Today we’d like to introduce you to West Hyler.
Hi West, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
My name is West Hyler and I’ve worked on 5 Broadway shows, 3 television shows, ran the largest musical theater festival in the world, and I’m currently the Executive Director of the South Carolina New Play Festival. -I was born in the south (for me it was Kentucky) and neither of my parents were in the arts. And yet, even though I was raised far from a big city and had no family connection to the business, I’ve made in career in theater. When I was 13, we moved to Ft Lauderdale, Florida where I was an awkward, southern teenager and very much a fish out of water. I was bullied, I was friendless, and I had a lot of emotions and a lot of imagination, but nowhere to put them. My mom tried enrolling me in everything that a Southern boy was supposed to excel at- which basically meant athletics- and even though I tried every sport, nothing clicked. I just couldn’t find my people. Finally, I auditioned for a local children’s theater. I was cast in Jack in Beanstalk and I loved every second of it. For the rest of that year, I was in every show they did.
-I loved it so much that I got a headshot and auditioned for the local magnet arts high school, Dillard School of the Arts. The magnet school was inside a regular school, so half the day I was in English, math, science, social studies, and the other half of the day I learned the important things, like ballet, drama, Musical Theater, and theater tech. All of which have been very important in my career.
And I finally found my sport—it was ballet. Yeah. My mom dropped me off at ballet classes and took my younger sister to volleyball practice. Not what she imagined (I even danced in the Super Bowl Halftime Show with Patti Labelle and Tony Bennett. ) It was the weirdest superbowl halftime show ever, and involved someone stealing the Lombardi trophy, Indiana Jones’ parachuting onto the field to save it, a dude playing tribal drums wearing an enormous serpent headdress, Patti LaBelle as a high priestess/goddess, and, at one point, Tony Bennett showing up to save Indy in a bar brawl by hitting a bad guy on the head. True story. Google it. But dance was just a side quest, not part of the main mission. That would be drama and theater, which is where I found my identity. During this time, I auditioned for everything I could locally. Community Theater, Professional Theater, TV, Dance- everything. If there was an audition I could go to, I went to it. Mostly I got rejected. But I was cast in an MTV music Video for a Gloria Estefan song, and I was cast in a professional production of “Aint Gonna Study War No More,” which was directed by Vinnette Carroll, the first Black woman to direct on Broadway.
-I started undergrad at a very expensive BFA program, and my mom had to get a second mortgage on her house to pay for a single year of tuition… I felt incredibly guilty, I didn’t think the things they were teaching me were worth it, and I was in the BFA acting program and realized I wanted to be a director. But directing was a different BFA program and the faculty wouldn’t even let me observe the directing classes. So I dropped out after 4 months and started my own children’s theater company. At that time south Florida had all these townships, which were planned communities built with a central area for gathering, and one of these townships had a ballroom in the central area which pretty much was empty most of the time. I pitched an idea to the guy who ran the township to let me and my friend start a children’s theater with actors aged 8-14 and produce shows on Saturday mornings in the ballroom. He said yes, but where is the audience going to sit? Well, because the ballroom no seats so I ‘borrowed’ old carpet samples from the dump behind a carpet warehouse and handed them out for seating. We called it “Magic Carpet Children’s Theatre’. We would buy donuts and coffee and sell them to the kids parents. We became so successful that the guy who ran the Township took me aside after about six months and told me he would that he would take over the children’s theater company. I had no contract, nothing signed, so I had no proof it was mine. I was only 19 years old and I was powerless to protect myself.
-I decided I needed an actual education and I re-enrolled in college, this time at Centre College, a liberal arts school, in Danville, Kentucky. In my case, going to a small liberal arts college with no BFA program was a better choice than going to a top BFA acting conservatory like DePaul. By the time I went back to college I knew what I wanted to learn and WHY I was going to college. I knew how much I was comfortable taking in loans and how much I was uncomfortable asking my mom to help out.
-In 1999 I graduated from Centre College and I moved to Greenville, South Carolina. At that time, the Warehouse theater had what they called a Journeyman program. Many regional theaters had some version of an apprentice or intern program where young actors who just graduated from college could spend a year at the theater; building scenery and hanging lighting, working for FREE, and in return might be cast as the 2nd spear carrier in a Shakespeare show. The Warehouse program was better than most because we only rehearsed at night, so the ‘journeymen’ could get day jobs and because we generally got cast in better roles. I remember sitting on the loading dock of the Warehouse on Dec 31, 1999, and celebrating ‘living in America, at the end of a millenia’ with a great group of journeyman, and a lot of whom have gone on to have careers; Cassie Beck is a Broadway actress who recently did the tour of “what the constitution means to me”, Blake White runs LEAN ensemble, a small professional theater in Hilton Head, and Rick Dildine runs the “Alabama Shakespeare Festival” a major producing Theater.
-That summer I started my second theater company, called Mythmakers. I’d learned a lot from Magic Carpet and from my undergraduate classes in economics, humanities, and business. This time I had contracts and a board. We rehearsed during the summer on a farm in Georgetown, South Carolina and then toured the Southeast US with productions of Classic and canonical plays. I was on the road with the company, when the principal of a magnet arts High School in Greenville (The Fine Arts Center) called me on my first cell phone and said that the teacher who ran the theater department was leaving and they were going to do a national search for a new teacher. “Oh, do you want me to apply,” I asked. “No,” he said, “I want you to do the job for a year, until we find someone qualified.” Oh, ok. So I came back for to Greenville for a third year and, at 23 years old, ran the high school theater program at the Fine Arts Center.
-While teaching, I had decided I wanted to be director and the only option I had was to try and be an assistant director. And I knew exactly who I wanted to learn from. There’s a major producing theater in Kentucky named “The Actors Theater of Louisville” that was run by Jon Jory. It was a beacon for me growing up in Kentucky, and it had the largest new play festival in the world; called the “Humana Festival of New American Plays”. The Festival was founded in 1976 and grew into an internationally renowned event, where people came from all over the world to see it. Great plays came out of the festival, like the Pulitzer Prize Winners “the Gin Game”, “Dinner with friends”, and “Crimes of the heart”, and Obie winners like “The Christians”, and “Appropriate”, and “Big Love” to name but a tiny few of the hundreds of plays from Humana. And it produced a very popular play called “Keeley and Du”. That show was written by an anonymous playwright named Jane Martin and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
– I had written to Actors Theater of Louisville with a letter addressed to Mr. Jory and asking if I could observe rehearsals for the Humana Festival of 2001. I received no reply. So in 2002, I showed up anyway. Rehearsals for the Humana Festival were going on. I found my way to the door to the door of Jon’s rehearsal room. He was directing a Jane Martin premiere called “Flaming Guns of the Purple Sage” After a few minutes, the door opened and the cast and creative team came out for a 10 minute break. I approached Jon, who I had NEVER met, and told him I about the letter I’d written, and that I was here to ask if I could observe his rehearsal process. He obviously thought I was a crazy stalker and, with great trepidation, told me I could observe until lunch and then I should probably leave the building (likely with security). I watched for bit and when the cast broke for lunch, Jon warily approached me and asked I’d learned anything. Now, he had written several books on acting and I had read them all. So I was prepared. I recited back the important lessons I’d learned from his books, “yes I said, I see how backstory helps actors create truth onstage, and how using actions and tactics makes relationships varied and interesting, and how a show’s pacing can be strengthened by speaking through punctuation and playing an objective until the end of the line.” “Wow” he replied “you learned all that in a single hour? Would you like to have lunch?” I stayed on that show the entire rehearsal process and ended up being listed as Assistant Director in the program. Then Jon took me to the Guthrie Theater with him, where I was his assistant on another Jane Martin world premiere called “Good Boys”, and then we went to the Alliance Theater in Atlanta together. Jon is still a good friend, and years later, I directed the NY City premiere of another Jane Martin play called H20.
-Now, because of the Humana Festival, Jon knew everyone in American Theater. So, in 2003, when I applied to graduate schools for a Directing MFA I did so with a recommendation letter from him. That’s how a country boy from Kentucky ended up at one of top directing MFA programs in the country, University of California at San Diego.
– San Diego is a very special city, theatrically speaking. There are two major producing theaters in the city, La Jolla Playhouse and the Old Globe. Both of which regularly transfer shows from their stages to Broadway. The Old Globe produced the world premieres of “Hairspray”, “Bright Star”, “Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder”, “the Full Monty”, and “Into The Woods”. While La Jolla Playhouse sent 33 shows to Broadway, including “Come From Away”, “Escape to Margaritaville”, “Big River”, “Tommy”, and “Jersey Boys”. It was “Jersey Boys” that changed my life.
– Des McAnuff was the Artistic Director the La Jolla Playhouse. Des is one of the biggest Broadway directors with 5 TONY nominations and 2 TONY wins. He directed the original Broadway productions of “Big River”, “The Who’s Tommy”, and “Aint Too proud”, to name but a small handful. He happened to see my thesis production at UCSD and one day called me and asked if I wanted to be his Associate Director on the musical about Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons.
-I joined Jersey Boys in 2006 as Associate Director on Broadway and as the show became a mega-hit I expanded the job to both national tours, the Toronto production, the Vegas production, and the West End premiere and eventually, I staged the international productions in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Africa. I visited every one of these productions once every 8 weeks, so when we had 9 productions spanning the globe, that meant every single week I was in another city as the artistic overseer of a multi-billion-dollar company.
-Steve Martin mentioned “Jersey Boys” in his autobiography, he said “What I learned from watching Jersey Boys is that the most interesting part of the story is the beginning. Once you’re successful, no one cares. Then It’s just, I met this person, I met this person”. So, following Steve’s advice, I’m going to skip over the next decade and the other Broadway shows I worked on, which culminated in me, at 39 years old, as story writer and co-director on Cirque Du Soliel’s first Broadway musical “Paramour”.
– Instead, I’d like to talk about another beginning. One I didn’t see coming. At the beginning of 2020 I was regularly working on Broadway, directing and developing new shows all over the country, and running the largest musical theater festival in the world, the New York Musical Theater Festival (NYMF). In March of 2020 I was rehearsing a new show in Las Vegas while running NYMF through my computer when I wasn’t in rehearsal. My wife, Shelley Butler, an incredibly talented director who has her own fascinating story, and our 10 year old son Dashiell had flown to Vegas for the opening. They landed at McCarran airport the evening of March 13. Friday the 13. While they were in the air, Broadway announced that it was shutting down. Two days later was March 15, which in Shakespeare’s “Julius Ceasar” is the day that Ceasar is assassinated by his best friend, Brutus. All during the play people are warning him, “beware the ides of March”. So let’s just say it’s an ominous day in which an entire world can change. The morning of March 15 I got a call from the front desk. “You need to be out of your room in 24 hours. The Las Vegas strip is closing until further notice”.
-We didn’t want to go back to New York, the COVID hotbed of America, and we couldn’t stay in Vegas. So we rented an RV and drove out to the Grand Canyon to let this COVID thing blow over. While we were there the Vegas company called me to say the show was postponed indefinitely, and there was no need to return. Shelley heard from LA that her next show was cancelled. Our son’s school announced it was going virtual. The news said to shelter in place. But we were in an RV, so we sheltered in place while on the move. We would pull into McDonald’s parking lots and jump on their free wifi every morning so Dash could do his virtual classes we’d hike in state parks that were virtually empty, and then we’d hit the open road and head east toward my father’s farm, which was in Georgetown, South Carolina.
-I expected to stay with my dad for a week or two until it felt safe enough to return to New York. We were at my dad’s farm for Three months. At 43 years old, my family and I moved back in with my father. You know those jokes about a grown man still living with his parents. That was me. During this time every single job that Shelley or I had booked was cancelled. We’d spent 20 years building successful directing careers, by May of 2020 neither of us had any work.
-We had our entire industry disappear overnight without any indication of when it might return. We had no income, and without work, we couldn’t afford the rent on our upper east side apartment. So I booked a plane ticket, rented a Uhaul, hired movers, and in the height of Covid, flew back to New York City to move out of our apartment. The streets were all deserted, like it was a ghost town. Everything was closed and boarded up. The grocery stores had next to nothing on their shelves. But every night, at 6pm, all the windows would open and people would bang pans, ring noisemakers, sing songs, scream, clap, and go crazy. The city wasn’t empty, it was packed, but no one was leaving their apartment. It was unnerving. More frightening, and heartwarming, and heartbreaking than any apocalyptic movie.
– At this point, we investigated cities nearby Georgetown to spend a “gap year” in until NYC became safe again. Charleston? No. Columbia? Nah. Myrtle Beach? No way. What about Greenville? “What’s Greenville,” my wife asked. “Oh it’s a lovely city, I lived there 20 years ago. Really cute.” Nearly 20 years had passed between when I left Greenville and when I returned. “Oh my god,” Shelley said, “this city is beautiful. You didn’t tell me it was this nice.” I responded “Shelley, it wasn’t this nice when I left.”
-We decided to spend a “gap year” in Greenville, SC. But two things happened that changed our plans. The first is that several of the most important new plays festivals in America closed during or after COVID: the New York Musical Theater Festival closed, the Humana Festival where I met Jon Jory closed, the Sundance Theater Festival, which Robert Redford started the same time he started the Sundance Film Festival closed. All over the country, places dedicated to new plays and musicals had to close their doors during the theatrical shutdown.
-Shelley and I had built 20 years of connections with the best playwrights, composers, and lyricists in the country, and they were complaining about a dearth of opportunities for new plays and musicals to be developed. We realized Greenville was an ideal city for new play festival that could fill the void and started the South Carolina New Play Festival. I am the Executive Director and Shelley is the Artistic Director, and 2025 will be the festival’s fourth year. In just 3 years we’ve become an important stop on the industry tour of high-profile festivals. We’ve already had three alumni shows premiere in NYC: “Dodi & Diana” by Kareem Fahmy with Colt Couer, “All the World’s a Stage” by Adam Gwon with Keen, and “Stuntboy” by Melvin Tunstall III and Gregory Dean Borowksy with Theatreworks. Des McAnuff came in 2023 to direct an unproduced Michael Friedman musical, and we’ve had SCNPF alumni shows premiere at La Jolla Playhouse, Two River Theatre, Merrimack Repertory, and Charlotte Children’s Theatre. This summer’s festival will include five staged readings by writers including Aurin Squire, Rachel Bonds, and Kooman and Dimond, along with outdoor street-theater performances, a Broadway cabaret with Mary Kate Morrissey, a scholarship contest, and a new musical that I’m co-writing and directing called “Merlin Returns” starring the Vegas headliner “Piff the Magic Dragon” with music by Matt Schatz.
-I still also work nationally and internationally and this fall will travel to Sofia, Bulgaria to direct a new Bulgarian musical called “Mystery of Music” that is about the way underground musicals helped fight against the fascist art of the Soviet Union. When I was last in Bulgaria I saw a production of an American play called “Crimes of the Heart”. There in the program, written in Cyrillic, were the words “first presented at the Humana Festival of New American Plays”. That’s the kind of reach and impact that theater festival can have on the world and it’s what we’re building in Greenville with the SC New Play Festival.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
A lot of successful people in the business or either wealthy, born into the business, or made connections during their childhood in New York. Both Shelley and I come from outside both of those worlds, neither of us has disposable income, is a theater legacy, or grew up in NYC. It is definitely a harder road when you only start to make connections and in your mid 20s and, even then, you don’t know the people you’re supposed to meet!
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m a director, writer, and producer working across theater, circus, and immersive entertainment. My work lives at the intersection of story and spectacle, uniting theatrical narrative with visually stunning, and physically dynamic performances. I’ve directed and developed projects internationally, from the Sydney Opera House to the Las Vegas Strip. -I specialize in large-scale productions that blend traditional storytelling with cutting-edge technology, acrobatics, and/or music. Whether I’m developing a Broadway musical, staging an immersive experience, or reimagining classic circus, I’m always focused on crafting emotionally engaging stories with strong physicality that captivate audiences and push the boundaries of live performance.
-What I’m most proud of is my ability to work fluidly across genres and platforms while maintaining a clear artistic voice. My background in classical theater allows me to bring narrative depth to even the most spectacular productions, and my collaborative style means I build strong relationships with designers, performers, and producers.
-What sets me apart is my versatility and my commitment to innovation. I thrive in hybrid spaces where I can help to build worlds, experiences, and sometimes even explore new forms of storytelling.
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
When your main job is a theater artist, you’re always taking a risk, that’s the thrill of it all!
Contact Info:
- Website: Www.scnpf.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/southcarolinanewplayfest/
- Facebook: Scnewplayfestival
- Youtube: Scnewplayfestival
