Taylor Trensch Has Found His Inner Child in Broadway's To Kill a Mockingbird

Taylor Trensch may be known for starring in Dear Evan Hansen and Hello, Dolly!, but he actually prefers plays. “I have always loved doing plays, and I think that's always what I aspired to do,” he told Broadway.com's Caitlin Moynihan during a recent appearance on #LiveAtFive. He’s now getting his wish. Trensch is currently playing Dill in Aaron Sorkin's adaptation of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird on Broadway.

“It's the best not to sing,” he said with a laugh. “I'm just not good at it, and so many people are so good at it.” Trensch just finished up playing Evan Hansen on Broadway, where the character was a teenager. Now in Mockingbird, he plays someone even younger; Dill is six years old, and narrates the story with Scout, played by Nina Grollman. You could say the actor's going back in time. 

It was actually Grollman who helped him find his inner child for the role. "She is the goofiest, funniest person,” he said fondly. “[Nick Robinson] and I are little more introverted, and Nina helped turn us into kids.” Because his character shares the stage mostly with Grollman and Robinson, “They are two of my favorite people on Earth.”

The replacement cast for Mockingbird almost all started on November 5, and they had four weeks together to rehearse the play. As someone who's taken over for a cast member before, such extensive time is a luxury. “Usually when you're a replacement, you get two weeks with the stage manager, and they push you out and they're like, ‘Don't hit anybody,’” he said. But this new cast, led by Ed Harris as Atticus Finch, got to rebuild the play again from the ground up. “It felt like we got to rehearse a new play together and forge friendships and bonds. And it's truly such a good, good group of nice people and great actors,” said Trensch. 

This is also Trensch’s third time starring in a production at the Shubert Theatre; he’s done Matilda and Hello, Dolly! there. “This is my first ever having a private dressing room, which is very fancy,” he said with a smile. During Matilda, where he originated the role of Michael Wormwood, his dressing room was in the basement, were “a rat ran across my foot once."

He then returned to the Shubert in Hello, Dolly! as Barnaby Tucker in 2017, when Bette Midler was the lead. “I actually didn't know the musical before being in it,” he noted. But that didn’t stop him from being amazed at getting to share the stage with an icon, and then getting to step into the recording booth with her. “I'm on that album with Bette Midler—what?!” he exclaimed. “It was like what I imagined Broadway to be like as a kid, and it was so fun.”

For Mockingbird, Trensch actually read the first draft of the script years ago, when he was invited to do a reading of it. He couldn’t stay with the project because of Evan Hansen. But then “half of the way through that original gang's year run, I got invited to replace [Gideon Glick], which was so exciting 'cause I thought I missed my chance to be a part of the play,” he said. Even from that early draft, Trensch thought the play was “perfect,” and it’s only gotten better with time. “It's such a special play. And it's this title that is ingrained in every American's DNA. So people are excited to see it.”

To Kill a Mockingbird is playing now.

Watch the rest of Trensch's #LiveAtFive interview below, where he also discussed his dream stage project.