TWELVE - In Taipei with Tyley

In a sea of Asian faces, a white one catches your attention. Imagine my surprise when, standing in line at the local 7/11 on my lunch hour a month ago, I spotted a familiar face from back home - Merrickville, that is.

The smiling visage of Tyley Ross, who spent his elementary school years in Merrickville, was on a brochure for the musical “The Wedding Banquet.” I picked up the ad and tried to read it, but it was all in Mandarin. After a brief consultation with some of my Chinese colleagues, I learned that the musical would open the following week, on the 8^th of August, in Taipei City.

Let’s just say getting an interview with the star was easier than getting tickets. English may be Taiwan’s second national language, but not a lot gets done in it.

I emailed the media contact and she forwarded my request for an interview to Tyley in Seattle, where rehearsals were finishing up. He accepted the invitation warmly, and was excited at the prospect of seeing a familiar face from home, as we all are while on the other side of the world.

Tyley Ross used to hang out with my best friend’s brother, way back when I was in junior high school.

It was definitely an ‘I knew you when...’ situation. I hadn’t seen him in over eighteen years (Yikes!) since he moved to the big city to attend Canterbury School for the Performing Arts.

Tyley has theatre in his voice and in his walk. His posture looks practiced and his hands are very expressive. A consummate professional, he tries to save his voice in the off-stage hours, adhering to a fairly restrictive diet avoiding alcohol and dairy products before performing. I had to give my head a shake more than once when he broke into that familiar smile of the boy I used to know. Many things have happened in the life and career of this local boy since the days when he used to stand on a table to be heard above the crowd. And some things haven’t. He still loves to break out in song on a whim, God bless him. We were sipping iced tea (his was peach, mine vanilla pudding flavour) in a funky little tea bar in the shopping district of Hsimenting when “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing” by Aerosmith came over the speaker.

Suddenly Tyley gets that ‘are you ready for this?’ look in his eye, and starts belting out the song in his best Broadway voice. But subdued, like he was singing just for me. Imagine my bliss. This man can really sing. We spent about three hours catching up on life and gossip, and waxing poetic about the future.

At one point Tyley looked around (keep in mind, the man was severely jet lagged and under the influence of highly caffeinated green tea...) and said, “sometimes I just have to remind myself of where I am.” So we sat quietly for a moment, watched the young trendy Asian set jostling for elbow room on the shopping street behind us, and smiled.

On Sunday the 10^th, I persuaded three of my best mates in Taipei to accompany me to the opening weekend of the musical, which was doing very well at the box office. According to Tyley, the cast was a bit apprehensive as to how the show would be received, as it is of a slightly controversial subject matter. If you haven’t seen the movie, the story is about a gay male couple, a woman, and a baby. I don’t want to give all the surprises away.

I will, however, share my favorite scene. It is in the second act, in a gay bar. Tyley sings a powerful, energetic solo that reminds his fans that he was chosen by Pete Townsend himself to be the star of The Who’s “Tommy” when it was in Toronto. It is evident that he loves to perform, and his joy is contagious.

The Chinese media were very excited about the musical, based on the movie written by Taiwan native Ang Lee, and produced by Taiwan native (and Broadway star) Welly Yang. Tyley did numerous interviews and press conferences, both on television and radio in Taipei.

After a highly successful run in Taipei City, the musical headed for Ang Lee’s hometown of Tainan. Then it was scheduled to go to Singapore, where strict censors forced writers to change the ending of the show to something more ‘socially acceptable’.

Tyley will get to see a bit of Southeast Asia on this gig, and he is very happy about that. To be able to perform on the small stage, where he is still directly, “connected to the muse,” is what he hopes to continue doing, indefinitely. He has done some film work and some songwriting in the past, and may return to that some day, as he certainly possesses talent and presence in both areas. But his love is musical theatre, and it shows.

Thank you, Tyley, for giving me a sneak peek backstage into your life in the spotlight. May your voice be velvet, and your dance electric.

                                                            

Tyley Ross now performs in Aria Electronica.

 It’s fantastic stuff, and Tyley’s voice comes through loud and clear. He still travels the world, and was recently in China, but I try to catch his show whenever he comes back home.