Hobbies that will land someone onstage in New York City are unusual, but Kyle Thomas has earned a chance to show off his own piece in the New York City theater scene.
Thomas, a 38-year-old Murfreesboro resident and Middle Tennessee State University graduate, writes stage and screenplays in his free time. The Rogue Theater Festival in New York City selected his work Portrait of a Young Man to be performed on June 30.
Thomas works full-time for Marelli Automotive Systems in Shelbyville and has written and sent in many original screenplays to Hollywood entities and various theater and film festivals over the years. The Rogue Theater Festival is the first to pick up his writing and present it in a public performance.
“My words were chosen to be in this festival and my words were chosen to be spoken aloud in New York City,” said Thomas, “It remains surreal to me as an aspiring writer—this is like the mecca.”
Thomas is more of a writer than an actor, but he wanted to take this opportunity to act in this very personal piece that has been years in the making.
Portrait of a Young Man is a piece that Thomas has worked on for over seven years. Written originally as a screenplay, Thomas was inspired to write this story based on personal experiences in his life.
“One of the opening parts of the story is very autobiographical,” Thomas said, “There used to be a bookshop in Murfreesboro called Hastings and I was in there one day thumbing through books and found an old boarding pass in one of them and it was cool to think about how that book went on a trip with someone.”
After several years of different edits and breaks from the story, Thomas finally reached this version that he is performing in New York City, now a 17-page monologue.
“In a monologue, there are no gunfights, and no one is getting poisoned,” Thomas chuckled, “it’s just me telling you a story and, as a writer, I have to try to keep you engaged.”
The monologue’s narrator, Greg, is a history teacher and father to a 16-year-old named Bryce. The story begins at the end, with him and his teenage son in Florence, Italy, on a father-son trip. The details of what surrounded the trip and how it is going to affect them both is revealed much later in the story.
The father-son relationship in Portrait of a Young Man closely mirrors that of Thomas’ own life. His father sparked his interest in theater from a young age. Thomas is now a father himself as well, with a 3-year-old son.
Thomas has been an avid lover of theater and film his whole life. He grew up in Shelbyville, and first heard Phantom of the Opera when he was just 4 years old.
“My dad got the soundtrack [to Phantom] and I first loved it because he loved it. He was my hero . . . and at four, I was learning all the words and had no clue what they meant. Then years later I thought ‘That was some pretty heavy [stuff],’” Thomas recalled.
Thomas acted during all four years of high school and went to MTSU to study communications with a minor in theater. He was always interested in what went into the writing and script building of plays, TV shows and movies.
He works for Marelli remotely since the COVID-19 pandemic began and has since gotten his “unofficial MFA,” as he puts it, in his free time. He studies classic English playwrights, literature and scripts of all kinds. He is a lover of history as well, which he incorporates in several of his works, including Portrait.
The Rogue Theater Festival took place June 30 to July 1, and Thomas closed out the first night of the fest as the last act to take the stage. The Players Theatre is located off Broadway in Greenwich Village and has been a theater since the late 1950s. For more information, visit theplayerstheatre.com and roguetheaterfestival.com.
