Bryan Batt on His Mad Men Exit and Hopes for a Return to Broadway

Mad Men fans got a rude shock when Salvatore Romano, the closeted art director played with subtlety and charm by theater vet Bryan Batt, got the boot from heartless heartthrob Don Draper on the October 11 episode. But Mad Men’s loss could be Broadway’s gain. When Broadway.com spoke to the star before the opening night performance of Bye Bye Birdie, we asked Batt when we might expect to see him on the Great White Way.

“From your mouth to the producers’ ears,” replied Batt, who runs the home decor shop Hazelnut in New Orleans between acting jobs. “I am open and ready and willing and can’t wait. There’s nothing like Broadway—nothing like a live performance.” Batt’s Broadway credits include understudying Albin in the 2004 revival of La Cage aux Folles, Saturday Night Fever, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Sunset Boulevard, Beauty and the Beast, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Starlight Express and Cats. Off-Broadway, he gave a memorable performance in Jeffrey and appeared in several versions of Forbidden Broadway.

Speaking to New York magazine at a Mad Men event at Brooks Brothers on October 13, Batt admitted that he was “in shock” to find that Sal had been fired after resisting a male client’s advances. “But very quickly, [show creator] Matt Weiner said to me, ‘This isn’t The Sopranos. You are not whacked in the trunk of a car.’ I’m not dead, but to tell you the truth, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Batt’s comments suggest that Sal will not return for the final three episodes of the AMC series, which ends its third season on November 8. But as Batt told New York, “There’s a million ways that he can come back, especially if time passes. Don does respect his talent. He is innocent. He did nothing wrong. Of course I would love to come back. It’s a heavenly place to work.”

Hey, if there’s no place for Sal in the dog-eat-dog world of Sterling Cooper, may we suggest that he join forces with departed office manager Joan Holloway in a takeover of Bonwit Teller? And on Broadway, what about a stint as Chicago’s Billy Flynn?