: It took me 30 some years to get here, but yeah, I know, I know. And it's the craziest thing too, because I mean, if you were to tell me as little as three years ago that I would be, you know, have a principal role in a 10 time Tony Award winning musical where I have my own number and I'm dancing and singing, I would be laughing at you because that's just not where things were headed. Right. And so, you know, it's been the craziest ride. A lot of everything I read off at the beginning of 30 Rock was the only, I think, yeah, the only true comedy that was in my opening spiel here. But like you were funny in The Band's Visit, but on TV, you're not cast as like the funny guy. You're this dramatic, really serious, serious guy.

Well, I don't know. I mean, I think I can do a lot of different things. I mean, Instinct is pretty funny, I think. I mean, he's an eccentric, weird guy. I mean, who wouldn't be? You're a coroner. You know what I mean? Right. But that's comedic in maybe a subtle way, but you're right. And I think it has something to do with the kind of shows that are being shot here. There aren't a lot. I mean, I'm doing Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and that's a comedy. And whether I'm funny or not, that's entirely up to you to judge. Is it a comedic role in Maisel? Yeah. So you're finally, you're like morphing into this new chapter of your life. I hope so. I like to be funny. I think I'm funny. Sometimes I don't feel funny now, but after this coffee, I will be funnier. But honestly, I think it's a good observation. I think there's not a lot of comedy shot here, if you think about it. A lot of it's done in LA, and I'm here.

[13:21] Alan Seales: Do you like comedy more than drama or just whatever pays the bills at this point?

[13:25] Andrew Polk: Well, it's so funny because when you're talking about the differences in those two things in theater, it's a much different deal than on TV and film. It's weird because in TV and film, there's no immediate feedback. It could be funny if the editing is good and the writing is good and it's in the right hands, but you don't know. That's a good point, too, because editing, you can edit the comedy out of a funny bit if you're not editing it right. Absolutely, or vice versa. The guys at Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, they're absolute geniuses at it. They know exactly how to make it funny in a cinematic way. Yeah, the timing. Timing is pretty much everything in comedy. Absolutely. Timing is everything. But you get that immediate hit when you're in theater. It's just so great. And of course, there's nothing like a well-earned laugh on stage.

[14:25] Alan Seales: So you came back in 1985, and then you were working. But do you consider yourself having to struggle at all, or were you just consistently going from gig to gig for the next little while?

[14:37] Andrew Polk: No, I definitely had some struggles there. I mean, I always worked pretty consistently, but I think maybe the hardest part was I got a job right away out of drama school, and it was to do the national tour of Biloxi Blues, which I did with Neil Simon and Gene Sachs and these amazing guys. And I thought, wow, what's the big deal? It's not that hard. Everyone's talking about how hard it is to be an actor. I'm making more money than my dad. And so I thought, it's not so hard. It's great. And then, of course, I came back to New York after that tour was over, and no one knew who I was, and I didn't know anybody. And I had to really start over, but I had kind of a – I don't want to say an attitude, but maybe I did.

I just thought there was something coming to me, and it wasn't. I had to start at the beginning. I had to make my contacts. I had to really figure out who was who and do workshops and meetings and find my theater community where I could stay sharp. And I ultimately did that, but that was a hard time to really find my bearings, get my bearings in New York. It took a couple of years, and then I did.

[15:54] Alan Seales: Did you have survival jobs during this time?

[15:55] Andrew Polk: Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, no, I was a waiter for three days before they fired me.

[16:01] Alan Seales: Where? Do you remember?

[16:04] Andrew Polk: Yeah. But it's kind of – well, after the tour, I saved all this money, and I was running through it because I just went out to eat all the time, and I went, hmm, so maybe going out to eat all the time is too expensive, but maybe I need a job or something. So I went and got a waiter job down the street at this place called Louise's, and one of the things you had to do was make your own desserts. Yeah. And I remember this one thing, this raspberry swirl I was supposed to make, a little nice vanilla raspberry pattern the waiters had to make. Oh, yeah, I worked at Ruby Tuesday for a hot month, and we made our own desserts, too. Okay, yeah, yeah. So I might have had some anger issues at the moment, but I brought these really annoying – it was a very sort of entitled group of yuppie people, and I wasn't digging them, and they asked for the raspberry swirl, and I kind of was floppy with the swirl.

I just made a mess of it, kind of, I suppose, and I brought it to this guy, and this guy looked at me and said, excuse me, it's supposed to be a raspberry swirl. This is not a swirl. And I told him what to do right there, and I told him where he could go, and I got fired right there. That was it. That was the last time I waited tables.

[17:35] Andrew Polk: Then I got into – I had this great job at a law firm where I pretended I knew how to program.

[17:45] Alan Seales: So basic?

[17:47] Andrew Polk: I don't know. Word processing back then, and doing macros and stuff like that. They wanted to know, could I do macros, because they had to send out these very complicated documents all the time. And I'm like, yeah? And so I had no idea how to do it, and I asked the guy who was leaving the job how to do it, and he told me. And that lasted, like, years, because – and they were amazing, because I could just leave to do a job, come back, they gave me a laptop. I did it on the road. Wow. It became a good survival job. I started a theater company, and I was still able to kind of do what they needed me to do. And so that was a really good survival job. So I did have some of those.

[18:27] Alan Seales: That's fun. Yes, we're going to talk about your theater company in a little bit, but I want to talk about Band's Visit.

[18:30] Andrew Polk: Sure.

[18:33] Alan Seales: Band's Visit right now. So, obviously, won the Tony for Best Musical last year, 2018.

[18:38] Andrew Polk: Yes, it did.

[18:39] Alan Seales: And that was phenomenal. I saw it with all the original cast, of course.

[18:42] Andrew Polk: All right.

[18:43] Alan Seales: I saw you in it. So, like I said a second ago, you made your Broadway debut, I think, at the age of 54, if my math is correct, right?

[18:49] Andrew Polk: Yeah. So, do you feel that it was – I mean, you see these kids making their Broadway debuts in their 20s, like, late 20s. And I think it was – I think this morning I read a tweet from Jessica Vosk, former – she just left Wicked, saying that she made her debut at 30, I believe. And she was like, you can do it, you can keep going. Right.

[19:13] Alan Seales: And it's never too late. But that's 30.

[19:15] Andrew Polk: 30, yeah. She's a child. Yeah.

[19:18] Alan Seales: So, you made yours at 54.

[19:19] Andrew Polk: I know. What made you keep going? And did you ever – I guess what I'm saying is, did you ever sort of just put that out of like, oh, I guess this is not going to happen?

[19:29] Andrew Polk: Well, I was – over the last good while, I've been doing a lot of TV and film, and that's been sort of – that's been great. And I've been making my living doing that. And you're right. I think the idea that I would be on Broadway, which is something I always wanted to do, seems so remote that I kind of stopped thinking about it. You know what I mean? It's so perfect, the band's visit, the way it happened, because it was so weird and out of the blue how it happened, how I got the job.

[20:01] Alan Seales: How'd you get it?

[20:03] Andrew Polk: I was – a friend of mine who works at the Atlantic Theatre Company, and she was gathering a bunch of sort of TV-ish actors to just sit around the table and read the new version of the book for Itamar Moses of the band's visit. And I knew Itamar because I'd actually hired him a couple of times to work at my theatre company and love him. And David Cromer was there, who I was just a huge fan of David's work. So I said, sure. And I went, and it was just sitting around the table with wonderful actors. But they weren't musical theatre actors, and I think they did that on purpose, because I think they don't want anyone in the reading to have any designs on the future. They just wanted a good read. And I didn't even know it was musical.

I honestly didn't know. And in the middle of reading this thing, this bald guy had a boombox, and he started – every once in a while, press the boombox, and songs would play. And I'm like, oh my god, it's a musical. And that was David Yazbek. Wow. And he was just – had demoed some of the songs and was just shoving them in there to see how it would fit with the new book. So we read it, it went well, and then as they left, David Cromer said, do you sing? And I was like, yeah. Yeah, I can do macros.

[21:22] Andrew Polk: I can do macros. Exactly. Yes, I sing. And so there ensued four, I think four auditions where they really – I just – they put me through the wringer.

[21:38] Alan Seales: Well, what was it like? What were their –

[21:40] Andrew Polk: Well, I had to do – learn the song and do the sides, but then I had to bring in an instrument, and I happened to play the cello. So I boned up on the cello, you know, and had a nice little Vivaldi that I had prepared for them, and I played the cello, sang my song, did my sides, my scene. I was so proud of my cello playing when they asked me to do that, and I thought it went really well. I asked if they wanted to hear anything else, and then David Yazbek said, no. And I learned later he's a cellist, of course, on top of everything else that he can do brilliantly. And then the final coup de grace was they stuck me in a room for an hour with the musical director, Andrea Grody, just me and her, and she took me through, I think, every vocal exercise that had been invented. I mean, they were kicking the tires, and I guess it went well, because the…

[22:38] Andrew Polk: Did you have to do the accent at that time? Yeah.

[22:41] Alan Seales: And your wife is Israeli, right?

[22:44] Andrew Polk: My wife is Israeli. But she ended up being the dialect coach for the show.

[22:47] Alan Seales: I know, completely separately. I honestly had nothing to do with that. Other people had referred her to the producers separately. But it did mean that I got a lot of notes at home.

[23:00] Andrew Polk: It's tough. It's a tough accent. And I consider myself really good at accents, but that one was hard. But once you get it... Yeah, I was watching something you had online explaining the accent while you were in the show. And it didn't occur to me that it is very French sounding. And you were talking about that, but it's almost French, but not French.

[23:24] Alan Seales: I know. I had a funny conversation with Meryl Streep. Sorry, name dropping, but I did. She came back to see the show, and I was so blown away that she was there. And she started talking to me about the accent. She's like, I said, you should play in Israeli sometimes. She said, oh, I didn't know that accent's so hard. I went, I'm thinking, you're Meryl Streep. You know what I mean? You can do it. But I said, so we had this conversation about how it is kind of French to the ear, but it's not really. It's a combination of things that to the untrained ear, it sounds French, but it's not. Does your wife have an accent?

[23:59] Andrew Polk: No. No? No, no. She doesn't have an accent at all. So you don't, I guess what I was saying, you don't hear it all the time at home.

[24:05] Alan Seales: Well, yeah, but I hear it. I hear it. I'm about to go to Israel in a week and a half, and we go often because her whole family is there. So I will hear quite a bit of it. Do you ever do it for them?

[24:17] Andrew Polk: They're like, you're horrible. You're horrible. No, they're like, hey, it's very good. You sound like you are from here. So it's good. And I have one guy say, one guy, Israeli guy came who I know. He said, Andy, you know, I see you in the band's visit and you look so macho, you know, and you're not macho.

[24:47] Alan Seales: You see, that's very Israeli, by the way. They just tell it like it is.

[24:52] Andrew Polk: You're not macho. All right. Thank you very much. Well, yeah, the body language in the character, Avram is very, he's like an aggressive guy, right?

[25:00] Alan Seales: Yeah. There's funny. I got a lot of input. I took a lot of stuff from like some of my relatives, my father-in-law. There's this one politician that I love. His name is Yair Lapid. And he's actually running, I think, on a ticket in the upcoming elections. But he's like, I actually ended up, just coincidentally, when I was there, working out with the dude at a local gym. And he's like a TV personality. He's just got an aggressive way of being. He just stands there like a bull. So I thought, bull, that's good. A bull is a good, you know, physical vocabulary for this guy. And I think that I incorporated some of that stuff into Avram.

[25:45] Andrew Polk: Yeah, Avram, he was all over the stage, in a good way.

[25:54] Alan Seales: Yeah. I love the Israelis because they're just not, they're just tell it like it is. It's almost like they didn't get the subtle, polite class in school. There's just no pretense about them. And it makes me love them. What about stage door feedback? Did you get a lot of interesting comments?

[26:20] Andrew Polk: I got a lot of interesting comments. I got a lot of Israelis coming up to me, starting to speak to me in Hebrew, which was a big compliment. A, I don't speak Hebrew, much to the disappointment of my wife. B, it was a compliment to me because they thought I was credible enough that I was going to start blabbing to them in Hebrew. Sounded like a real accent. And I would have to say, I don't speak Hebrew. They're like, oh, nevermind. They're like, I'll screw this guy.

[26:50] Alan Seales: Yeah, exactly. So that was a lot of fun. I got, you know, that whole stage door, if you haven't been on Broadway for so long, like me, and then you all of a sudden get on Broadway, the whole stage door scene is such a trip. It was such an unexpected experience every night packed outside with young people. And I love that. And some people would say, you have a beautiful voice. I'm like, never in my life would I think I would be hearing something like that. Very nice to hear that kind of stuff.

[27:33] Andrew Polk: Yeah, I guess it's interesting that the show, I wouldn't have expected it to speak to young people as much as, I guess, my age and older. I'm 38.

[27:42] Alan Seales: Right. Because it has more of a worldly sense to it than just like a singing and dancing musical.

[27:48] Andrew Polk: I think there's an element of just, I think there's a lot of young people out there who are just turned on by musicals. Yeah. And it may not be just the band's visit. It's just that I got the sense of excitement by a lot of young people, which did surprise me too, for being part of a musical, you know? I went to see it because I just wanted to see Tony Shalhoub because I knew him from Wings.

[28:10] Alan Seales: Right. That was where I came from. I was like, oh, I just want to see Tony.

[28:17] Andrew Polk: Yeah, he's a great actor. You know, of course, Wings and then Monk and other things.

[28:21] Alan Seales: Yeah. When I grow up, I want to be like Tony Shalhoub, just an absolute gem.

[28:28] Andrew Polk: Yeah, he and Katrina. Oh, both of them. Yeah. Such nice people, it seems. Okay, so very cool. And then on the TV and film side, you're Freddy Eisen. Did I say that right?

[28:43] Andrew Polk: Eisen, yeah. On Showtime's Billions. So now you're working with Paul Giamatti.

[28:48] Alan Seales: Yeah. Because this character is Paul's lawyer. I'm like his Michael Cohen, it seems like.

[28:56] Andrew Polk: Yeah. So Paul Giamatti, nice guy to work with. Again, another gem of a human being. And I'm not making it up. Just an absolute sweetheart, generous, talented, super hard worker. I have nothing but praise for that guy. Just in the way he works with you, and just a great guy.

[29:25] Alan Seales: I envy those situations where you get to work with somebody who's known for being so good. Because when I used to perform, I would prepare my own sides, especially a dialogue, I would prepare. And kind of, especially when I'm just memorizing things and I'm not working off of somebody, I, in my mind, have a way that they're responding to me, and then I'm responding to that. And then of course, when you get in person, you don't want to assume, you want to live in the moment. But then somebody like a Meryl or a Paul Giamatti, or somebody just brings these things that would have never occurred to you. I envy being in those situations where you're just like, holy shit, this is why they are so good.

[30:08] Andrew Polk: Yeah, I think that's right. I think he's brilliant, and he works his tush off. I can tell you firsthand, because whenever there was a spare minute, and there were many, he would come up to me, he's like, you want to run? You want to run things? Let's run it. Let's run it again. You know me, I'll just keep running. Let's just keep running it. We would run lines for 14 hours.

[30:30] Alan Seales: Wow.

[30:31] Andrew Polk: So he's constantly working. I have a lot of admiration for him, and I agree with you. I think he's one of those guys who just brings something different that keeps it interesting.

[30:42] Alan Seales: Yeah. And then, okay, so then in Mrs. Maisel. Sorry, I just want to say one thing. It's just that show was really interesting, because I was a huge... My wife and I were binging that show. We were totally into that show, and then I got on it. I've never had that experience before. I'm like, I'm in the show now, but I'm really a fan of the show. I kind of want to know what's going to happen as much as anybody. So now you get the script, you're like, oh my god, I can't say anything, but it's cool.

[31:07] Alan Seales: Do your kids know what's going on? How old are they now?

[31:14] Andrew Polk: Eight and five. No, I'm a constant disappointment. Unless I get on something like, I don't know, Sesame Street. I mean, these shows I'm on are so adult. They saw the band's visit. They, I think, understood most of it, and that was cool. But, you know, TV and film, I think I auditioned for some big child show voiceover recently, and my daughter wanted to know if I got that, all she cared about. And when I said no, I didn't, she was like, oh, when are you going to get on a show with a kid's dad? So that's...

[31:49] Alan Seales: Yeah, I guess that's true. They're not old enough to even be allowed to watch something with a lot of sex or murder.

[32:02] Andrew Polk: No, no, no, no, no. They can't see any of the shows I'm on. You know, Instinct, funny show, but all I do is talk about the dead bodies I'm looking at.

[32:06] Alan Seales: Right. So maybe not, not for the kids.

[32:12] Andrew Polk: Yeah, gosh. Yeah, so you're just like going away and not getting on kid shows right now. No wonder. They're like, daddy, I don't see you on TV. What are you doing with your dad? Oh, you know, just tell him something.

[32:28] Alan Seales: Well, they can watch, can they watch Maisel?

[32:31] Andrew Polk: Except for the, I guess the first episode.

[32:33] Alan Seales: I swear like a sailor on that show.

[32:34] Andrew Polk: Do you?

[32:35] Alan Seales: Yeah.

[32:36] Andrew Polk: Well, I guess not then.

[32:37] Alan Seales: All I do is scream at Alex Borstein, you know.

[32:40] Andrew Polk: Yeah.

[32:41] Alan Seales: Drop the F-bomb the whole time.

[32:43] Andrew Polk: Oh, that's another great one too. Yeah, Alex.

[32:45] Alan Seales: Yeah.

[32:46] Andrew Polk: Yeah, gosh. Yeah, so you're just like going away and not getting on kid shows right now. No wonder.

[32:51] Alan Seales: They're like, daddy, I don't see you on TV. What are you doing with your dad?

[32:58] Andrew Polk: Oh, you know, just tell him something. Well, they can watch, can they watch Maisel?

[33:04] Alan Seales: Except for the, I guess the first episode.

[33:09] Andrew Polk: I swear like a sailor on that show.

[33:15] Alan Seales: Do you?

[33:20] Andrew Polk: Yeah. Well, I guess not then. All I do is scream at Alex Borstein, you know.

[33:57] Andrew Polk: No longer a badge of honor, but it used to be. Yeah.

[34:03] Alan Seales: Are you dead body number three on Law and Order?

[34:05] Andrew Polk: And then House of Cards.

[34:06] Alan Seales: House of Cards, too.

[34:07] Andrew Polk: Two years, yeah.

[34:08] Alan Seales: Yep, yep. Yeah, so you've got a good run on TV. Are you continuing down that path?

[34:15] Andrew Polk: Do you even have time to audition for theatre at this point?

[34:19] Andrew Polk: You know, since the end of The Band's Visit, there have been some theatre opportunities, which I'm very fortunate to have, that I've passed on just because right now, I'm definitely open to the right thing. But, you know, after doing The Band's Visit for the better part of three years, it has to be the right thing. Otherwise, my wife might divorce me. And so the answer to your question is, yeah, I'm going to continue down all paths. I think there are things I want to have happen in terms of television and film. I'd love to see some of these characters develop, because I'm having so much fun doing these different characters, and continue to do more of that. And if the right theatre opportunity shows up, then I remain open.

You know what I mean? But it's like, I'm old enough now to have known that once you start having rigid plans about what you want to do, you've got to be open to the thing you don't expect to happen. Perfect example, The Band's Visit. You know what I mean? That just really came out of nowhere.

[35:29] Alan Seales: Yeah, it just fell in your lap.

[35:29] Andrew Polk: In a way. And are you still involved with your theatre, the Cape Cod Theatre Project, right?

[35:34] Andrew Polk: Right. I founded that. So are you still involved with that?

[35:37] Andrew Polk: I am not. I ran it for 17 years in the summers. And a wonderful director named Hal Brooks, he runs it. And I was on the board for many years, and I'm still on the advisory board. So I'm involved, but not running it anymore.

[35:51] Alan Seales: Well, what is that? So 17 years you ran it. When did you actually found it?

[35:57] Andrew Polk: I want to say 1995. That sounds about right. And I was a member of Circle Rep Company. And so a lot of those people, like Michael Warren Powell, and Lanford Wilson, and Marshall Mason, William Esper, Craig Lucas. I'm not William Esper. William Hoffman, Craig Lucas, Paula Vogel. They were all sort of around when I was there. And we used a lot of them to just help found it up on Cape Cod to develop new plays, because that's what I knew how to do from Circle Rep. And I used a lot of these actors too, like some great actors, like Amy Ryan. And a lot of people started that with me that were really terrific. And we started it, I mean, literally had no idea what I was doing. And me and this other wonderful actor, Jim Burkita, started it. And it was immediately successful. And we developed all these four plays one summer, and then we realized, what do we do now? We got to keep doing it every year? And we did. We just kept.

[37:13] Alan Seales: Is it original plays, or were you-

[37:13] Andrew Polk: New plays, developing new plays.

[37:16] Alan Seales: No kidding.

[37:16] Andrew Polk: For instance, the Cape Cod Theatre Project developed What the Constitution Means to Me, and Hillary and Clinton.

[37:21] Alan Seales: No kidding.

[37:23] Andrew Polk: Two shows that made it to Broadway this year.

[37:25] Alan Seales: Yeah.

[37:25] Andrew Polk: Wow. Yeah. So they've developed, I don't know, it's got to be like, they just did their 25th year this summer. And they've got to have developed like 80 plays or something like that over all the years.

[37:35] Alan Seales: How did you choose what you wanted to work on? I mean, did you find like Heidi Schreck that she come to you and say, I've got this idea?

[37:43] Andrew Polk: I'm not going to take credit for that. That's Hal Brooks, who did that. And he's now the artistic director. Yeah. You solicit certain plays. You have an opportunity to read a lot of unsolicited plays if you want, but that's a rough road to go down because it's thousands of plays, possibly. So I would usually read 300, 400 plays a year to choose four.

[38:08] Alan Seales: Wow.

[38:11] Andrew Polk: And a lot of them I would solicit. Certainly a lot of the agents would solicit you and pitch you. And it was a combination of what relationships you had with directors and writers and playwrights. And you develop relationships with certain writers. So I would have a lot of repeat playwrights. You had Annie Baker up there, Paula Vogel. We had a lot of great writers.

[38:37] Alan Seales: That's really, really cool. And great actors. That's great. And you're still, do you still teach too? Because you're teaching at NYU and in AADA, American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

[38:50] Andrew Polk: Right. I've taken a little break from teaching, so I'm not right now, but I was until right before The Band's Visit. And then it was just too much with the theater and the television.

[39:01] Alan Seales: And the kids.

[39:01] Andrew Polk: And the kids. Yeah. Yeah. If you still want to have a home life.

[39:04] Alan Seales: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So right now I'm not. I do some private coaching, but really no.

[39:11] Alan Seales: What would you teach? Just acting or auditions?

[39:13] Andrew Polk: I did both. I did a lot of audition technique, teaching that. And I also taught acting as well. I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed that.

[39:29] Alan Seales: But you do have a new TV series in development.

[39:32] Andrew Polk: Yes, I do.

[39:33] Alan Seales: Can you tell us anything about that?

[39:34] Andrew Polk: Yeah. I've written something that hopefully I'm going to be, it's in development and it's going to be produced soon, a web series. Well, it's written as a web series. It's called The Dog Park. And it's about the people at dog parks, not the dogs themselves. In fact, the dogs are never seen.

[39:59] Alan Seales: Oh, really?

[39:59] Andrew Polk: Yeah. Yeah.

[40:00] Alan Seales: So it's always shot from the waist up?

[40:02] Andrew Polk: Yeah. Or you get jerked out of frame by a dog, or a slobbery ball will hit you in the head. It's really about the really unique, strange, funny, sometimes poignant relationships that you develop at these parks with the people.

[40:24] Alan Seales: You have dogs? Is that where it came from?

[40:25] Andrew Polk: Yeah. And you have these, and there are these rules, really funny rules that people, they're unwritten ones, and sometimes they're written ones, about what to do at a dog park. And some people take on leadership roles in the park, like they're the mayor of the park. You know what I mean? Some people are really strange. But also, I've developed really close relationships at the park. And you're a dad. I spend more time walking my dog than I do with my children sometimes.

[40:55] Alan Seales: Yeah.

[40:57] Andrew Polk: And so that's weird. What's that about?

[40:59] Alan Seales: Yeah.

[41:00] Andrew Polk: But he's not a very good conversationalist, either. So that's what it's about. So it's really funny, and in a kind of a, I don't know, maybe a Curb Your Enthusiasm kind of understated, quirky way.

[41:17] Alan Seales: Right. Are you in it, or just writing, producing?

[41:21] Andrew Polk: I think I'm going to be in it. But I'm open. If Brad Pitt wants to play my role, he can do it.

[41:27] Alan Seales: In the story of your life, Brad Pitt would play.

[41:33] Andrew Polk: All right. So let's wrap up here, and I will go to my three standard closing questions that I ask every guest on the podcast. The first of which is, just very simply, what motivates you?

[41:44] Andrew Polk: What motivates me is, hmm, what a good question. The joy of the work, really. In terms of work, what motivates me is things that are funny and things that are true. And that's what makes me want to do a project. And something that is true. Something that has a hint of its own voice.

[42:17] Alan Seales: Okay. So what advice would you give to your younger self and younger people listening now, starting out down a similar path?

[42:23] Andrew Polk: I would advise everyone to not listen to anybody. And if this is something that you really, really feel that you must do, and you have a passion for it, just do it. And there's just a lot of voices out there. And I think that's what motivates me. And to the extent you can block all those voices out and focus on the positive part of what you love about your work, I think the more successful you'll be. There is no way to, there's no formula. For instance, I don't think that there's a formula for what you want to do. I don't think that there's a formula for what you want to do. There's no way to, there's no formula. For instance, I don't think I'm better now than I was when I was 30. I'm certainly working so much more than I was.

It just may be my time. I don't know. But there's certainly no formula that by two years, if you haven't done blah, blah, blah, you should blah, blah, blah. I just don't think it works that way. I think you walk down the road and don't look at all the shiny objects, just keep your focus.

[43:43] Alan Seales: All right. So then lastly, if you could only see one show for the rest of your life, but you can see it as many times as you want, what would you see?

[43:49] Andrew Polk: That's a good question. One show, if I could see one show, oh God, so many shows. I think it would be Amadeus.

[44:07] Alan Seales: That might be my favorite show of all. That's a new one. A new one for the podcast.

[44:12] Andrew Polk: Is it? Yeah. No one's said that before.

[44:14] Alan Seales: I'm going to go with Amadeus.

[44:17] Andrew Polk: Cool. All right. So as far as I know, you're not very active on social. You do have a Twitter account.

[44:21] Andrew Polk: Pathetic. I know. I'm supposed to be better. So on Twitter, yeah, you're-

[44:25] Alan Seales: I have accounts. I'm there. Twitter is the one with the words and Instagram is the one with the pictures, right?

[44:31] Andrew Polk: Yes, yes.

[44:32] Alan Seales: Okay. Got it.

[44:32] Andrew Polk: Yeah. Have your kids tell you what to do there.

[44:35] Andrew Polk: Sure, my daughter.

[44:40] Alan Seales: You can find more of these episodes at thetheatrepodcast.com. Show your support at thetheatrepodcast.com slash Patreon. I'm on social at theatre underscore podcast, both on Instagram and Twitter. Please leave a rating and a review when you hear this. It helps everybody out. This is produced by Jillian Hockman, edited by Matthew Hendershot. Thanks to Jukebox the Ghost for the intro and outro music.

[45:01] Andrew Polk: And finally, thanks to Andrew Polk for being on the podcast.

[45:04] Andrew Polk: My absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me.

[45:07] Alan Seales: No problem. This was fun.

[45:07] Andrew Polk: It was.