Telly Leung (‘98) is riding the waves. After being heavily involved in SING! while at Stuyvesant and learning the ropes from professionals at Carnegie Mellon, Leung went straight to Broadway in “Flower Drum Song,” became the first non-Caucasian to play the role of Boq in the Chicago production of “Wicked,” and is now part of the ensemble cast of “Rent,” the seventh longest-running Broadway show. From Thursday, June 7 to Thursday, June 21, Leung will be playing Angel, one of the lead roles. In between rehearsals and auditions, Leung spoke to The Spectator about his years at Stuyvesant and his acting career.
The Spectator: Tell me about how you became interested in theater.
Telly Leung: [Theater] was always just a hobby. The first time I actually made money performing was in high school actually. I did this thing called the WB Team 11, which was this group of kids who would do promotional commercials for the WB11. It was like the Mickey Mouse Club for Channel 11. I would come on and I would say something like, “Hi, I’m Telly. Here’s a fresh moment from the Fresh Prince.” It was the first time I actually received a check in the mail for what I did, and I was like, “I can do this as a profession and make money?” So I really started to research that and research university programs that fostered that and had really good connections with the business after school.
TS: How did acting school compare to Stuyvesant?
TL: Actually, it was just as hard. I probably couldn’t repeat Stuyvesant again, but I probably couldn’t repeat college again either. Stuyvesant was such an intense academic environment, but then I went to Carnegie Mellon, which is a conservatory. At Carnegie, many of your hours were at rehearsal studios in rehearsal for a show or teaching a show or running crew for a show. It was just as rigorous and just as time-consuming but it worked a different side of my brain. Because I got such a good education at Stuyvesant, I said, “You know what? I can continue to educate myself in that way.” That good student work ethic at Stuyvesant has always proved to be beneficial to me. So many actors aren’t good students, but I feel like that’s always been my strength. [...] Actors are there to portray real life, and the more you know about life, the better actor you are.
TS: How did your parents react to you becoming an actor?
TL: They were definitely nervous about it because actors don’t have the steadiest work, but I think that it helped that I was already making money in high school doing it. When I got into Carnegie Mellon and I found out how selective they were, I said, “You know what? I owe myself a trip to Pittsburgh.” […] My mom and I jumped on a Greyhound bus last minute and took the 10-hour or 12-hour trip to visit Carnegie Mellon. That’s really what convinced my mom. She watched an acting class. This was actually something that she saw materialize in front of her, that you would get better if your talent was fostered. She saw that there was a faculty that supported this sort of profession, this sort of lifestyle and that there were students just like me that were serious about this and that there was a career for me. [My mom] had this great analogy about children, that children are like the stock market, and you invest your time and your energy and you hope and you pray that your stocks will go up. I remember when I booked my first Broadway show, she was like, “Oh my God. I feel like my stock went up.”
TS: Tell me about what happened after college. How did you land all these great roles?
TL: I was very lucky. During my senior production at Carnegie Mellon, we had a guest director named Billy Porter come in and work with us. He did “Miss Saigon.” He was part of the original Broadway cast fresh out of college. He called his friend at “Saigon” and said, “Listen, I just met this kid at Carnegie Mellon,” and we’re talking about an all- Asian cast here, singing and dancing, and he said, “I met this kid, he’s perfect for the show.” I was actually in tech rehearsal that night for [Porter’s] production. He actually let me leave the show and he said, “Jump on a Greyhound bus. I’ve gotten you into an invited dance audition for the Broadway production of ‘Miss Saigon’ coming up in the fall.” So I went and auditioned all day. I remember the director going up to me and saying, “What are your plans?” And I said, “Well, I’m going to do this production in the summer and then I’m coming to New York.” He said, “Well, don’t sign any contracts or anything. Leave yourself available.” So I had a good feeling that I was going to get the job. I was very lucky that I came right out of school and had a Broadway show to do.
TS: What is it like being in “Rent”?
TL: I call it my 16-year-old dream-cometrue. When Rent came out, I was a junior at Stuy and I remember lining up for my 20-dollar ticket and sitting in the front row and being completely moved by the show. I saw the original Broadway cast, and now, 10 years later, to be in the show that’s been running 11 years, for me to have the chance to go back into it, it’s amazing. It’s one of the shows that inspired me to do theater.
TS: What is it like being a minority in the theater business?
TL: I’ve definitely been blessed with nontraditional casting opportunities. I am the first Asian person cast in a critical role in any production of “Wicked,” so I thought that was really a blessing. I was really lucky, because the director of “Wicked” came to the revival of “Pacific Overtures” at Studio 54 that Roundabout had done. He saw me in that show, and he was like, “Oh, Telly could really do that role and I want him to open the Chicago production.” So, if I had a lesson to tell, it would be, you don’t have to be at an audition to be auditioning.
As far as the Asian acting community is concerned, it’s really a family. There aren’t that many of us in New York, and they say if you’ve done one production of “Miss Saigon,” you’re probably five or six degrees away from every other Asian actor in the city. It’s pretty true, you start seeing the same faces at auditions and I found that the more people I meet in the Asian acting community, the bigger my family becomes.
[...] When I saw “Miss Saigon” on Broadway, I was like, “Wow, look at all these Asian performers. They’re phenomenal and they’re singing and dancing and they’re just as good as the Caucasian or African-American actors. “Miss Saigon” was running for 11 years, and so many Asian actors came through it. And with “Rent,” there’s really a multiethnic class, where there’s everyone under the sun, shape, size and race and that really inspires me.
Correction:It was misstated that Leung’s first Broadway show was “Miss Saigon.” His first Broadway show was “Flower Drum Song.”