Interview: Justin Huertas of LIZARD BOY at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley Combines His Twin Passions for Comic Book Heroes & Musical Theater

It would seem that Lizard Boy's Justin Huertas can do just about anything. Huertas not only wrote the book, music and lyrics for the new indie folk-rock musical, he stars in it, too. Oh, and Huertas also plays a kick-ass cello. (Just try that, Lin-Manuel Miranda!) Lizard Boy marks the return of in-person performances for TheatreWorks Silicon Valley's as it kicks off its 51st season. With an infectious original score that has already captured more than one million streams on Spotify, this comic-book infused musical follows the title character, Trevor, who embarks on a first date turned stunning mythological journey and along the way discovers identity, acceptance, and how to save world. Lizard Boy will be presented October 6-31, 2021 at the Mountain View Center for the Performing. For more information, visit TheatreWorks.org or call (650) 463-1960.

I caught up with Huertas by phone last week while he was between rehearsals for the show. We had a free-flowing conversation about Lizard Boy's gestation, his abiding passion for both comic books and musical theater, his transformation from cellist to musical theater multi-hyphenate, his musical influences, his passion for telling stories from the perspective of a queer Filipino American, and his hopes for where his career might take him from here (Watch out, Disney and Marvel, Huertas has his sights set on you!). Talking to Huertas is a blast. He's funny, forthcoming and charmingly self-effacing. The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

What originally prompted you to create Lizard Boy?

It was commissioned by the then-Artistic Director of Seattle Rep, the late Jerry Manning. He just wanted me to write something for myself and didn't care what it was as long as I played cello. And I was like [dubiously] "Really? It can be anything?" and he was like "Yeah!"

So for a long time I kept a journal and we would scan the journal with playwright Andrea Allen who would kind of support us and see where my little journal entries could go if we wanted to turn them into a play. Sometimes if I didn't have anything interesting to write, they would prompt me with things like "Why don't you write about your family today?" or "Why don't you write your coming out story?" And I was like "Ugh, what a boring story!" Because truly I was like 16 and I quote-unquote came out by saying "Hey, guys, I'm g-" and everyone was instantly like, "Yeah, we know." It was the most boring, uneventful, no-drama coming out story there ever was.

So when they asked me to write my coming out story for this journal, for possible material, I was just like "OK, I gotta spice this up." So I gave me and all my friends super powers, and what I gave to myself was lizard skin. And I was like "No one cared that I was gay, but everyone hated me because of my lizard skin" and I just made up this story. I grew up with comic book superheroes and heroes on television. My favorites were X Men, Spiderman, I loved Ninja Turtles, I loved Power Rangers. And then Jerry Manning was like "I don't know if you know this, but I love comic books." He brought in his collection, and it was like in mint condition, including the first 100 issues of "Fantastic Four" and I was like "You're a nerd, too?" And he was like "Yeah. This is probably what we should write."

And so I just started writing. I'd never written anything before so he had me write some scenes. I had written songs quietly on my own, and for the first time had someone else listen to them, which was Jerry, and I'm like "I don't even know if this is good. Do you like this?" And he's like "Oh, you could totally write songs for this." So yeah - it was basically him telling me "You have the ability to do this. You should just do it." So that's where it came from.

Lizard Boy premiered at Seattle Rep back in 2015, and has had subsequent productions elsewhere since then. Has the show changed much over that time?

Yeah! Like I said, it's the first show I ever wrote, but then over the years because it ended up being such a favorite in the Seattle area, suddenly theaters were asking me to write more. So I was just like "OK, cool, maybe I'm a writer now?" And I started writing additional musicals. I wrote music and lyrics for an adaptation of Howl's Moving Castle, which was awesome, and then I wrote another new musical called The Last World Octopus Wrestling Champion for a theater in Seattle called ArtsWest.

Basically, in the process of writing more and more, I was honing my skills. I started writing Lizard Boy in my 20's so, as time goes on, I am learning more about life and myself, and this journey that I wrote for the character Trevor in Lizard Boy. Now I have a whole new vocabulary for the journey that he goes on because I myself have been through that journey like two or three times.

Every time I approach Lizard Boy it's always from this new - like I wanna do big air quotes for this - "wiser" point of view. I just have new language for the kinds of emotional hardships that he's gone through, that I've gone through. His journey is a lot more emotionally deep and complex than it was before, and I think the music is tighter, everything is just a little bit tighter. There's even a new song for this production at TheatreWorks.

Great! What is the new song called?

Um, I don't currently have a title for it... but it will have a title, and it will probably be awesome. [laughs]

Since you've been doing this show on and off for several years now, what do you personally hope to get out of the run at TheatreWorks?

As much as it is wonderful to keep going back and fine-tuning this show, I really hope, I'm crossing my fingers, that what we present at TheatreWorks is kind of like the ultimate, final evolution. Like if this is a Pokémon, the first version, like the freakin' Bulbasaur, was 2015. Then the one in 2016 at Diversionary Theatre in San Diego, that's 2.0, and this production at TheatreWorks, we're nicknaming 3.0. This is like the Venusaur.

What I really am excited for in the very near future is to release my grip on it creatively and say "This is the show!" and then release it to other people. I'd love to see high schools and colleges do this, and I feel like every production that we do, I'm one step closer to that dream.

How did you connect with the folks at TheatreWorks?

We had applied for the National Alliance for Musical Theatre Festival way back in 2016, and we were accepted, but things kind of fell apart. I think it was just a schedule thing. But then we reapplied for the 2020 festival, and we were selected, and we were so excited. It was going to be in-person and then the pandemic happened, and it became virtual. One of the people on the selection committee was Phil Santora, and I guess he told the leadership at TheatreWorks, "You guys, I just read this musical. I can't tell you what it is, but I really think we have to do it." And then as they were watching the NAMT Festival, they kept watching and being like "What musical was he talking about? Is it this one? I don't know... Is it this one?" It was a two-night thing, and we were the very last one in the whole presentation. And then both Tim Bond and Giovanna Sardelli were like "Omigod, it's Lizard Boy, isn't it?" And that was it. They were just like "You're right, we have to do this."

It's so exciting that yours is the first show to resume live, in-person performances at TheatreWorks.

Yeah, it's wild. The four lizards are me, the director Brandon Ivie, and then my two co-stars, Kiki (Kirsten Delohr Helland) and Bill (William A. Williams). So we made this plan at TheatreWorks, it was announced, and then [much later on] Bill just casually mentioned - he's a very soft-spoken man - "That's like, you know, my hometown." And we were like "Your what?!" It turns out he literally grew up in Mountainview and so he's driving us around, being like "Yeah, I played putt-putt golf there. I used to work at that Starbucks." So there's a lot of stars aligning with this production.

Were you a musical theater kid in high school?

I turned out to be. I mean I liked musicals, but I think the extent of my musical knowledge was Disney animated movies all through middle school. I was just like "Yeah, I love musicals. Beauty and the Beast is awesome, Aladdin is awesome." I guess now those are actually stage musicals, but I loved the Disney musicals, I knew all the words to every song. Then in high school, I started doing drama more and more. There was a spring musical, everyone would get excited about it, and I would always be the one having to catch up, like "We're doing Les Miz!" and I'm like "I don't know what that means." So we'd go to someone's house and watch like the 10th anniversary [Les Miserables] concert together, and my mind would be blown, and I was just like [in hushed tones] "Gosh, I think I love musical theater."

So yeah, it took all of high school, but my friends made me a musical theater nerd, and then going into college I was "the one." I was just like [snootily] "Oh, you wanna know something? I can tell you, because I already know everything!" So - that was me in college. [laughs]

Where did you go to college and what did you study?

I went to Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington. The music program there is incredible, and I was originally accepted with the intention of studying cello performance. And then in senior year of high school, after I had been accepted, I was cast in The Pirates of Penzance as Major-General Stanley. I had a drawn-on moustache, fake mutton chops, this crazy pith helmet, a decorated uniform and a parasol that was like rainbow, and I was like "I look hilarious." Every time I walked onstage, I got an entrance applause. And in those moments, when I had my parasol and I sang "Yes, yes, I am the major gen-er-al!" the audience went crazy and I was like "Omigod, I want to do this forever!"

My parents had already bought me this like thousands-of-dollars cello, the plan was already to go to PLU for Music, and I told them, "I'm going to study Theatre instead." And they were like "You're what?!" They were not happy, and then once I started getting cast in plays and musicals, and they started having me play cello as an actor, then they were like "Oh, okay. This is fine. We can do this." And then once Lizard Boy happened, my parents were like "Oh, this is the thing you're supposed to do. We totally get it now!" So.... [laughs]

The songs in Lizard Boy are really delightful. They're tuneful, they have great harmonies, and the lyrics manage to be smart and funny but also very heartfelt. What kind of music did you listen to growing up as a kid?

[pauses] Yeah, I can't say that the music I listened to growing up influenced Lizard Boy because it was like pop and R&B. I listened to Janet, when Britney Spears came out, when Backstreet Boys and NSYNC came out, that whole thing, I was super into that. Spice Girls - oh, I was so into Spice Girls! And Aaliyah, Salt-N-Pepa, TLC, Destiny's Child! So basically that was what I listened to through high school. Then in college I started listening to more cast albums. College is when Spring Awakening came out, and "Don't Do Sadness" was the first time I ever heard a cello driving a rock song, and I was like "Omigod, we can do that?" I also had this amazing opportunity to play cello on the second national tour of Spring Awakening. So I got to play the score of Spring Awakening for 8 months of my life and it was incredible.

And what a great learning experience that must have been.

Yeah, absolutely! So then when it came to writing music for this particular show, I definitely had Spring Awakening in my head. As far as harmonies go, I had just gotten into what was then this new band called Joseph. It's a sister band from Portland, and they're a very vocal-driven band. It's three sisters and two of them are twins, and they used to say at their gigs "We have genetically perfect harmonies." because their voices are all the same. Their harmonies were so intricate and beautiful, and going into arranging Lizard Boy, I definitely had Joseph's vocals in my head.

As a queer, Filipino-American musical theater artist, did you have any role models growing up?

I guess my short answer is no, like not one I could necessarily see myself directly in. I mean, there were writers I looked up to. I studied Sondheim in college, and my senior project was on him. I've followed Lin-Manuel Miranda's career and think his lyrics are all just incredible, but ...

You know we have this Filipino pride thing, where it's "Omigod, that person's Filipino!" Like we just have to point out "There's someone else and they come from my background!" Because it just feels so rare. And that's why literally every time Olivia Rodrigo comes on the radio and I'm with someone, I'm just like "She's half-Filipino! I don't know if you know that. She is!" [laughs] I still have that Filipino pride in me.

That's one of the reasons I'm so intent on creating the work that I do, just because I want there to be more of us for younger people to look up to. My really close friend, Sara Porkalob, an amazing artist/activist who is also Seattle-based, is writing a cycle of plays based on her Filipino family called The Dragon Cycle. It's three plays, and two of them are commissioned by ART [American Repertory Theater]. She's also going to make her Broadway debut in 1776 as Edward Rutledge. Both being Seattle babies, we kind of watched each other come up in the industry. I saw a version of the first play in that cycle, Dragon Lady, in Seattle and that was my first time seeing a Filipino family represented onstage. I was already 30 or 31 years old, and it changed my life. I was like "Omigod, I want more Filipino characters onstage." Because a lot of us Filipino actors come into the scene knowing that there are no Filipino roles, so we go for like any sort of ethnically ambiguous character. It's like "OK, well that's the slot I fit into because there's never gonna be anything that completely matches me." But here Sara is, creating a canon of plays that will be just that for Filipino people who are coming into the scene. It's awesome!

You excel at so many things. I mean, you're a playwright-composer-actor-musician. How do you hope your career will develop from this point?

The broader, more emotional goal for me is definitely writing stories. I love the kinds of stories that I get to create, and I just want them to be able to be told anywhere and everywhere. Lizard Boy is something that I can't wait for high schools and colleges to perform, and I want the same thing for all of my other shows.

The more specific goal, and I don't know how far away I am from this, is I want to write for Disney, really bad! [laughs] Like I said, I'm a comic book nerd so I would love to write a musical property for Marvel. That would be like the coolest thing ever.

Since you mentioned Sondheim earlier and he's my favorite musical theater composer, I just have to ask: Do you have a favorite Sondheim show?

Omigod... no, I don't. I feel like it toggles [from day to day].

Well then as of today, September 22nd, what is your favorite Sondheim show and why?

Oh, boy! The thing is I'm gonna pick one and then feel bad that I didn't pick other ones. My toggle goes between Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music and Sunday in the Park with George. I always have my pop music on when I have headphones in, but when I'm in the mood, I will switch to one of those musicals and listen to it front to back, and then switch back to pop music.

I think... I would say my favorite Sondheim musical is probably Sunday in the Park with George just because I'm in the midst of continuing to create and all of those lyrics hit me so hard. And because of this impostor syndrome, you know. Whatever I have to say, someone else has definitely said it before, and I hear Dot say "But you've never said it like this before. You've never told this story before." And you inherently make it different. So that's definitely something that I hold onto.

Um - yeah, so we'll say Sunday is my favorite musical. Today. [laughs]