Bryan Terrell Clark, Actor, Producer, and Director; Self-Employed

Hey, I'm Bryan Terrell Clark. And I am a story teller. I am. It kind of pans out in different ways. It expresses itself in different ways. I think primarily I'm an actor. I'm a writer. I'm a producer and director now, so that's pretty exciting. I work in lots of social justice and philanthropic work. And I'm a winger songwriter as well. The stories come the way the stories come. It's interesting because I'm playing George Washington in Hamilton on Broadway right now. And when I think of the work of Lin-Manuel Miranda, what's interesting is that everything that's unique about him in the theater space is what Hamilton is. He's a Latin man who loves hip-hop, who loves theater, who loves musical theater, and who loves history. And when you look at the work of the piece itself, all those things are who he is. And in a powerful way, it's an inspiration for the work that I do. So eight shows a week is no joke. I mean it's literally like, you really have to kind of treat yourself like an athlete when you're doing Broadway. It's a little different than television and film. It's an endurance race and then add strength on top of it. It takes a certain kind of power and muscularity to deliver eight times a week. And I think that for most Broadway performers that I know, they're also kind of multitasking. They're also still doing readings, they're also auditioning for other things, they're creating their own work. And so your days are filled with promotion or rehearsal for the show, or you're working on all these other things. And then you do the show at night. And Hamilton is not a short show. The first thing I do when I first wake up is I write down five things that I'm grateful for. I write down affirmations, declarations, I spend time meditating. And then I drink some water. After that, I'm usually in the gym. Right after that, if I am not in a writing session, or some kind of production meeting, I'm usually auditioning. That work continues. You're always sharpening your gift, you're always making sure that the integrity of the show, and then your characters involvement in the show, is top notch, because people have waited a really long time to see this show. And people invest their heart in coming to see this show. You don't want to let them down. So you get to the theater and you're either at a rehearsal, some kind of brush-up rehearsal, or a rehearsal for a new person that's coming in, and if it's a typical day, I just get there early, I warm up, get in the right head space, get my body ready to do the show, and then the gun fires, or the canon fires, and it takes off like a train man.