Hey there, fan Ritos, Welcome back to a brand new episode of How Rude Tanner Ritos. Today, we have a guest that we are so excited to talk to. You know him as Derek from Full House or Waldo from The Little Rascals. It's Blake mcgiver ewing. Blake isn't just a talented actor. He's a director, a composer, a singer, a vocal coach, a personal trainer. I mean, the list just goes on and on, and we can't wait to catch up with him and talk about Full House and everything beyond. So let's welcome Blake.
Yayyay, Hey, Hello.
We were just admired in your headshot on your profile picture. You'll great, yes, yes, Oh my gosh, it's so good to see you.
So good to see both of you. My goodness.
I know it's been a few years. We saw you briefly on Fuller House, which is great to have you back on the show.
That was so fun, so fun.
But were you back for the wet Was it the wedding episode that very last episode? Yeah, yeah, yeah, the wedding Okay, the wedding episode, yeah yeah, I.
Know, yeah, I know. We got to have a lot of people come back for that one. That was really fun.
Danny was trying to find a minister, I think, and so you were like auditioning with jazz hands.
Right, that's right. Yeah, yeah, he was doing the Yankee Doodle moment.
Yes, and I came in with tap shoes like I would of course, darn y.
Yeah, they were like, could you tell you like, I'll bring the tap shoes. Yeah, I got it, I got it handled.
Do fans ask you to do the Yankee Doodle Boys song or any any of those things when you're out.
In about absolutely, yes, I get requests for it. Also, it's like, you know, this is this is the time of year where I like start to hunker down like like a cold war b you know, my fourth is coming this season. Yeah, the memes start coming, the.
Memes yeah yeah, yeah, you can't the whole yeah.
The hat, the suit, the whole business, all of it.
I mean, it was fabulous.
It was so great. But yes, we understand is former child actors what that is like when that follows you around.
For the host, like, yeah, it takes there's like the the in between period of like oh no, not again, and then you're.
Like you know there's a meme of me.
It's a mean people know what it is like, people are like, yep, I know what that means.
Yeah, yeah, Yeah. Honestly, it as an honor and I'm glad that it still brings people joy.
Right, it absolutely does.
Now, speaking of uh, Andrew sort of said it too on your Instagram bio. It states you're a recovering child actor, which I know we can all relate to.
Yes, I might steal that.
That's fantastic, right.
Yeah, absolutely please steal it. Yeah, I feel like we're all in recovery always. We're not. Yea, it's a lots but yeah, but you know, people ask me about it all the time and I'm like, no, it's not a negative thing. It's just like there's a constant process of recovery.
You know.
I was lucky that I wanted to do it. My parents didn't push me.
Into it, and you know, we all you were one of those kids you're kind of like me. You know that you came out and you were like, let's go.
Yeah, very that And since both my parents were in show business, they didn't care at all. They were like, well, if you're going to do it, just don't embarrass you know, just just do it, yeah, do it well, well be good at least be good at it. But it's so funny because you become a teenager, you become a you know, an adolescent, and it doesn't matter. There is still there is still a life learning curve and so that it's really it's more about that. It's like we recover in our own way.
Yeah, and I think, you know, sort of the.
You have to there's a whole extra layer of getting through that, that thing of being known as something for a child, most people don't have to like shake off, you know, a career at thirteen, you know, and be like who am I now? You know, so like it And it's at a time I always said it like, it's at the time when you're really trying to figure out who you are anyway, and now you're be pretending to be somebody else, but other people think you're this.
You know, it's just a it does create I think some layers of like self identity that take a little bit more to get through.
Really absolutely, it's it's it is an identity crisis of a sort. And I always try to explain to people, you know, when you have your mid career crisis at like eighteen, right, Yeah.
I would call it my quarter life.
Crisis because I'm like, I was about, like, I don't know, fourteen, fifteen.
Years and I was like, what is my life?
What am I doing?
Right?
Yeah, exactly exactly.
And anytime you anytime you run into another former child actor from the nineties, it's like you have this like your own language and it's like one big fraternity sorority where it's like, oh yeah, I can relate to that too. Oh yeah, I can relate to that.
Too, absolutely. And I feel like we were so lucky, you know I did. I did a lot of like episodic work on other shows at the time, and every time I did another show, I was like, oh my god, our set is so we are so lucky. I just always felt that way special place.
Yeah, it really, it really was a special place. Everyone that has come on the show and has done interviews have been like that was just it wasn't like any place else to work, And yeah, it just wasn't. We were very an Emisodic can be a grind, like it's a long days, and sitcom is kind of a well oiled machine that you just you know, jump on the treadmill for a week and then hop off for a couple of days.
Yeah, right, and dropping into somebody else's rhythm is so so difficult.
Yes, yeah, especially as a kid.
But you know, you and Taj and Journey Smallett when she came out, you know, you guys did such a great job with it, you know, just kind of like adapting and fitting right in and becoming part of the you know, part of the kid crew.
Yeah, it was such a delight.
Michelle really did have outstanding friends, Like just looking did Nico Hughes like you said, like, yeah, all of yourself? Wow, dang, she had some really talented friends.
Yeah.
Yeah, heavy hitters from the start yep, straight out of the room. Right, So speaking straight out of the room, when did you know you wanted to be an actor? I imagined probably pretty soon after that, as was for some of us.
Yes, yeah, I knew. I knew pretty pretty early on. I started, you know, seeing around the house dancing at the TV, and my mom was like, it sounds like a little better than just you know, kid humming, So maybe I should explore this. And my mom coming from a variety TV back she was on The Dean Martin Show, so she came to LA in the sixties and danced for Dean Martin for his entire variety show. So a
huge career and so hilariously. She was like, she thought, well, since since she came from dance, She's like, if I put him in dance first, he might lose interest because it takes so much discipline, so much well the dance. The only dance teacher she knew here in LA was a former teacher of hers from Houston that had a studio out in See Me Valley whose name was Patsy Swayze.
That Swayze like literally Patrick's mom whow And so Patrick's mom taught me to dance essentially amazing And the very first, the very first time I ever did like a patriotic thing, like any The very first incarnation of Yankee Doodle was a dance competition that was at the Beverly Garland.
Hotel Dance Competition, right.
And I was too young to compete, So she had me do this little dance routine for the audience while the judges were tabulating between act Yes, and that was the first time I sang Yankee Doodle Dandy. And the director of Star Search was one of the judges, and he approached my parents right after and said, will your son audition for the next season of Star Search? And that's how Yankee Doodle got from the ballroom.
To Oh my gosh severly Garland through Stars Star Search.
And then it was the Full House producers seeing me do it on Star Search that wrote the episode about the patriotic show. And then I came in an audition cold because they didn't know if I could act or talk or.
You're great Yankee doo o.
We don't know about the kids sing on TV.
I remember that's important.
Yeah.
So it was a really quick I mean not quick because it was years, but but it felt like a really fast trajectory on this one song brought me.
Well, I mean, let's be fair, you were what eight, So I.
Mean it really wasn't years, It wasn't relatively fast.
Yeah, it was pretty fast.
Yeah. So, so was Full House your first acting job then or how did that go from? Did you do anything between Star Search and Full House?
I did? I did one. I was I was in a movie called Calendar Girl with Jason Priestley Jerry O'Connell. Yeah, and I played young Jerry O'Connell. In the flashback. Oh my god, it's just all yeah, yeah, right, so I did I had done that and that was so that was kind of the first time on a film set. And then but yeah, first sitcom experience was was full house.
Man, Oh, your parents must have been so proud.
That so great? And how old were you were you? What?
Seven?
Eight?
I think I was seven when I that first that Yankee. Do I believe I was seven? Yeah, because I think I was on the show seven eight nine.
Yeah, And you said you auditioned cold, Like, do you remember the process of auditioning or was it.
One of those things where you're like, I don't know. It just kind of blends into other auditions that I did, but.
That one blends in. What I do remember is how quickly I went from my last like reading with producers to the table because like the episode was already going, oh yeah. And so what I do remember is walking into the table because of course I watched the show, So walking into the room with all of you sitting there, I was like, oh, this is legit, Like, this is it I have I have arrived at this conference table and there they all are, and I'm like, I just don't mess it up.
Oh you couldn't not anymore than we were always messing up.
Have you seen the show at that point? Were you a fan? Did you watch the huge?
Yeah? I was already watching it every week.
Okay, so that was because this was like season five, so this was this was the height.
Of Yeah, you guys were at the peak.
We were well established by that point.
Oh yes, Oh my gosh.
Yeah, how intimidating to walk into that table read and be.
Like, there's right literally and you do.
I mean, do you remember what your first day on set was?
Like?
Do you remember coming to set?
I do I remember coming set? I remember sort of hilariously reconnecting with Mary Kate Nashley because one of my best childhood friends went to preschool with them. Oh okay, yeah, that little preschool on Colfax right down the way. And so we had been to like some birthday parties together and like socialized, you know, very you know, as briefly as you do when you're a.
Kid, but still you're like, oh, I know you.
But yeah, it's like I've met you before. This is not weird. And then yeah, and then just uh, realizing how quickly because I had done a bunch of on stage work and so realized. I was so nervous the first couple of days, but realizing how much a camera blocking rehearsal was just just like a rehearsal, the same as doing a play, and I was like, great, cool, Yes, the.
Move from like live theater to sitcom is kind of their sort of cousins.
Yeah, they totally are. And joel's Wick was the director of the first episode, that Yankee Doodle episode, and so it was great. It was just like, oh, I know this guy, this guy, I knows me. We get it, Like it was just immediately easy. He made it so fun and casual.
Yeah, Joe really did. And he was so great at working with kids, Like as crazy as he was in like his little you know, just running around, you know what, but like he just he was there was such love about him that you were like whatever, you know what I mean, Like he just wanted things done, and he wanted his brain moves nine thousand miles an hour.
And he knew what he wants. He knows exactly what he wants and.
That was the thing that made it so easy jumping in because it was like there was no margin for confusion. It was like no, no, no, here are the parameters, here's what he wants, here's what we're trying to get to. So it was like there was no fear. It was just kind of like just everybody's diving in together, which felt really cool.
Yeah, yeah for sure.
Now you you guys had kind of a little crew in Michelle's classroom. It was like you, Miko, Journey, and Taj.
Right, uh huh, and.
You guys were all.
Like in the same class that's all in the.
Amazing Did you hang out when you weren't on stage or were you just in school the whole time or what was that dynamic?
We we did our school hours altogether in that in those rooms up.
Behind Ashley, Mary Kate had their own because they were like five years younger than us, So we were like I was upper elementary and you were like early high school and then the younger kids were yeah.
Yeah, so we all did our school hours together every day, even though we were all at different schools.
Right, so much fun. Yeah, the school room is like the place of bonding.
Yeah, yeah, that's so. Who was was well it wasn't Adria. Who was this? Do you remember your studio teacher?
Because Adrian was there. I definitely remember remember Adrian was there, I.
Think still working with Ashley Mary Kate, but I don't think she was the teacher at that point.
I don't know. Was it Rhonda's sister she take over as their teacher at one point?
Remember who had over for the little kids? I can only remember MiNet.
Throw some fan rito it out there is like I have the entire production casting crew list for a season.
I can tell you.
Someone started and stopped right yeah, and what car they got to drive on everything. Do you have any favorite memories from like full House working with all the kids and having fun like or do you just sort of remember getting to come to work and it being a good place to work.
It was always yeah, I mean the overall was it was always a great place to work. It was always a relief I was. I was basically in regular school throughout my working life, so it was always coming in and out, and I just remember feeling so relieved when I'd get you know, that Monday would just be like ah, you know, showing up at work was just like, oh great, I know what, I know how this is going to go. I know how fun this is going to be. I
love these people. I love laughing with these people. You know, we we have a goal. I'm a very goal oriented person. I loved that. I loved that final producer run because it really felt like a show with high stage, you know, like we had to we had to prove that those jokes were worth it. Yeah, exactly, And that was so fun and exciting. And then tape day always just felt like a you know, a big party. It is.
It's like a weird circus and you're like, but also, this is my job, but there's like a circus going on.
There's a full yeah, but there's also a show happening. And it was very it was very weird and in a cool way at getting to do some some cool things, like when we did that soccer episode and we were out at the polo field out at were Rogers. Yeah yeah yeah. And just like being the goalie and being bad, like getting to be bad at sports on purpose was so fantastic for me. Every every year at Pride, I post the screen cap of me holding the rainbow goalie.
My face is like, oh yes, classic, I love that. Oh man, I love it.
Oh god, I forgot about that soccer episode.
We're not there yet, We're still we just started. Yeah, yeah, so we're not quite there yet.
We haven't met your character yet but soon.
Derek hasn't come, but did just.
Meet Teddy, so it's not not long, not far.
Were you like Derek as a little kid, was or was he vastly different than than your own person.
I think there were a lot of similarities. You know. I was very, very precocious and very you know, able to speak my mind and think, well, why shouldn't things just be like that? You know. I feel like he was always just kind of telling Michelle, like, well, why don't you just do it like? You know? And I was. I was kind of a bossy kid, nice and so yeah,
it was. It was very close. It was not until I did some other roles where I really became the villain, became the battie, and that was like, that was further away from the truth. But you know, they were all they were all kind of precocious and in their own way. But yeah, Derek, Derek and I always feel I always think when we were doing Fuller House, so I was always thinking about, like, oh, where is Derek, Like I hope he's teaching high school theater in San Francisco.
I was gonna say, he hasn't left San Francisco.
No, no, no, no, he is.
He's well connected in the community, yes, and yeah he's teaching. Yeah, he's definitely teaching theater at some like kind of like avant garde Conservatory San Francisco, so.
Aggressive, like yeah, feeds into a art like yeah.
Yeah.
See, this is such a missed opportunity not having Michelle come back for fuller, Like we could have had so many backstories with Derek and Teddy and all of them. It would have been so great to see where it would have.
Been fun to see. Yeah, where are they now of that great.
Chi That's what We'll just do the spinoff with Michelle, and we'll just do the spinoff of Michelle's Friends.
It'll be in the same in the same universe.
Full of Michelle's friends without Michelle, full of Michelle's right apartment next door, full of Michelle's friends.
Right single camera, very gritty Francis. Yeah, yeah, totally different.
Yeah, it's like referent Yeah. Now, you were nine when you did The Little Rascals, and actually Mary Kate were also in.
The Little Rascals, So what was that like when you guys.
Got to all work together on a movie which is such a different vibe.
That was the biggest blessing that they said yes to that cameo, because that was one of the reasons why I was allowed to do the movie, because I was under contract with full House.
But they would let them go to do it yes.
And they absolutely could have refused, like but by the way the contract went, they could have said absolutely not when I got cast in Little Rascals, but they had offered this cameo for the slumber party scene with Darla to Mary Kate Nashley. And because they said yes, they were like, oh, well, this is just great for the show. Like We're all like these are these are the kids that are like working right now, and great, this looks great.
And I remember there were two episodes that would would conflict that that were already scripted that Derek was already meant to be in, and one was one was the Talent Show at the Smash Club, and one was the Go was a Go Kart Race, And I was like, well, there's also a go kart race and a talent show in this movie. I'm like, so I'm gonna stick with the talent show. I'm gonna keep singing on full House because I'm gonna get to do the go kart.
Like what do I want?
What's my special skill and where do I want to put it?
And that was when Catherine Zaremba, the Redhead girl that was also in our that came later like after the taj Journey, you know, era, but still with us all. She came one season later. We that's when we sang don't go Break in My Heart in.
The that is classic one of my fa good So.
Yeah. So it was like the gamble and I was like, yeah, I'm gonna I'm going to pass up on the full house go go kart race? Do the movie one love it? Did?
Wait? Did we do a full house go cart race?
There was a go kart episode.
It was Michelle's storyline, so we were yeah, yeah, it's hysterical. Yeah, I remember you and that little redhead up there. You were just like little adults, like miniature adults.
It was like it was like Captain and to Neil shutdown totally, yeah.
Totally, And Dave had on those Elton John glasses and it was great.
It was wonderful, classic full house moment. Oh I love it. That's so funny.
Oh man, and you do a lot of voice acting too, right, Like, that's kind of something that you've been continuing doing.
What what what? Where would we recognize your voice?
I got to do quite a bit in those years following Full House and Little Rascals, I did. I was on the Disney series Recess for many many season actually the whole the whole show. And then I did the last few seasons of Hey Arnold. I was the final I was the final voice of Eugene, the one with the like the hair that looks like yeah, which and we did a hilarious musical episode of of that.
Oh amazing, like it was the show.
And then a ton of you know, a ton of in between, you know, quick quick things. I did random boy is in Tarzan, I did random voices in Anastasia, you know, through.
Throughout some fun Disney.
Stuff, fun Disney stuff, Yeah, some really really cool UH did some Warner Brothers stuff. Got to do the Animaniacs and Pinky in the Brain. And there was a history recap show called Hysteria that we did with Chrese Summer, who's just such an icon of yeah and so like. To get to work with her was like.
The pinnacle I've worked with her brother. Oh okay, Rainbow, oh.
Amazing, who was in an one of the movies I did for Hallmark.
So yeah, again like how cool.
Yeah, so we're in Canada like and he was like, oh yeah, I think my sister.
Yeah, you know, it's always small interesting.
Yeah, yeah, less less than six degrees of separation, always sure for.
Those of us that worked in that period and are still where we're like, we're we're dragging ourselves through it.
You know, we're doing it. We're doing it.
Which do you.
Like voice acting and like singing or on stage on camera? Which what is your favorite, uh sort of way to perform?
Do you like live theater or I think I always.
Go back to live theater because it's where I started, and it's for me. It's that it's it's been there at every point of my career and it's kind of what informs all of the different work that I do. I started directing a lot of musical theater after college, and that's kind of been that's kind of been what's kept me in my artistic passions in between amazing the bigger projects or the you know, the more commercial projects, and so that's that's been I will always go back
to it. There is something so divine to me about the exchange, the energetic exchange with an audience and performance. And I love so many types of theater. I just spent two weeks in London and saw everything from like the most heart wrenching, you know, experimental type theater to like clueless the goal and enjoyed it all, you know, like I really do. I am such a fan of the work. I'm a fan of theater and I love doing it, I love supporting it, and it is always going to be my heart and soul.
What were some of your favorite productions that you directed? Can you pick a favorite?
Gosh, it's it's it's hard to pick a favorite. But recently, right after the right after we started theater again after the pandemic, I got asked to be an associate professor at the University of Mississippi. Of all places, in their Opera department, you direct a production of The Light in the Piazza, which I don't know if you know the show, but it's a very intimate, small show and we were doing it in this giant performing arts hall that they
have at the university. I mean it's literally where one of the presidential debates happened.
It's like it's a giant, right, and it's like.
And this is like a you know, a cast of ten. But it was so incredible and I love the piece so much. And when the hoser, Adam Gettle, heard about what we were doing with it, and he was very excited that this you know, southern kind of you know, historically conservative area was putting on this this fully color blind cast of his very Italian, very nineteen fifties piece.
Right.
He came down and we got to spend a week with him, and he that's amazing, and he got to see you know, we got to talk about like why I loved the show and my take on it and all of that, and it was just it was such a beautiful, special kind of thing for a show that he doesn't get done very often. You know, it's it's fairly niche, but it's just such a brilliant piece of theater.
And to get to do it in that way and presented it to an area of the country that definitely didn't see the national tour right, right, you know, it was really cool.
Oh, I love that.
Did you have any connection to that area.
Or you I do I have some family family there. I have some family that lived down in Oxford, where the town where the universe he is, that have connections to the university. So I didn't completely come out of nowhere, but it was a really really neat, really really neat experience.
Awesome.
So, speaking of opera, like, do you do operatic vocal coaching or is it like I mean just I mean vocal coaching sort of is all sorts.
But is that like a specialty of yours or do you do a lot of opera singing?
It is? I don't do it. I don't personally do a lot of opera singing. It is it is. I was trained after kind of funny enough I did. I did this in reverse, so like after Full House and after Star Search and all of the singing on TV and movies. Then when my voice changed, I went to really study, Like I studied MARQUEESI, I studied Belconto, and I studied Belconto and yeah, and did all the little quirks and so sort of like learn learned all of that, then studied with a teacher that taught me how to
teach the methods. Yeah, yeah, it became very important to me I fell into I fell into coaching backwards. I was helping friends get ready for their college auditions for conservatory programs. Okay, yeah, And because I had done so many musical theater auditions, it was very easy for me to be like, what do you got, I'll cut it to sixteen thirty two bars? Do this, do this, do that. And one of my friends one day said, you know, you should like do this, and I'm like, I'm I'm eighteen.
Nobody's going to pay me to like coach them, and They're.
Like, right, they might, they might.
Yeah, And so yeah, I've had a roster of vocal students ever since.
Wow, that's amazing.
Yeah, I love that.
That's that's impressive.
I always loved I always loved going to uh singing lessons. Well, I loved going to singing lessons. That is the practicing in between as a teenager. And I was like, oh yeaheah.
The in between could be a drag.
Yeah yeah yeah.
But now of course I'm like, why didn't you listen to your mother? You should have practiced more every day?
Right, yeah, thank of what you could have done? And you you composed music as well? I do, Yeah, yeah, do your renaissance man. You do a lot of things.
Very proud of you.
I thank you. I you know, I I just like to I love to create and whatever avenue, you know. I just I found that in our very weird and tumultuous business, the best thing that we can do as creatives is to just keep creating, whether it's for a large audience, small audience. You know, I feel so grateful that I had these crazy, you know, opportunities as a
kid that we're seen by so many people. But I try to take the work that I do now that I know is not as not as big, not as huge, not as commercial widely commercial, but take the same amount of care in what I put out, even if it's just personal things. Yeah.
Absolutely, it's you know, I find sometimes when like again, the more commercial work or whatever slows, You're like, Okay, I just have to throw myself into creating something, comedy, writing this, whatever it is. Just I have to do something. You're like, I don't even care if anybody sees it. I don't care of it, Like I just I have to do it otherwise I'm gonna go crazy. Yep.
And I think you know, as you both know, when when we into the sometimes into the throes of our business, and it becomes so much more about the other stuff and not the art itself, and we get so bogged down in that. I think, just constantly creating, at least for me, it keeps me so much more optimistic and it keeps me, yes, for sure, it keeps me in a positive headspace. It keeps me in a grateful headspace and not in a just like oh, what's the next thing.
I just always feel like it. It just keeps.
The momentum going if you're you know what I mean, Like, it's that the Newtonian principle like a.
Body, you know, a body of rest will stay.
Arrest, but a body emotion will continue emotion. So it's like if I'm just working those creative muscles and doing and be and also like going and doing a friends show or doing whatever, like you said, you never know when you're going to do a show and someone's.
There and it's like.
Hey, would you want to do star search? You know whatever, like and things happen. So it's like it's kind of that weird little uh thing about being creative and creating work is that you sometimes literally created out of thin air.
I still teach once a week a dance class for a small group of people here and just right here in the valley. And it's like, my youngest student is nineteen, my eldest student is eighty three, and it's just a Broadway cardio class and it's literally just for an hour, like easy, easy, easy routines, yea, and just for an hour, we just enjoy the music and like the love of musical theater. And it's not about getting the steps right. It's not about it being hard, it's not about it.
It's literally just about the love of it. Ah.
I love great idea. Wow, that's fantastic.
I love that. I remember brought what we used to do because I did musical theater.
If I went to Osha and did musical theater, and I remember that was always one of my favorite dance like sort of sections was when.
We did a lot of the like Broadway character work.
It was just so fun to you know, it was just such a differ way to like dance, you.
Know, oh yeah, oh yeah, it's my favorite. It's all all that character driven work, all that fossy stuff, all that Michael Bennett stuff. It's yeah, exactly.
And an eight year old. Your hats off to the eighty three year old. It's fantastic.
Yeah, we get, we get it's it really is. When I opened it up, I was like, I want this to be all ages, and then it really has become all ages.
That's amazing. I love it. I just want to be that eighty three year old lady still dancing around.
Yeah, okay, what I mean you've been again, Like you said, you've been in this business. We kind of touched on it, but what do you think would be the one piece of advice that you would give someone who maybe started young in this business and like wants to keep going.
For me, I always go back to when you know, when people ask me about like what do you You've done various things in various corners of the business, and what what would you suggest, I always go, You've got to look back inside and find whatever that initial spark is, you know, whatever that passion thing, whatever, that very first thing that made you feel like, you know, it's a little different for all of us, but for me, it was like what it made me feel like, I've got
to perform, I've got to be on stage, I've got to sing, i have to dance. I have to act, you know, whatever that little thing is, and it it could be, it could be less specific than that. But if you can find that and replicate that feeling, or at least try to replicate that feeling, that will keep that momentum going. Like you've got to keep that fire burning. It's like when that fire goes out, then then all the chaos comes in.
You know.
We always have to go back to, Okay, what what is this gift that needs to be shared for it to resonate and to give back to others. And that's because that's what we do. You know, we hold it, we reflect exactly, and so finding the joy and the love in that and what what is the passion moment that made you start that in the first place? Always going back to that, and I've had I mean, huh, there have been times where I have lost Like, there have.
Definitely been times when you're like, I just don't I don't know what I need to do right now, but I think it might be just a little nothing and we were going to figure this out.
Yeah. Yeah. This last fall, I was up in Rochester, New York, in a two hundred and fifty seat theater and I did a month run of the show The Boy from Oz and I. It was one of those dream roles that you thought that I thought, like, I'm never going to get to do this, like it's such a nobody does it. It's like so like it's like that's it was like Hugh Jackman and then no one like you know, and this this regional theater company up there asked me to come do it, and I was like, yes,
I'm saying yes. I've never even been to Rochester, am I right, I'm saying yes. And I went up and had like the most soul fulfilling, one of the most soul fulfilling artistic experiences of my life with that cast up there.
I love it.
And it was just brilliant being able to tell that story for a month, you know, a magical month of and I was like, oh right, And that was one of those moments for me. I was like, oh right, this is why I do this, right. You know, when you're when you're in the throes of the story and you start to hear the sniffles and you start to see the tissues come out, and I'm like, oh, this is this is the divine moment.
You know, this is when you feel that impact, You're like, oh, it's the grind of the auditioning and the social media and the thing.
You're like, oh, this is I can't do.
But you know, somebody goes, hey, do you want to come tap dance on the stage, and You're like, oh my god do I Yes?
On my way right now? Right?
Is there a dream role that you've never been able to play but have always wanted to play?
That's a great question. I there there are a few. This the the one that like that just like stays with me always hilariously and I'm almost aging into the right to the right era for it. But I've been joking with my my friends that I'm trying to enter my valgeon period. I really, I just really want to do the le Miss somewhere some way, somehow like that is that is a bucket list Okay for me? Okay's manifest So I'm like, I'm in the sweet spot now.
Okay, we'll manifest it right here?
Right?
Yeah, that's it? Yeah?
Oh cool?
I love Well.
Do you have any other amazing projects or shows or anything that you want to plug while you're here to let people know where they can find your amazing performances.
That's very kind of you. I post pretty much right now. I'm just posting on Instagram, so you'll see. That's kind of where that's kind of my central hub, so you can follow me there for all of the all of the updates. I am working on something that sadly I can't talk too specifically about, but I am. I am in production, in pre production for an immersive musical here in Los Angeles that will hopefully expand to other cities.
It's a very interesting project and it's it's really cool and there's some historical fiction involved, and there's audience interaction, and it's it's a type of show, type of look at a show that's never been done before in this way.
So we're there. I'm a history nerd.
I mean, yes, yeah, please let us know, let us know when you can, when you can talk about it, please les.
Yeah.
So that's that's that's on the horizon. So that's that's going to be My summer is just Oh, I love it.
I love what's your Instagram handle for people that don't.
Know, it's at Blake McIvor. My first and middle name B L A K E M.
C I V E R got it's so cool.
Ya Well, Blake, this has been so much fun to have you on the show.
I am so glad that we got to talk to you.
I mean, you're you're just you've always been an incredibly talented human. I mean when you were a kid, you kind of blew everyone away with just how like great and theatrical and.
Amazing you were.
And I'm just it's really awesome to see that you have continued it and that it is something that you're so passionate about and love so much. Because that, you know, some people walk away go, yeah, I don't want that was the thing I did when I was a kid, and then there's those of us that are like, this is what I do, this is who I am.
Wanted to do this.
Yeah, well, thank you both so much. It's this has made my heart so full and happy to get to see your faces and talk to you and catch up. This has just been a delight.
I love it.
Well, keep us posted on the The Vague Project because because that's seriously, it.
Sounds really fascinating.
And I love live theater and I love interesting different live theater, so that.
Sounds funny interaction like yes.
Right, yes, I'll tell you about it as soon as I can.
Okay, it sounds good. Thank you so much for joining us US today.
We really appreciate it, every one.
Oh that was so great.
Sam, Like I knew we had talked to him during that season of Fuller, but.
He's just the best.
He's just the really is exactly so Derek would grow up to be, you know.
Exactly if you have the same hair. He does have the same hair. And I mean that in the best right, Like just got you great follow you thick hair.
Yeah, got hair envy for sure, good hair, yep.
But so great to see him and so amazing and wonderful to see like how much he loves what he does.
Still it's contagious.
And his excitement for you know, musical theater, the business, in creativity in general, it's it's infectious. It's really kind of like, yeah, yeah, that's true.
You know.
And and I think, yeah, there's the there's a lot of us that got into this business and people like do your parents want you to do it? And you're like no, I we came out and we were like I have I just want to do with like a performance, you know, And and yeah, he is just one of those people, and I never knew his mom did the Dean Moon.
I had no idea.
I mean, it makes sense, you know, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, but I didn't.
I do remember her.
I remember her in the stands when he would do Yankee Doodle Bori interviews dancing, she would be dancing along, yes and yeah, which blessed you know what I mean? She I mean she probably choreographed it, right, you know.
Yeah, at first I thought, oh, she's just being a stage bomb, but no, she's.
Actually she's like, no, this is my number that I choreographed. Don't screw it up. Yeah that's so great. But yeah, yeah, the apple did not fall far from the tree in that one. Love What a what a great interview that is. Uh yeah, that's going to wrap up our interview with Blake mcgivory.
You and you guys.
Blake is such an incredible human being and we were so excited to have him on the podcast.
It was just really really great.
So go check out his instagram, make sure that you follow him, and also make sure that you're following the podcast on whatever platform you're listening to it.
Follow us on Instagram at Howard Podcast.
Uh and You can also send us an email at howarud Tanner Ritos at gmail dot com. Uh and yeah, we'd love to hear your comments, your thoughts, your questions. We might do another fan Question episode one of these days, so we'll get more at those. And yeah, also visit our merch store Howard Meerch dot com. We've got some fun.
Shirts up there. We're uh, I think we're coming up with a new design for something.
Yes, we did.
We still have the special do we still have the special T shirt from the Well, yeah, it's pre order so you can oh, that's right.
It is crull ship in a few weeks after you order it.
Okay, got it, So yeah, you can still do that but Howard Merch dot com. And in the meantime, we plan on seeing you guys next time because we love you fan Arritos. So remember the world is small, but the house is full of tap shoes, so many tap shoes.
That was that was my That was me so great, that's me tap dancing. Okay,