Video: Chris Myers Talks WHERE THE MOUNTAIN MEETS THE SEA

Welcome to Backstage with Richard Ridge

My guest is an Obie Award winning actor, writer, director, producer, and teaching artist

He is now one of the stars of Jeff Augustine's new play, Where the Mountain Meets the Sea, which is part of Manhattan Theater Club's new season

and is currently playing at New York City Center's Stage 1. Under the direction of Joshua Kahan Brody, the play tells the story of Jonah and Jean

a son and father who struggled to connect. It follows Jonah as he makes the journey his father, a Haitian immigrant, made from Miami to California in reverse

The road trip made years apart give the two a connection that helps them finally find a common ground

And my guest plays Jonah. Please say hello to Chris Myers. Hi, thank you so much for that lovely introduction

Well, first off, how are you and where are you? I'm in a corner of my apartment, the only corner I can find with bare walls

And I'm good. I'm great. You know, we have our last preview tonight

So it's kind of one section of our ongoing work will be completed

And then tomorrow another one will begin. I mean, how exciting is this

I mean, audiences are loving this show. It's such a heartfelt play with music

And I mean, you've gone through the preview process and you're getting ready to opening, you know, for opening night

How excited are you about opening night? I'm really excited. You know, but it's, I have to say this play, first of all, I'm excited for opening night

because I've never wanted to celebrate a play more. This is a very intimate piece and we've kind of created our own little bubble, our own

little world. And I personally have been keeping my head down. So I'm actually really excited to celebrate and, you know, be festive around it

But at the same time, it's the kind of play where I do kind of enjoy keeping it to my

own little bubble. it's for people, people come see it. It really is intimate. And I don't know, the line between

opening and previews and even rehearsal is very blurry for me. It just feels like it's an ongoing

process. And then one day I'll look up and they'll be like, your contract's over. And I'll be like

oh, wow, that ended. So, you know, it's also just kind of like an ongoing thing. Yeah

So when you first read the play, what were your initial reactions and what made you say, yes

I have to do this. Well, I've never read anything like it before

I mean, I've worked with Jeff before, so I know his work very well

I know and I respect his writing very much. But even for him, I hadn't read anything like this

And my number one thing with acting, especially in the theater, where I have, I feel like a little more experience, is I want to be challenged

I want something that feels new and different and will make me grow, force me to grow as an actor and as a person

And this fulfilled both of those marks. So I just, you know, Jonah goes on a journey and I was like, I want to go on this journey, too

Well, talk about who you play and what you love about him already

What makes him so you. Yeah, I play Jonah. So there's there's four performers in the play

Two of them are the Bang Sins, which are a band. But the only people who talk and act in the kind of traditional sense is me and Billy Eugene Jones, who plays my father, John

So I play Jonah. And and yeah, I mean, he there's some overlap with me in my personal life

It's really refreshing. I remember I told Jeff there's not a lot of exciting stuff for people in their early 30s

I feel like there's a lot of young adult material out there in the world

And there's like, you know, 40s and up, people start divorce dramas and stuff like that

But there's like the 30s kind of gets overlooked. And he wrote this really complex story of kind of millennial young adults in a way that I

you know, I guess it's a weird type of age representation felt a lot of commonality

But there's also a lot of differences. and yeah, just living up to his truth

and trying to get into the little corners and pockets of his emotional life has been really revealing both

I think a lot about my friends, I think about my family. I think about just people I know

and it helps me be more empathetic to them. So yeah, it's just such a deeply human, rich

what's the word? I don't know, there's something for everybody. And certainly for me, there's something in doing it every night

that helps me kind of, like, be a better person. Yeah. Now talk about sharing the stage with Billy

What that, because it's just primarily the two of you that talk during the show. It's your journey, the two of you together

What's it like sharing the stage with him? Well, I've respected his work for a long time

And he's been on a tear, especially these past couple years, doing some of the best plays in New York consistently

like just hopping from one best play in New York to the next best play in New York

So when I saw that, you know, he was cast, I was like, well, this is a good sign, you know, for us

We can maybe keep up the hot, his hot streak. But no, he's also just immensely talented

And, you know, we do very little interaction in the play without like spoiling too much

even though we're both on stage the entire time. But just being in this space with him, you know, being in the rehearsal room with him is incredibly motivating and inspiring

We play off each other, I think, in terms of what we bring to our respective processes, which are different

Every actor has a different process, but just watching him work is like makes me want to like step up my game, you know

and then working with your director and jeff like being in the room together there's nothing

better than working on a new play with an exciting playwright an exciting director i mean what's it

been like working on this and creating this all together one of the best rehearsal rooms i've ever

been in um jeff and josh our director and writer have a great friendship long-standing friendship

and a professional relationship so they were really in sync on that and then our dramaturg

is our director's wife and then the bankstons were a married our married couple that met uh through

i think jeff or josh i forget which one but everyone so everybody like kind of like knows

each other and that was good um and josh especially just i think intentionally wanted to create

the kind of rehearsal process the kind of working space where you could really just say whatever

you're thinking and you know kind of put an idea in the room and it would be respected uh he wasn't

looking for some kind of dominance over the room so you have all these creative artists who are

talented who like each other who feel safe enough to uh speak freely and you just have this really

rare kind of beautiful kind of process and so everything you know organic is a kind of it kind of cliche word but it felt like an organic process where we move from one step to

the next without tension or friction, but just kind of building off of each other. Really

really nice. Yeah. Yeah. And talk about the music by the Bengtons. I mean, it's so beautifully

intertwined in this play. Yeah. Yeah. I, all I can tell you that, you know, it's like

I don't really listen to folk music. And so when I, I will say when I, like, to be honest

when I first got this, I was like, oh, folk music. Like, why do they gotta, you know? But when you hear them play and I, you know, I say that

I can only say that because the following is also true. From the very first note, from the very first, you know, lyric

from the very first whatever, you will fall in love with the Banksons

They're incredibly talented and their music operates, not just on a kind of beautiful aesthetic level, but it operates on a beautiful human level

The writing and just where they pull their songs from is really rich and deep

So yeah, just to have that. And they also do like soundscaping at some parts of the play

They kind of add atmosphere. And that's stuff that I'm still realizing how nuanced that stuff is

Like night after night, I'm like, oh, wow, I didn't know they did that. And you can kind of see how it goes. So they're just immensely talented

They had some, it wouldn't make sense. Like if you took the songs out of the play

it would kind of fall apart actually. And that's something that I didn't realize at first, but it's true. Like those songs are almost like little scenes

in and of themselves. See, that's what I love about this piece

I have never seen something like this where everything is intertwined to make this such a unique experience

yet it all blends together. It's like making the perfect cake. It's like you said early on when you're like

oh, folk music, but you blend all of this stuff together. and the evening is perfect, right

Yeah, yeah, that's what we're going for. Yeah. You know, the music, you know, invokes memory, you know

and I love that. Did music throughout your life invoke certain parts

important parts of your life? Yeah, yeah, no, I think I come from a household

nobody's a musician, but everybody in my family loves music. And so growing up, especially, you know, important moments

there's always something playing. And so there's so many songs, so many genres

that when I hear them, they take me back to a specific time. And that memory will have certain sights, sounds

even smells that then come to the fore, and of course, feelings

So it is a powerful device. And I think in this play, it's kind of interesting

He didn't just willy-nilly pick folk music. I mean, there are some specifics to why these two characters

just like I said, Jonah kind of starts to play being suspicious of folk music himself, but then

it kind of just becomes more important to his life. And also there's a historical connection

where American folk music has found its way into Haiti proper and some, you know, people there

appreciate it on its own terms. So yeah, like you never know where that music will come from that

will give you that emotional resonance through memory. Yeah. Now this is such a special play

have you talked to friends or audience members after the show and have they discussed with you

the impact that this play and your performances have had on them yeah i mean i a lot of you know

i've never had so many strangers kind of come up to me after a show and like just crying basically

and you know i've had people like asking if they can hug me and i you know of course but it's

interesting i didn't write the play you know i just i just it's like i almost feel like i want jeff to get some of that you know but um but yeah no people people have really you know

i think all you can hope for with the play is is that people leave it and they take something away

from it that is entirely specific to their lives and then they do something about it i mean you

can't you know the bad version of that is writing a play that tells people what to feel or tells

people what to do and we don't do that it's a very specific story um it's you know in part inspired

by jeff's actual life and then he kind of pulled things in from other places and and like there's

people who are completely different from jeff and completely outside of the kinds of people that are

mentioned in the play who come away come away being like i have to call my mom i have to change

my life i need to tell you that that was my story and uh that's just like the most ideal

kind of outcome if you ask me because isn't it great when plays do this and move audiences where

afterwards they you know the conversation continues into their life yeah and you know

art can help change like oh my god i wasn't going to call my father i wasn't going to call my mother

or i wasn't going to take that extra step to do something that would change everything for the

better and that a play like this does that yeah yeah it's special and and and few other

things can do that because, you know, look, therapy is expensive and it takes time

And, you know, there's all these other kind of barriers to getting at this kind of experience

but you can also buy a ticket to a play one off. It's just in and out. This one's not even an hour

and a half and you walk away and you have enough of an experience to want to do something different

in your life. Like that's what change is just, you know, we get acclimated to certain patterns

and certain kind of expectations. And especially with family, right? We can go years, decades holding those patterns

And something happens in the theater where we say, actually, I want to disrupt that thing

that I've done for years or decades. I mean, that's incredible. Yeah

You know, Manhattan Theater Club produces such beautiful plays and works by exciting new artists

and they make it affordable too. And I think that's really important because the day that I was at your show

So there was a lot of young people there who were experiencing theater for the first time or say, oh, I go a lot now because I go to MTC shows

You know, they make it affordable and I get to see new writers. I mean, how exciting is it for you to be doing this play in Manhattan Theater Club

Yeah, well, you know, I was just working with them on how I learned to drive a few months ago, I guess

And this is to be back so soon as you know, is a privilege

And I look forward to keep working, you know, getting to know their audiences more

But yeah, no, I mean, a lot of my friends, I tell them if you're under 35, you can get $30 tickets whenever

And if not, you know, they give the cast like little codes and stuff like that

So we can get people in. The tricky part of, you know, audiences since we're on this subject is, and this is not an MTC thing

and this is like in my experience, having worked in like a dozen off-Broadway theaters

is how to get new audiences to be aware that these plays are happening You know it like there a large Haitian American community in New York City and they not necessarily you know it like there a large Haitian American community in New York City and they not necessarily you know reading the same periodicals getting the same advertisements

that other groups of folks in the city are. So it's like, how do we, it's like if a tree

falls in the forest and nobody hears it fall, did it really fall? I always say no. I mean

I think people need to know that the tree fell. So, I mean, we also need to like, you know

just get people to know that these plays are out there. And then, yeah, they're not expensive

which is a huge barrier removed as well. Well, I love it. All people have to do, hopefully

is go to the MTC website and all the information is there

But I always tell people, just dig a little because, you know, you can find tickets

But I think this is a very important play, like I said, for the Haitian community who would love to come and see this

So I hope a lot of them are watching this at Broadway World or will push this to their friends

and say, go see this play. You know, I also love the dance elements

in this show, of course, especially the I was too late Dan sequence

I mean, how did that come about? Talk about working on that. Yeah, I mean, I always got to shout out our choreographer, Steph Paul

Steph is just really incredible. The first day Steph was in rehearsal, I mean, we had been working without her, as you do

You know, your choreographer comes in at a certain point. And the first question was like, you know, what do you feel like your body wants to do in this moment

And, you know, I kind of whatever put together some gestures and Steph is really good at like sculpting those gestures

And, you know, the dance has to tell a story. It's not just being free and wild and having fun

It should look like that. It should feel like that. But it actually has a larger kind of narrative purpose

and so she works from the specifics of the actor and she kind of builds it

along with some kind of boundaries and structure and as a result

I mostly feel like I get to just have fun every night. But from the outside

it should appear to be part of a larger kind of moment for this character in his journey

But that's how Steph works and I think that's, it's playful, it's freeing

and it's something I also hope because I think hopefully at least everybody

maybe not everybody, has had that moment where, you know, you dance like nobody's watching. I think that's kind of like what that should feel like

where, you know, next time you're in the dance floor, just be a little more free, you know, have a little more fun

It's a really freeing moment in the show. And I think as an audience member, I felt that I was like, oh my gosh

I know what he's feeling. I love that feeling, you know? That's really great

You know, you do a lot of TV and film, but you're also a teacher. You are currently, I think

on the faculty at the Harlem School of the Arts, where you are also artist in residence and you're

a teaching artist with the Classical Theater of Harlem, where you inaugurated the Actors Advocate

Incentive? Intensive, yeah. The Actors Advocate Intensive. What do you love the most about

teaching, Chris? Well, there's, I don't know about the most, there's a number of things that I love

about teaching. It's something I intend to do for the rest of my life, no matter where my career

takes me i always want to save time for teaching i mean look the first most obvious thing is kind

of selfish you do learn from teaching so in working with other people i do feel like you know

i improve myself but really it's it's mostly a give back because it's not something i try to do

currently as like the career choice um it's really rewarding to help young specifically young

artists actually i work with artists of all ages to be honest to to help artists discover their

potential to be creative uh to free themselves specifically through performance like acting

where you know we do perform in our lives all the time just like i was saying about patterns we thought

we follow these strict performances of this is how i am when i go to work this is how i perform when

i'm with my family and acting we can access different sides of ourselves that were there

all along sometimes we don't even know are there so it's incredibly rewarding because i work with

actors, some who have no intention of pursuing a career. They just want to act as hobbyists

I also help younger students, you know, get into like my UTSH grad and like top acting programs

which is very rewarding and helping folks start their careers. But I also work with folks in like

I've worked in juvenile prisons and, you know, and I've worked in community centers and I've

of worked with people who just like kids really who just need perspective on their life you know

who just need uh a fork in the road to you know not to pursue acting but just to kind of

realize they can they can experience joy in a different kind of way you know um

so there's so many reasons and uh yeah that's that's why i do it no because you know i've spoken

to a lot of people who said you know a lot of people come to me and richard it just opens them

up to a whole new world and, you know, they can have a one-on-one conversation with the person

now. They never realized, oh, this is how it's done. You know, you just free them a bit

right? To like life and everything else. Like you said, even if they don't pursue something in the

arts, but the arts are a learning tool for life in general. And I'm sure, you know, when I looked

at your bio and realized all the wonderful places that you have taught, I said, wow, it's such a

diverse and large different group of people that you're helping. So I'm sure it's just so rewarding

for you to like know that you've helped people to move on some way in their life, if it's a career

or just a life lesson. Yeah, and absolutely. I mean, I see acting at its best, like this show

is actually an act of service. And I think for me, my teaching work is also that. And it's just

how I kind of have to live my life. I can't do it all for me. You know

you have so many exciting projects that you've worked on and continue to work on

You have something new coming out, don't you on TV or something or a new film? What's happening for you

No, well, I think my, my, my website might be a little out of date. The newest thing is actually probably not on there, but it's, it's a

a, a audible original. so for folks to most folks know audible for their audio books and stuff and uh but now they're doing

like original content so you know like audio plays essentially and the writer nick jones uh who is a

hilarious writer who's um had a number of plays done off broadway but also writes for tv um has

has penned this kind of uh cancel culture uh satire called complicity island and i'm really

interested to see how people are going to receive it because it's, you know, cancel culture is a hot topic, but he's managed to make something incredibly

funny and I think deeply truthful, not so much about cancel culture

but about human beings. And that should, I think that's coming out in less

what is it November 1st I think like in a month or something like that I doing some press event on Friday for it So yeah You know you work with so many exciting projects on TV and film I love to ask stage actors because

you're a stage beast. I've seen you do so much stuff and you have worked with some of the

greatest companies and some of the greatest playwrights. Did you grasp filmmaking or the

art of the camera easy for you? Was it a quick lesson for you? Or I spoke to a lot of stars who

like it was rough for me like early on because it was like pull it back pull it back pull it back

what was your experience like the first times working on film and tv yeah no it definitely was

it definitely was an adjustment um because i started training and doing theater stuff from

a very young age and so it's like second nature for me to know how to appear whatever like small

and natural knowing that hundreds and hundreds of people would be watching me including people

who are very far away. And that's a kind of, that is second nature to me. I know how to walk across

the stage in a way that satisfies the requirements of blocking, but also looks like I'm a normal human

being just going for a walk, when of course it actually isn't normal. It's very technical. And

even walking on camera is very different. I love pointing out to people who aren't familiar, but

it's like whenever you see a walking talk scene, people are walking incredibly slow. I mean, it's

actually very hard to walk that slow, especially because, you know, you're trying to maintain

maintain distance from a camera. So both mediums have their kind of technical tricks that you have

to make second nature. And I just had decades more experience because I started so young

with the theater one over the camera one. But eventually you start to turn a corner and it

becomes a fun game. And you kind of realize that your audience, instead of being as full theater

is actually this little box right there. And you just play to the audience, right? Which in this

case as a camera um so you know eventually you crack you kind of crack it but yeah it definitely

threw me off in the beginning was tv your first or film in front of a camera um

probably tv yeah i mean professionally at least professionally yeah yeah because do you remember

that do you remember what it was was it was a guest star was it a tv show it definitely was a

I guess I would not have to think. Oh, I know, yeah

It was in this show called The Breaks, which used to be on VH1

I think it only had a couple of seasons. It was about the origins of hip hop in New York

And I actually, I was only a couple, like maybe two years out of school or something like that

But I ended up testing for like the lead. So I went all the way

I remember going to the Viacon building very weird to do an audition in like a conference room for a bunch of executives and all that that

was very unnerving but uh you know they gave it to the famous guy and uh and then they they tossed

me uh a guest star uh for the pilot as a kind of consolation prize so that was my first one i think

yeah it's crazy because people they say richard you go into this room and there's all these suits

sitting there and they're like wait a minute i'm used to auditioning for a casting director

and a director and you know that's it and then they're like well we don't know we whatever it's

like it's got to be the weirdest thing like a conference room at viacom yeah because that was

for you know the lead in a new series so they they really like brought everybody out or rather

brought you to everybody normally you know you don't have to do all that you know for your regular

guest stars or recurrings or anything like that but yeah that was i mean i was i was very young

and that was my first time experiencing that so it was pretty intense besides you've done some

incredible stuff on stage and screen. But you know, finally, if you could sum up the best part

of the experience of working on this play, what is it for you, Chris

Best part? Well, you know, it is, it's a two-sided thing. For one, artistically

it's deeply fulfilling. As I said, you know, earlier, for me, I gravitate toward material

that challenges me and this challenges me every night to go deeper to um find new you know contours

in kind of the character and to hear new things in the place every night i'm working

as if it's rehearsal like every night i'm like still and that's you can't do that with the some

material you know some materials just kind of what you see is what you get and you know you're You're just kind of like, and it's unfortunate, but that's just the way it goes

But on the other side of that is, like I said, it's not about me. Knowing that I'm a part of something that touches people

There was one night, just the other night, this guy was like really like falling asleep

I don't think it was us, right? I think it was clear this guy didn't get a good night's rest the night before

And, you know, he was in the front row, and that can be incredibly distracting. But I remember thinking, you never know how plays are going to affect someone

So just don't take it personal. Keep going. And sure enough, he got his little power nap in the first third of the play

And he was fully awake for the last two thirds. And after the play, he came up to me fully awake and was like, that was so powerful

Thank you so much. Right? So even when people can't, you know, they had a bender last night, whatever it was, their tank is depleted

The play can kind of like rejuvenate them. And then they're still going to get something from it and be grateful

And like, it's so much bigger than, it's always more than meets the eye

And knowing you're a part of a play that's more than meets the eye is just super rewarding

It's why I do this. So, yeah, that's what it's been like. That is beautifully put because I think every show I have gone to for my entire career of seeing Broadway and off-Broadway shows, there's always somebody

Plays can be soothing where all of a sudden someone sits in their seat and just gets caught up in the whole thing, shuts their eyes for 10 minutes or whatever

But then they wake up and they have the time of their life, right? I mean, I've been in that place before, you know

So, yeah. Well, like I said, I have really enjoyed this today, Chris

because I think the last time I spoke to you was opening night of How I Learned to Drive. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah

When you were at the free bin, now you're at Stage 1. So, I mean, I love Stage 1, too, at the Manhattan Theater Club

It's a beautiful theater. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It is. It's really great. But once again, Chris is one of the stars of MTC's new production of Jeff Augustine's play

Where the Mountain Meets the Sea. Chris, thank you for joining me today at Broadway World

Thank you for having me. It's good to see you. Now, listen, have an incredible opening night

All righty? Thank you. Thank you so much. And everyone, for all your theater coverage, look no further than Broadway World

And we'll see you at the theater. Take care, everyone. Take care, Chris