Actor/director Billy Tighe has experienced some intriguing synchronicities between his busy Broadway career and his Atlanta roots. As a senior at Pebblebrook High School, the Marietta native had an early success performing in the Stephen Schwartz musical Pippin. Years later, that same musical was the vehicle for Tighe’s Broadway debut.
He also dreamed of performing at the legendary Fox Theatre and enjoyed a major wish fulfillment as an adult when the national tour of Finding Neverland, in which Tighe played the leading role of J. M. Barrie, came to Atlanta and the Fox stage.
After Pebblebrook, Tighe attended the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, where he met his future wife, fellow performer Kristine Reese. He soon found himself performing on and off Broadway, made his London West End debut in The Book of Mormon, and toured nationally in Wicked, La Cage Aux Folles, Dirty Dancing and Finding Neverland, which also took him to Japan.
In 2020, Tighe and Reese returned to Atlanta, where they have been involved with City Springs Theatre Company. This week, Tighe debuts with The Atlanta Opera in Tomer Zvulun’s production of Cabaret, which opens tomorrow as part of the “Come As You Are” festival at Pullman Yards. In addition to Cabaret, which runs through June 19, the opera will also stage two performances of As One, a chamber opera about a transgender woman, on June 9 and 11. The opera will also present an afternoon cabaret performance by internationally-acclaimed tenor Jay Hunter Morris, who lives in Roswell, on June 18.
ArtsATL sat down with Tighe to discuss what has been a fascinating rediscovery of his home turf.
ArtsATL: You have had a very successful career on both Broadway and in London. What brought you back to Atlanta?
Billy Tighe: Initially it was Covid. My wife and I had a 5-month-old. There was no work for theater actors. We came to visit my family and there was an opportunity to work with City Springs Theatre. I had an awareness that as an artist I had nowhere to be, nothing to do, and no way to express myself. I suddenly realized that all these high school kids were experiencing the same thing. I remembered how crucial that period in my life was. So, we started pitching things to City Springs because they were willing to take on the risk of creating training opportunities for young people. We created a conservatory program that now has four companies.
I built a relationship with Shuler Hensley, who is the artistic director of City Springs as well as a famous Broadway actor. Shuler was one of the first people who said to me, “You don’t have to give up the dream of working on Broadway just because you live in Atlanta,” He has lived here 15 years or so, has a family, and he’s working on Broadway right now. That allowed my wife and I to breathe easier. We still have a home in New Jersey that is being rented out, and we just purchased a home in Woodstock. We can explore what it is like to live in two places at once.
The Broadway model is changing. The hybrid model our union is putting forth means that many auditions are moving to video submissions. So, this has provided us with an opportunity to stay where we want to be. Also, these last two years with our son really put things into perspective. We always knew we would not live permanently in New York. I think we viewed a Broadway career as something akin to a professional sport, where you do it until you have made enough compromises in your personal life that you can’t handle it anymore.
ArtsATL: There is a saying that when you are 20 you want to leave home, and when you are 40 you want to go home.
Tighe: I totally agree. I envision that there will be performance opportunities that are exciting enough that we would go where we needed to take them. I’m not by any stretch of the imagination saying that we are quitting professional theater at that level. We are both still with our managements. I think we are just now more selective about opportunities that mean being away from each other and from our son, especially now that we have had two years of work here in Atlanta. We have felt so welcomed back and have been amazed by the opportunities Atlanta has for growth as a theater town.
ArtsATL: What have you discovered about the performing arts scene in Atlanta?
Tighe: I have been overwhelmed by the sheer abundance of talent here on both ends of the spectrum, whether it be performers or the creative teams. I really think there is an opportunity for the broader artistic community in Atlanta to grow in a big and impactful way that I hope I can be part of. I am excited to see all these theaters that are starting to communicate with each other, and now we have the emergence of the film industry here. What is so interesting is that when living here previously I wasn’t exposed that much to the greater Atlanta arts community because the schedule at Pebblebrook was about dedication to that experience. Now that we have had the opportunity to work with people, I have been blown away, honestly.
ArtsATL: You have found some interesting ways of pivoting during a difficult time.
Tighe: “Pivoting” is a great word. With actors, there’s a slow dawning. You work at achieving your dreams, then suddenly you wake up and think, “How long can I really do this?” In our business you finish a job, then start from scratch every time unless you happen to catch a big wave and become Broadway famous, or TV famous; and then you are in a whole other league of trouble because you have to keep that fame.
I had had little thought about what I was going to do when that pivot time came. But after coming back, I woke up one day, looked at my wife and said, “I think we’ve pivoted without knowing it.” It began with an altruistic need to help these kids, but it has made us reevaluate ourselves as artists too, which is the most rewarding thing.
I always thought pivoting was going to be this scary dream killer. I’ve discovered that it has made me a better artist, because it has made me think about articulating what was successful about my work. It has been so rewarding to see students grow; not only as artists, but as people, because ultimately that is what we are working on.
ArtsATL: What inspires you to do what you do?
Tighe: For me, the arts were initially a place where I found acceptance. I had a tough middle school experience. It was because of Pebblebrook that my life changed. I discovered that I was good at something. I was allowed to be creative, and funny, and weird, and it wasn’t judged or met with ridicule. That was a big difference for me.
When you go into your professional career it becomes about “How far can I go?” There can be a trap in that. You can lose sight of the reason why you got into this in the first place. Thankfully, being in shows like Finding Neverland, which surrounded me with kids that I was working with every day, reminded me of what was so important about what we do.
I met a young woman when I did A Chorus Line at City Springs recently, who told me that the first show she ever saw was Finding Neverland at the Fox. She mentioned having met me at the stage door then and thanked me for having a conversation with her about the arts that was transformative for her. That is really what it’s all about. The arts are a great place to learn about yourself. The whole pursuit of an art form is to grow as a person. And you find yourself with a fulfilled life.
ArtsATL: So, how is it doing Cabaret with The Atlanta Opera?
Tighe: I’m very excited because I have never worked with an opera company before. I am extremely curious as to how the process will go in terms of rehearsal etiquette, the staging and music rehearsals; that is going to be fascinating. And you can keep digging into Cabaret endlessly; it never gets old. So, I am very interested in exploring this piece with another set of actors and grateful to get the chance again, because the last time I did it was in 2019. The world has been in a wild and crazy place since then, so it will be very interesting to attack some of those themes again with a very new perspective.
ArtsATL: You seem like an insightful, contemplative person who has done a lot of soul searching.
Tighe: I’m glad to hear you say that is what you got out of our conversation, because that is what the arts have provided for me. That is what is best about it all. The arts should make you think that way.
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Mark Thomas Ketterson is a Chicago-based arts critic and writer. He is the Chicago correspondent for Opera News magazine, and has also written for Playbill, the Chicago Tribune and other publications.
