Matt Doyle still can’t believe what’s been happening to him lately.
A New York City theater actor for about 16 years, he’s now a first-time Tony nominee for his work as Jamie in director Marianne Elliott’s reimagining of Stephen Sondheim’s “Company.” Doyle has become quite close with Patti LuPone, the Broadway legend who plays Joanne in the revival and is also nominated for her work.
“I don’t think there will ever be anything more profound in my life, and I’m very comfortable with that,” Doyle, 35, tells me during a phone interview a couple of hours before a recent Wednesday night performance. “And what we’ve been able to do? We’ve brought the show back after a pandemic, we’ve lived through Stephen Sondheim’s death, I’m doing this with Patti LuPone. Like this is everything that I could ever have dreamt of in terms of what I would want to accomplish on stage and bringing my full entire self into a character.”
He adds with a laugh, “I’m very comfortable with saying this is my peak moment.”
LuPone called Doyle after the Tony nominations were announced. “Trust me, getting a call from Patti LuPone is another pinch-me moment,” Doyle recalled. “But I think the phone call very quickly led into what we were watching on Netflix.”
So what is LuPone enjoying on the streamer these days? “We were talking about true crime documentaries and she was telling me about ‘Night Stalker.’ She was asking me if I get into that kind of stuff so we started talking about our favorite true crime stories,” Doyle said. “I think I said about 30 minutes in, ‘Listen, I think we’ve gotten a little off track here.’”
