'Theater Kid' review: 'Hamilton' producer dishes about Broadway

As the producer behind “Rent,” “Avenue Q,” “In the Heights” and “Hamilton,” Jeffrey Seller has an eye for turning an unconventional musical into a hit. After all, none of those contemporary classics — about Bohemian artists, inappropriate puppets, a striving immigrant community and a go-getting treasury secretary — seemed poised for mainstream appeal. Yet each show won over audiences, snatched the best musical Tony Award and entrenched itself in Broadway lore.

In “Theater Kid,” Seller tells another story of unlikely success: his own. Although it’s an accessible tale of familial strife, ambition and industry-shaping influence, the 60-year-old’s path from theater-loving Midwesterner to Broadway impresario is also packed with insider nods and insight. You may be tickled to learn, for instance, that Kimberly Belflower, the playwright behind the current Broadway hit “John Proctor Is the Villain,” babysat Seller’s kids. Or perhaps you’ll be scandalized by the reveal that Joel Grey lip-synched “Cabaret” performances when he was too sick to sing.

“Rent”-heads will be particularly interested in Seller’s behind-the-scenes dish. Over four meticulous chapters, he presents an anatomy of a Broadway smash. His characterization of the late “Rent” writer and Adelphi University graduate Jonathan Larson as a neurotic, ahead-of-his-time genius leaps off the page. The show’s roller-coaster journey makes for a fascinating study in identifying, supporting and achieving greatness.

To those familiar with the offstage tragedy, the events of Larson’s final weeks and sudden death — at age 35, on the day previews were set to start - unfold with pit-in-your-stomach dread. And Seller’s recollection of how the “Rent” team simultaneously mourned Larson and cemented his legacy is a vital account of artistic perseverance.

The final of the book’s three “acts” satisfyingly — if fleetingly — explores Seller’s other theatrical triumphs. The “Avenue Q” chapter, fixated on that scrappy show’s upset over “Wicked” at the 2004 Tonys, is an engaging deconstruction of an awards show stunner. Seller’s insights into Lin-Manuel Miranda’s breakout “In the Heights” underline the parallels between Larson and the generational genius he inspired. The last chapter, focused on “Hamilton’s” transcendence, offers a blow-by-blow recap of Vice President-elect Mike Pence’s visit to the Richard Rodgers Theatre shortly after the 2016 election and the plea for empathy that actor Brandon Victor Dixon read from the stage.

While Seller dutifully delivers his show business reflections, “Theater Kid” is more of an origin story than a tell-all. The first “act” chronicles Seller’s tumultuous upbringing in a lower-class neighborhood of Oak Park, Michigan, billed as “Cardboard Village.” His father, portrayed as a combustible man with money problems and a weakness for infidelity, looms particularly large to an adopted child who grew up with identity issues. “I glowed on the outside,” Seller writes, “but on the inside, faint feelings of isolation and loss that I could neither define nor voice lay dormant, waiting to express themselves in the future.”

Seller also goes into detail on the euphoria of discovering his sexuality, as well as the paralyzing fear that accompanied being a gay man amid the AIDS epidemic. It’s far from the only occasion when Seller offers personal introspection that, in the book’s back half, lays the groundwork for his professional exploits. For those wondering what, exactly, draws a theater lover to a career not as an actor or a playwright or a director but a producer, Seller’s mélange of experience — as a young director who found his way into the business as a publicist and booking agent — offers an inspiring road map.

“My job was to say yes, to nurture the artist, not to tell the artist what to do,” he says of producing. “To be there when the artist asked for suggestions. Twelve years of psychoanalysis taught me to listen. Artists want to feel heard. And eventually they are going to say, ‘What do you think?’”

“Theater Kid” will resonate with any reader who has tried to manifest their dream job via sheer pluck and commitment. Even if Seller proves oddly evasive about his post-“Rent” personal life, and quotes a few too many wooden conversations from memory, those quibbles don’t overwhelm the book’s merits.