Pierce Brandt’s Golden Day: Interview with Billy Sprague, Jr.

Billy Sprague, Jr. makes being a professional performer on Broadway sound easy. But, without diminishing his impressive accomplishments, it seems clear that Billy’s success is simply a reflection of who he is. Billy is the kind of person that puts you at ease with his kind spirit, big smile, and contagious laugh. Being a triple threat singer, dancer, and actor, he’ll knock your socks off when you see him perform. Having booked his first Production Contract [which is what an actor might call the holy grail of professional theater contracts] just eleven days after his arrival in Manhattan, Billy became a professional almost immediately after graduating from the University of Central Oklahoma in 1993 with a Bachelor in Music.

Billy’s Broadway credits include Spamalot, Beauty and the Beast, Cats, and the first national tours of Footloose, Beauty and the Beast, and The Radio City Music Hall Spectacular. Billy has also performed with New York City Opera in The Merry Widow and has an extensive list of credits with prominent professional theater companies throughout the country.

Currently, Billy is part of the opening company of the new production of Spamalot in Las Vegas. I was fortunate to catch up with Billy during the final week of previews for Spamalot in Las Vegas for an interview that turned out to be a roaring good time…

Pierce: When did you first get smitten by the theater bug?
Billy: I was actually involved in theater before I had ever seen any live theater as an audience member. My first experience in a show was playing “Young Patrick” in a production of Mame at our local community theater in Chandler, Oklahoma where I grew up. At first, my mother was almost not going to allow me to do it. But, I begged her, “Please let me do this!” I’m not sure why it meant so much to me, because I knew nothing about theater at the time, but I just had the sense that this was something I really wanted to be involved in.

Pierce: What was it like growing up in Oklahoma?
Billy: Chandler is a small farm town of only about 2500 people in the middle of Oklahoma. There really isn’t much culture except for our one community theater, Lincoln County Onstage, which is built in a renovated old garment factory. There’s a handful of people there that have a great love of theater, and they keep it running year after year. At home, I had fields in my backyard, and grew up raising horses and fishing everyday in the summer. My life growing up couldn’t have been more different than my life after moving to New York!

Pierce: When did you first start thinking about being on Broadway?
Billy: I remember getting the Broadway recordings of Les Miserables and Miss Saigon through a friend when I was in high school. I was really turned on by those shows, but it wasn’t until college that I started thinking, “Okay, I’m going to do this for a living, or certainly pursue it.” When I was in college, I saw my first professional production of a Broadway musical, the national touring company of Cats. Never did I think that eight or nine years later I would be in Cats on Broadway.

Pierce: So you really must be the “local boy who did good” back home?
Billy: Everybody’s been so great. The local newspaper did an interview of me, and my family has been very proud. When I made my Broadway debut, I called my high school music and drama teachers on the evening that I was going to perform for the first time. Neither of them answered their phones, but I left them messages letting them know that I was thinking about them and about everything we had done together, and that I was about to make my Broadway debut that night. They called back the next day and left messages in tears. I just wanted them to be a part of that incredible night with me.

Pierce: Is there any one person who influenced you in making your decision to pursue this career?
Billy: Yes, my Mom. I remember her at a very young age telling me and my siblings that there’s nothing we couldn’t do as long as we set our hearts and minds to it. She and my Father raised all their kids to believe that we could go anywhere, pursue anything, and make our dreams come true.

Pierce: What’s your favorite part of being in this business?

Billy: It’s being able to do what I’ve worked so hard to, what I’ve trained to do – the acting and singing and dancing. It’s being on stage and being in front of a live audience and feeling the energy. Nothing can take the place of that. It’s like a train leaving the station: when that overture starts, if you’re not on board then you get left behind!

Pierce: What was your first experience of New York City?
Billy: I had never been east of the Mississippi River, but the summer after I graduated from college, I told my Dad that I wanted to move to New York, and I asked him if he would drive me up there. He said, “When are we going?” We made the drive in two days and he dropped me off in Astoria, Queens where I had found a place to stay with some of my college friends. Then he drove my car back to Oklahoma where he sold it for me. And that was the beginning of my life in New York.

Pierce: What was your first job in New York City?
Billy: Two days after I got there, I got a job at an Eddie Bauer store on the east side of Manhattan. Eleven days later, I called in sick to attend my first audition, which was for The Radio City Music Hall Spectacular starring Susan Anton, directed by Broadway legend Joe Layton, and choreographed by Maurice Hines. It was one of those rare experiences — I went to the audition at 9:30 that morning, started auditioning, kept making it past the cuts, and by 5:00 or 6:00 that evening, there were 6 guys left, and the director stood up and said, “How would you boys like to tour with the Rockettes?” Needless to say, I was thrilled to be a part of it. It was incredible!

Pierce: Is there one experience that stands out over your 14 years of Production Contracts?
Billy: It was getting cast and going into the Broadway company of Spamalot. I joined them while they were still in their first year at the Shubert Theater. David Hyde Pierce was still playing Sir Robin, Hank Azaria was still playing Lancelot, and the rest of the cast was equally wonderful. It was a thrill to be there every night and perform in that show. I was going through rough times personally because my father was in poor health, yet at the end of every evening I got to sing “Look at the Bright Side of Life” on a Broadway stage with confetti falling from the ceiling, surrounded by these amazing people. I just felt so lucky to be there. Spamalot has definitely been the highlight.

Pierce: What other interests do you have?
Billy: My Dad was a pilot, and he always wanted me to get my pilot’s license. So, before he died, I started training to get my license when I would go home to visit him in Oklahoma. I have this fantasy of becoming a pilot for small commercial airlines, flying float planes between Seattle and the San Juan Islands in the Pacific Northwest. I’m working on the license while here in Las Vegas. I also enjoy hiking and being out in nature. Las Vegas isn’t really my kind of place, but my saving grace being here is that just 30 minutes away I can be out in the desert and mountains at Red Rock, and 45 minutes away I can be in the snow at Mt. Charleston. It’s amazing!

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Billy is one of those people that you just can’t hold down. His enthusiasm and love for what he does show in his work and in his life. Broadway and Sin City Vegas are fortunate to have him!