Tyler Maynard

Currently: Getting rave reviews as Mark, "the sensitive one" of the five harmonizin', booty shakin' and soul-savin' members of the Altar Boyz.

Hometown: New Carlisle, Ohio. "It was a lot of corn, a lot of farms and it basically smelled like pig crap," the hilariously deadpan actor reminisces. "They would have tractor pull races in our parking lot at school so we couldn't park there on certain days to make room for the Future Farmers of America. I obviously wasn't really a part of that,” he says coyly. "Instead I tried to talk our music director into doing Sondheim musicals."

"No Mom, Not Seaworld!": Watching Maynard's endlessly pep-filled performance in Altar Boyz, you can't imagine him doing anything but singing and dancing, but he insists that growing up, he had another profession in mind: Marine Biology. "My room was decorated like an aquarium," he says. "Then we went to Florida once and I realized that I was petrified of the ocean. So then I thought, ‘Well, I can sing I think…and I do enjoy it. Maybe I should do musical theater!'" And so he did.

Beat It: Maynard attended the University of Cincinnati's College Conservatory of Music and moved to New York shortly after graduation. He snapped up his first job—not in a Broadway show, but as a bellman at the uber-trendy, star-sighting Hudson Hotel. "I thought I was really cool because I was getting my picture taken," he remembers, "but then I was like, ‘Wait a minute. I'm getting my picture taken…opening their cab door.'" Luckily, he was quickly cast in the ensemble of Broadway's Mamma Mia! and moved on to a gig in the out-of-town production of Good Vibrations, where he "learned some Michael Jackson moves" from a man with some experience in the world of pop music—American Idol Season One's runner-up, Justin Guarini.

The Real Deal: The sweet-toned singer considered auditioning for American Idol "for a hot second," but decided against it, explaining that, "You stand in an audition for any Broadway show and that's where the real talent is. I watch that show and I'm like, ‘Are you kidding me? Shoshana Bean could beat anyone in that competition in five seconds!'" Yet despite that decision to seek fame through musical theater instead of pop music, Maynard's two-and-a-half-year involvement with Altar Boyz has given him an unexpected taste of pop idol fame.

I Wanna Praise You: Maynard has seen his funky, fun show go through innumerable changes, ranging from learning over 15 songs that weren't used in the final version, to seeing his band mate Juan go from, "an Irish-looking boy who was taken in by Spanish nuns," to the full-blooded latin lover now played by Ryan Duncan. With the exception of Scott Porter, whose role was played at in the New York Musical Theatre Festival version by All Shook Up star Cheyenne Jackson, the boys in the band have been together since last spring, and there is a brotherly spirit that is evident between them both onstage and off. "Honestly we're a group of actually, really, genuinely nice people," he says sweetly. "I'm up there with four of the funniest people that I know." It was Maynard, however, that received the most attention from critics, including some knockout praise from The New York Times. "I read that one and just sort of set it aside to let it sink in," he says quietly.

One Small Step: Not only does he have his rave reviews to celebrate, but his first movie, Palindrome, from Welcome to the Dollhouse writer/director Todd Solondz, is set to be released on April 16. For Maynard, Altar Boyz is just the first step in a blossoming career, that he hopes may one day take him deeper into to the world of TV and film. "It's just one little step, but it's the best step that I've ever taken," he says genuinely. He is hesitant, however, to picture a Broadway bow for the Altar Boyz. "It's such an intimate show," he says cautiously. "I don't know if the boys would make it to Broadway. They made it to New York and they made it to the Dodger Stages. And we're very happy here!"