Modern Family Star Sarah Hyland Is Back on Broadway in The Great Gatsby, Inspired by Jonathan Larson

From the ages of 18 to 30, Sarah Hyland played Modern Family’s Haley Dunphy—the flirty cool girl of the ABC sitcom’s mostly uncool clan. Before becoming a familiar face on television through the show's successful 11-season run, she was an East Village-raised stage kid who would pass by the Broadway Theatre on her way to class at the Broadway Dance Center. 

“Having friends in Miss Saigon and just looking at the posters and all the pictures on the side of the building going to BDC—it was just the coolest thing,” she says, now as the person whose face graces that building’s facade. “To be able to perform at that theater is just such a dream come true.”

Through June 15, she stars opposite Ryan McCartan as Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby, her first Broadway turn since her 16-year-old stint as a young Jackie Bouvier in the 2006 musical Grey Gardens. Here, she explains what inspired her stage homecoming—kicked off by a run as Audrey in the off-Broadway revival of Little Shop of Horrors—and remembers the Tony season she got to share with the young upstarts from Spring Awakening.

You’re about three months into your run in The Great Gatsby. Do you feel like you’re in a groove at this point?

Oh my gosh, yeah. I can't believe it's already been three months. That's so insane to me. Everything feels so surreal when you start a run and all of a sudden it just snaps into place pretty quickly.

You came to Gatsby not long after your run as Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors off-Broadway. After Modern Family, did you consciously decide you wanted to return to your roots as a theater creature?

I think finishing filming Modern Family and then having the world go into lockdown two and a half weeks after was a lot to process. It wasn't my initial thought, but I think it was in 2021 that I was like, “I really want to do more musicals again.” It was honestly because I had a few friends in Tick, Tick… Boom! and I went to the premiere and I was just like, “Oh my god, this is everything.”

And you made it happen.

I kept talking and talking and talking about it, and all of a sudden, all of these things started coming in. I was like, “Whoa. I have a feeling that the universe is really telling me that I need to go back to New York and be doing theater again.” Audrey had always been a dream role of mine, and I just could not pass up that opportunity. And then Daisy came my way and The Great Gatsby was a favorite book of mine growing up. So everything just seems to kind of be falling into place in the most perfect way.

Before Little Shop, the last big stage production you did in New York was Grey Gardens in 2006 when you were 16. Coming back as an adult, do you feel like there are things you’ve had to relearn?

Oh my god, yes. In the Broadway space that I grew up in, doing almost every workshop imaginable as a kid, the way that you were taught to sing is so different. Now is much more healthy. I did a bit of musical theater in L.A.: I did Hair at the Hollywood Bowl, I did fun little productions over at the Rockwell and parody musicals and stuff, just for sh*ts and giggles. And even then, I was 23, 24. Being a woman in my mid-30s now, it's completely different. My voice has matured with age since then. It’s been a lot of fun to kind of rediscover my voice again and figure out what works and what doesn't work.

And you’ve have the privilege of starring alongside two stellar musicians—Andrew Barth Feldman as your Seymour and now Ryan McCartan as your Gatsby.

It appears that I am only allowed to have co-stars that have won the Jimmy Awards. [laughs] But they're just amazing people to work with and such goofballs. They have these stupid voices that are just out of this world. It only makes me want to be better. I also get imposter syndrome when I hear both of them sing. I'm like, “They think that I can sing next to these people? That's crazy!”

Between Audrey and Daisy, did one character click into place faster than the other?

Both of them clicked into place the exact same way. I think it was just the first day on Little Shop—I was so scared to try any type of accent for whatever reason, and it just came out of me. And I was like, “Oh, well, there she is.” It felt the same way for Daisy. On a really deep, deep, to-my-core level, I relate to both of them—in different ways.

So much of what Daisy shows the world is a performance. How do you get to the heart of that kind of character?

For the moments where it's being performative and then showing that vulnerability in the midst of it, it's catching yourself in the moment: “Oh, shoot. I'm showing too much right now. Put it back on.” “Absolute Rose” is so fun because it's this tug-of-war game between her and Tom over Nick. She's just galivanting all over the place and in the middle of it, she starts a fight with Tom and kind of gets lost in the sauce. Then she sees Nick and is like, “Oh, no, wait, no, everything is fine! Let's talk about you! You just got back from the war!” It's just such a cool slip to be able to perform. And then there are more subtle, nuanced versions of that within “For Better or Worse.” It's just so much fun to be able to sink my teeth into stuff like that.

Now that Tony season is upon us, take me back to your teenage Tony season with Grey Gardens.

That Tony Award season was such a blast. I had a lot of friends in Spring Awakening, and Christine Ebersole—I mean, she's an icon. I just remember having so much fun. I think I wore a BCBG dress that was very like, “Oh my gawd, I'm trying to look sexy at 16.” I was just so grateful to be a part of that musical. And the Walter Kerr was just such an amazing theater to make my Broadway debut. It was literally on the same block as my school. I would go to school, and then probably get some Chipotle, go to the bodega on the corner, go to the theater, do homework, then do a show and go home. It was such a fun year of my life.

Your Tony-winning TV uncle Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who’s come to see you in both of your recent stage turns, is also a native theater person. Did you two bond over that when you first met on Modern Family?

I was fangirling over him when we first met. And he had known that I had done Grey Gardens, so we were the two little theater girlies on set and we became fast friends. That, I think, was the little key to unlocking our friendship. It flourished from there.

What’s been the highlight of being back on stage in NYC?

It feels like home. This is the thread I'm made of. I just am so obsessed with this community and I love it so much. The only adjustment is my dog trying to figure out if she likes New York or not.

Have you ever been tempted to try out Gatsby’s end-of-show stunt that involves falling off the stage into the orchestra pit?

You didn’t even have to finish the question. I would love nothing more if they would let me do that. At Little Shop, whenever someone leaves the cast, we feed them to the plant. I think that whenever anyone leaves Gatsby, they should fall and roll into the pit. I'm going to go to the theater and immediately talk to stage management.