Round Two with Sean Grandillo

 It was so great to catch up with Sean again and find out what he’s been up to since our last interview. We spoke about his upcoming show at Feinstein’s/54 Below on December 5th and his new role on ABC’s The Real O’Neals.

Joy: Are you excited for your show at Feinstein’s/54 Below?
I am. I am a little nervous honestly.

J: How did you get the people who are performing with you on board? What songs are you singing with them?
I would like to tease, because I want it to be a surprise. The people are my friends and Kimiko [Glenn] is my girlfriend – Her I was like begging, “hey, please do this. I am nervous, it will make me less nervous to sing songs with [other] people.” She and I are singing a country song. That’s all I will say.

Alex Wyse and I are singing a musical theater song. Not Spring Awakening, but there will be a Spring Awakening song. Duncan Sheik was supposed to be there but he is out of town so that’s a bummer.

J: Austin is singing?
Yes. Austin and I are singing a Frank Ocean song, like a pop song because Austin is so weird. I knew he wouldn’t do it unless I asked him to sing a trendy song– did you see the trailer for his movie show?

J: Yes. It looks great. Are you allowed to say what you were doing L.A.?
Yes. I was filming a TV show called The Real O’Neals which is on ABC. It’s a sitcom and it’s about an Irish Catholic family in which the mom is big into the church and her youngest son is gay, and so that’s the main deal of the show.

J: Who do you play?
I am playing a gay role for the first time which is interesting, but that actor – Noah Galvin is his name – is gay and it was cool to work on it with him and he was awesome. He is also a New York kid. He has done a bunch of Off Broadway plays and stuff. He is awesome, so that was really fun. I was doing six episodes of The Real O’Neals so that’s going to start coming out next month.

J: Scream is coming back for a third season – are you in it?
I don’t know if I am in. I got killed at the end.

J: No, it wasn’t clear if you were killed or not.
Right. There was no funeral, no body, so we don’t know. Maybe.

J: Do you want to go back?
I would love to, but I truly do not know. They haven’t asked me or anything.

J : You have a lot of fans from that show. It’s nice to know you have people who care that much about you and want to know everything about you.
I know. It happened very quickly for me. Especially Spring Awakening, I was the farthest thing from the lead you could be and I loved doing it, but it just
wasn’t like I saw myself having fans of me that quickly so it’s kind of weird.

Serena: If you had another opportunity to do a show with Deaf West, would you be on board?
Oh, yes. I miss Spring Awakening so bad. I miss Broadway.

J: It’s officially a year since you did the performance on Seth Meyers.
Oh, yes. I remember that. Now Dear Evan Hansen – I know Ben Platt and just seeing him do the same things – I can’t wait to see that show. I haven’t seen it.

S: Is there a show that you think would adapt well with Deaf West? Is there something you would love for them to do?
It’s a really hard thing because it has to be right. I think Hunchback would be amazing because Quasi is part deaf. I think Daniel should do it – Daniel Durant.

S: How challenging was it to bring a Deaf West show to Broadway?
I did a non-equity tour when I was 19. It was so miserable. I made like 200 dollars a week. I had dropped out of school to do this. I thought this was going to be the thing, and I quit theater after I did that for a while because it was so terrible but like it takes time. Even things that seem instant like this Spring Awakening thing really wasn’t. I moved to LA where they paid me 20 dollars a show. It takes time for nothing – When I moved to LA to do the Spring Awakening, none of us were getting paid for it and we all moved. It was worth it but it could have not been. Like we didn’t know it was going to Broadway.

J: Ken came to see it and he loved it. You were lucky that that happened.
I know. We did a Kickstarter. We had no money for the show.

J: You put everything at stake for it.
Exactly and that’s what Michael [Arden] our director did. I am in Michael’s next workshop, Katie and I, for Once On This Island which is the next Broadway show which is really not a white person show but we are musicians/actors again. So we will see if we get kept for Broadway. Could be –

J: Oh, I hope so.
Yes and I have a few auditions. I am really trying to do theater. I want to do theater. TV is awesome because people see it.

J: But you could also be in the pit because you play really well.
When people ask me what my fallback is, I would do that. Like as an old man in a pit. That would be so cute.

J: Back to your 54 Below show, what are you most excited for?
I am most honestly excited to do it and have it be done. I know everybody is going to be nice, but right now I finished my show in LA and I am excited for that to come out on TV because now the pressure is off that which is the fun thing about the TV. There is really no pressure. You can do it a million times. I am scared of this 54 Below show. I almost feel I signed up to do it. Now it’s his responsibility and I am lazy. It’s going to be great. Everybody is going to be there to see me, and no one is going to judge me.

J: I am sure your Spring Awakening fans are going to come. Are you going to get more people to perform with you? Right now you have 4 people listed.
I am talking to a few more. There is a good chance that a big Spring Awakening clump of people will come and do some stuff. I talked to [Alex] Boniello and Kathryn [Gallagher]. They are in on it too. They are just not singing a solo-y song.

Click here to get tickets to Sean’s December 5th show at Feinstein’s/54 Below. Don’t forget to watch him on ABC’s The Real O’Neals!

Sean has a new mug from the Broadway Wiz shop! Use the code SEAN10 to get 10% off your order from our store.