Tony Award nominee Sam Tutty is no longer a stranger to New York

For his Broadway-debut performance in the two-hander Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York), Tutty is a contender for Best Leading Actor in a Musical.

Summary

• Sam Tutty is a Tony Award nominee for his Broadway-debut performance in the musical Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)
• He plays an excitable Brit named Dougal who sparks a connection with a New Yorker ahead of a wedding
• Tutty discusses his own NYC experiences; the evolution of his performance; and starring opposite fellow Tony nominee Christiani Pitts

The first time New York Theatre Guide spoke with Sam Tutty, about a month before the first Broadway performance of Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York), the British actor had been in NYC for all of three days. He'd seen some sights with friends and had "a great Coca-Cola" at the popular Theatre District haunt Dutch Fred's, but he otherwise touched down directly into a whirlwind of Broadway press.

"I was so jet-lagged, I barely remember it," he recalled when we sat down again in late March. By that second chat, he was properly settled in, he said. He'd gained more NYC know-how and a favorite bodega order (Caesar wraps), not to mention heaps of critical acclaim for his Broadway-debut performance. Flash-forward again to now, and Tutty also has his first Tony Award nomination for Best Leading Actor in a Musical.

Clearly, the city has welcomed him with open arms, a hope shared by Tutty's onstage character. England-born Dougal is an excitable NYC rookie who arrives imagining an experience straight out of his favorite movies, and lifelong Brooklynite Robin (fellow first-time Tony nominee Christiani Pitts) provides a swift reality check upon collecting him from the airport the day before a wedding.

Tutty would argue that Dougal's not entirely off the mark: "The culture lives up to every piece of media I digested as a child," he said of his own NYC experience. And besides, if you think Two Strangers's premise still sounds like a Hollywood rom-com, you're not wrong, either. Dougal and Robin gradually open up about their upbringings, family troubles, and love lives as they traverse the city, developing a connection that surprises them both.

There are no other actors in the musical, and according to Tutty, "The gift of that is that we can almost film-act. It's really, really fun, and people, even at the back, pick it up because there's no distractions."

With eight total Tony nominations including Best Musical, this little show is clearly making waves in the Big Apple. Tutty himself is already an Olivier Award winner for the London premiere of Dear Evan Hansen and has spent nearly three years with Dougal, having previously originated the role in two U.K. runs (opposite Dujonna Gift) and a pre-Broadway engagement in Boston (with Pitts).

Tutty reflected with New York Theatre Guide on the evolution of his performance, his onstage chemistry with Pitts, and his own NYC adventures. We're sure he won't be a stranger to the NYC theatre scene.

Get Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) tickets now.

You're a Tony nominee now, but let's go back to the beginning: your first Broadway performance in Two Strangers. What was that day like?

I was unbelievably scared. [...] All day, people kept asking me, "How are you feeling?" [...] And my answer was always, "Yeah, this is great. This is amazing." But that doesn't feel like enough. That answer doesn't feel like you've scratched the itch, you have not expressed yourself accurately enough — until I finished "New York," Dougal's first song.

People just went crazy, and I saw my family [...] a few rows from the front. This absolute emotional wave just hit me completely, and people could see I was physically trying not to cry.

It was similar to an Evan Hansen, up there within the echelon of very amazing experiences I've had so far.

Has your approach to Dougal changed the longer you've played him?

Full transparency, the show is far more intense now physically, vocally. I feel the show in my body now toward the end of the week, and I never felt that before. It's genuinely the atmosphere of Broadway, the atmosphere of the audience. They've completely changed what I could have even believed this show could be.

Because of that, I'm finding the moments of stillness and the moments of calm in Dougal, because he's an absolute whirlwind in the first 40 minutes. He doesn't stop moving. [...] I really like to relish those moments, but not too much. Just to give the audience breadcrumbs is very, very, very satisfying.

Like what?

Really quick, fleeting moments looking at Robin early on because we obviously have to set up [...] a potential romance. How is this going to happen? But at the same time, we're giving the audience all the reasons why it can't happen.

You said the Broadway audience has made you see the show differently. How so?

There are so many more jokes in this show than I have experienced. [...] When we did the show in front of a New York, grizzled audience — experienced New Yorkers — they were laughing at sentences I was happy to just power through. The synapses in my brain exploded. In that moment, time stood still, and I flicked through the show like a filing cabinet, all the other potential moments [where] that could happen. And they did tenfold.

It's such a beautiful atmosphere, and it's really changed my perspective on acting as a whole and how influential an audience can be, which is magnified by the fact that it's just myself and Christiani on stage.

Have any responses to the show particularly stuck with you?

The show centers around Dougal's relationship with his father [and] his wonderful relationship with his mother. [...] People have come up to me saying, "I lost my mom," or "I lost my father, and that helped."

If I can help in any way with somebody's emotions and [...] give them aforementioned ingredients to come to a conclusion in something they're dealing with, that is a happy, happy accident I am more than willing to make every single night.

With all that in mind, how do you make Dougal's boundless optimism feel authentic and not like a caricature?

When I first encountered Dougal, that was definitely something I was very aware of, that maybe I am appearing like a bad actor, this loud person who's forcing jokes down people's throats. And it probably was that for some time, until we were exposed to an audience. I realized that, yes, he's energetic, but that's his truth. You don't have to be physicalizing or forcing energy. There is just this whimsy to him in this city, which he probably wouldn't have in such severity if he was back in the U.K.

That was similar to me when I first came here to New York. There was this wide-eyed whimsy and revelry to the city that annoyingly matched every single hope and dream I hoped that this city would be. So it's holding on to, this is his truth, not a joke. What he's saying is funny, but it's not funny because he's trying to be funny. [...] What [the writers have] done is unfathomably intricate and difficult and sensitive.

I'm sure Christiani has supported you throughout this.

I said this to her recently: She has created pockets of facial expressions that amplify the laughter tenfold. I can't tell you the feeling that gives me, that I'm performing with someone who is so self-aware and so emotionally intelligent. [...] I feel so supported, and I hope I do the same for her.

What's your theory about Robin and Dougal's fate once the curtain falls?

My boring answer is that I don't know. A lack of a conclusion is my conclusion. I would like to think that they find each other down the line. What I hope more for them is that they remain true to what those experiences have given them, and they hold that, and they don't forget that, and they don't forget each other.

Why should people see Two Strangers?

There are some shows out there now that are just so big and so expensive, and they are incredible and you should go and see them. But the beauty of theatre is that you can have something on a different level, where the scale and the stakes are still just as big, but the avenue we get there is far different.

[I] dare you to watch two people on a stage talking to each other and then singing, and see if you get invested in that story about two unimportant people who aren't trying to save the world [...] They're just trying to figure out who they are without knowing that's what they're doing.

It's a beautiful story about all sorts of love: platonic, illicit, familial, unrequited, everything. It's a real gift as an actor to play that. So, if you come and see our show, you will definitely also see myself and Christiani's endless gratitude being on that stage.

What's the most "New York" thing that's happened to you?

After a press event me and Christiani did, [a woman] was rapping down the street. She gave Christiani the mic, and then Christiani started rapping, "Come and see Two Strangers," and then she grabbed the mic back and then said some swear words.

I was severely jet-lagged and I'd been, like I said at the start, in the city for about 20 hours. And that was remarkable. I said, "That is the best first impression I've ever seen."

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Photo credit: Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) on Broadway. (Photos by Matthew Murphy)