9 Celebrities Reveal Their Childhood Creative Projects

In the thought-provoking and darkly hilarious new Broadway play, Hand to God, Jason, a well-meaning soft-spoken teenager, creates a hand puppet from a gray sock, red fuzz and some felt. Jason’s mother is convinced that a puppet show will give her son a much needed creative outlet and help him work through his grief after losing his father. But what ensues is completely unpredictable.

So at the play’s recent opening night, it seemed fitting to ask the celebrity audience, some of Broadway’s finest, what creative outlet they had when they were kids. In fact, both the play’s director, Moritz von Stuelpnagel and playwright, Robert Askins put on puppet shows. “It was a way to give voice to some of the things that I wanted to say and see the audience deal with,” said von Stuelpnagel who shared that Hand to God had a very humble beginning Off Off Broadway. “It’s a Cinderella story that you don’t think is actually possible,” he said of the show’s momentous move to the Great White Way.

Check out these childhood creative pursuits.

Justin Bartha: “Growing up outside of Detroit, LEGOs were my creative outlet. My brother had a huge bag of LEGOs and was a lot older than me. When he moved away, I inherited the hand-me-down LEGOs. This was in the ’80s, so they weren’t fancy. I built towers. I also watched TV, pretending to be other people. When I was 5 and 6, I was obsessed with the show Brain Games on HBO. It was only on 1 or 2 seasons. I would search the TV guide and it would be listed. And I’d get an hour of TV and wait in front of the TV for Brain Games. And then Fraggle Rock always came on. I didn’t like Fraggle Rock just because it replaced Brain Games.”

Megan Hilty and husband Brian Gallagher:

Megan Hilty: “It was always singing. I wanted to be Whitney Houston, then an opera singer and it turned into this. My parents exposed me to all kinds of music when I was younger so I was always trying to sing along.”

Brian Gallagher: “I wasn’t very creative. I was more of a jock. Then in my teens I did a show because I had a crush on a girl. I played Randolph MacAfee in Bye Bye Birdie.”

Marc Kudisch (who co-stars in Hand to God): “I was not a theater person right away. My creative was still finding itself. I was president of the Spanish club for 2 years. I was in the gifted program. I had the second highest IQ in my elementary school. I tested to literally become a rocket scientist. Then in college I was building a set at 3 a.m. when I should have been studying political theory and didn’t care. I went to my political theory teacher and he smiled and said, ‘you should be an actor. You love class but it doesn’t have your passion the way the theater does.’”

Stephanie D’Abruzzo: “I sang all the time as a wee kid, like 2 and 3. I sang along to Sesame Street records, Hans Christian Andersen and the Mary Poppins soundtrack. I sang all the time on my swing set. I realized Hans Christian Andersen is all Frank Loesser. With Mary Poppins, I’m listening to the Shermans. With Sesame Street, I’m listening to Joe Raposo and Jeff Moss — all these great composers. Even with School House Rock, I’m hearing Bob Dorough and Blossom Dearie. If you were a child of the ’70s you were raised by amazing composers without knowing they were amazing composers.”

Reed Birney: “Weirdly, I put on puppet shows when I was a kid growing up in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. I always wanted to be an actor and there weren’t opportunities to be one when you’re 5 , 6 and 7. So I spent time putting on puppet shows. They got pretty elaborate. I would use anything at hand, like my sister’s Barbies, troll dolls we had. I would make puppets. And I would create elaborate sets and strings that moved them around and do voices. I’d place a sign downstairs, “Shows at 2 p.m., 4 p.m. and 6 p.m.” There were only 7 of us in the family and everyone came to one show. Then I’d be doing shows for nobody. But I did them anyway.”

Jeremy Jordan: “When I was a kid I would lock myself in my room and turn the music up really load so nobody could hear me sing along with Emo songs. I would rock out to whatever was on the radio on in the early 1990s. I was so shy so I had to turn it up loud so people couldn’t hear me. I kept a lid on it until I was pushed out of the box by my friends and family. I also drew a lot but I stopped doing that. I was OK at it, then I got really bad. My brain took over and said, what are you doing? This is horrible!”

Husband and wife Broadway stars, Celia Keenan Bolger and husband John Ellison Conlee:

Celia Keenan Bolger: “My creative pursuit was theater. I fell in love with it at an early age. At home, we did a lot of shows that my poor parents and relatives had to sit through. My brother, sister and I would see shows and do a 3-person version of whatever it was. The Sound of Music and Music Man were in rotation.”

John Ellison Conlee (Keenan Bolger is due to give birth this month): “We’re getting a stage built in our nursery. We’ve got tiny little curtains to put on tiny little shows starting as early as 6 weeks old. We’ll get that kid working.”

To see more photos from the Broadway premiere click through the gallery.

Celia Keenan-Bolger and husband John Ellison Conlee

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Avenue Q Cast Past and Present

Current Avenue Q cast members Stacie Bono (far left) and Seth Rettberg (far right) with original cast members Stephanie D'Abruzzo and Ann Harada and puppet cast members Kate Monster and Princeton.

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