Oral History Interview with Tom Frey

This oral history is provided free by the Archives of the Interlochen Center for the Arts (ARTICA). It has been accepted for inclusion in Interlochen’s audio archive by an authorized administrator of Interlochen Center for the Arts. For more information, please contact archives@interlochen.org.

00:00:00    BRAD BAILEY
This is Brad Bailey. The date is July 27th, 2024. I'm doing an oral history interview with

00:00:07    BRAD BAILEY
Tom Frey,

00:00:08    BRAD BAILEY
Conducted by me on the campus of the Interlochen Center for the Arts. Nice to meet you, Tom.

00:00:12    TOM FREY
Nice to meet you, too.

00:00:14    BRAD BAILEY
So can you tell me- give me your name and spell it for me.

00:00:16    TOM FREY
Tom Frey. T o m F r e y.

00:00:21    BRAD BAILEY
And where were you born? And where did you spend your childhood?

00:00:23    TOM FREY
I was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, a little ways south of here, and I spent my childhood there. Left when I was 18 and went to North Carolina School of the Arts and moved to New York after that.

00:00:35    BRAD BAILEY
And what do you do in New York now?

00:00:37    TOM FREY
Well, I actually live in New Hampshire now, until recently was the artistic director of a theater there.

00:00:42    BRAD BAILEY
Got it, got it. And so, how long were you the director of the theater there?

00:00:44    TOM FREY
Well, I worked there for 14 years as a company member and a director, and took over as artistic director four years ago and was artistic director for three.

00:00:53    BRAD BAILEY
Okay, wow.

00:00:55    TOM FREY
So took over during the pandemic, which was stupid.

00:00:56    BRAD BAILEY
Why do you say that?

00:00:58    TOM FREY
It was such a chaotic time for all theater, and I had been there for a long time, and it was very much part of my artistic home and had a hand in building a lot of the community and a lot of the company there, and trying to keep that going when nobody could or was willing to go to the theatre was an unbelievable challenge.

00:01:22    BRAD BAILEY
All right. Talk to me about that. I mean, just getting people to go to the theatre.

00:01:25    TOM FREY
Well, we had all been shut inside, and the first time we could come out was 20- I guess '21? I was actually just talking about it with a couple of people here. The only way to do anything was outside, and we didn't have that infrastructure. And Our Town has been a staple - that play has been a staple of that place.

00:01:45    BRAD BAILEY
Okay, wonderful. Wow. Okay.

00:01:46    TOM FREY
But I decided we would do that play the first thing when I became artistic director.

00:01:51    BRAD BAILEY
Okay.

00:01:52    TOM FREY
And we did it outside downtown in a public space and built a set down there and put it in the place that at least had inspired. So it was during another moment in the theater at the- that was a long time coming, is a long time coming is still happening. Where there was a document called We See You White Theater, which was just the tip of the iceberg of what had been happening for so long, predominantly white, very much married to its nostalgic past with all of the inferences that that means. And my concern was choosing a piece like Our Town was very retrograde. By the grace of a lot of my friends, we were able to cast it in a very different way and give people who were people of color an opportunity to do roles that they would never be asked to do in that piece. And a friend of mine, a playwright, Tracy Lee, had said she had never even read it. And she's a black woman. And she had said it has nothing in there for me at all, until she saw it at Alabama Shakespeare Festival and said, oh, beyond this very, you know, this- the whiteness of this is something deeper, and so.

00:02:57    BRAD BAILEY
Absolutely, it's an American story, right? Like when I think about it, I mean, it was set a long time ago, but you could update it, you know. Very much so. And for a different era and a different time period, you know, with different people, you know, because it still tells a fundamental universal story.

00:03:11    TOM FREY
Yeah, yeah.

00:03:12    BRAD BAILEY
But let's back up a little bit to your childhood here in Kalamazoo. So what was music like for you? Did you deal with music or musical theater or acting when you were here in Kalamazoo or in Michigan?

00:03:23    TOM FREY
In Michigan, yep. And part of the story is my father went to Interlochen as well.

00:03:27    BRAD BAILEY
Okay.

00:03:28    TOM FREY
In the 40s.

00:03:29    BRAD BAILEY
Okay. Tell me about that.

00:03:30    TOM FREY
It's how Interlochen was even on my radar. He was in, I believe, a university program here in '46 and '47. I want to say.

00:03:40    BRAD BAILEY
Okay.

00:03:40    TOM FREY
I was at the archives yesterday, and Eileen found a couple pictures of my father.

00:03:44    BRAD BAILEY
What's your father's name?

00:03:45    TOM FREY
Jack Frey.

00:03:46    BRAD BAILEY
Okay.

00:03:46    TOM FREY
And he was here for choral music and conducting, and I knew a few names growing up.

00:03:51    BRAD BAILEY
How long was he here for?

00:03:52    TOM FREY
Just two summers, I think.

00:03:54    BRAD BAILEY
As a conductor?

00:03:55    TOM FREY
As a student conductor.

00:03:56    BRAD BAILEY
As a student conductor. Okay. Also, he was relatively young?

00:03:59    TOM FREY
He was in his late 20s, maybe early 30s. He was married and had already one child.

00:04:06    BRAD BAILEY
As a student doing conducting or conducting students?

00:04:09    TOM FREY
I think both. I think as a student learning, he was learning with a guy named Maynard Klein.

00:04:14    BRAD BAILEY
Okay.

00:04:15    TOM FREY
That was a big name from my, you know, stories from my dad.

00:04:17    BRAD BAILEY
Of course. Of course.

00:04:18    TOM FREY
Back in the day.

00:04:19    BRAD BAILEY
What age were you when you first came to Interlochen?

00:04:20    TOM FREY
I believe I was 15, could have been 16.

00:04:23    BRAD BAILEY
So therefore, talk to me then about how music and Interlochen affected you before you arrived here? Or arts and arts- Interlochen affected you before?

00:04:33    TOM FREY
Well, I had never been up here, but the idea of Interlochen was a big idea in my family. Both my parents were musicians.

00:04:39    BRAD BAILEY
What do they play?

00:04:40    TOM FREY
My dad was a pianist and a conductor and a singer, and my mom was primarily a singer, but also ended up conducting. She started a children's chorus in Kalamazoo, which I believe is still happening. And so music was everything. I mean, music was a big deal in our family, not acting or theater. That was not a, necessarily part of the immediate family thing. But I had always been in, you know, the Kalamazoo Junior Civic productions, and I didn't know what acting was, but I wanted to know. And so coming here, I came for All-State the first year, which was mostly chorus and singing. Then the two following years I was in the full camp. I don't know, I think it was called Music Camp then.

00:05:21    BRAD BAILEY
Well, let's go back though. So they did both music and singing. So talk to me about what your musical attributes were before you got here. How did music in sort of infuse your childhood with having two musicians as your parents?

00:05:33    TOM FREY
Well, I was a piano player from really early on, but never.. I always say I had a lot of quit in me because I also wanted to be outside, you know, playing football. But I was always playing and went through a lot of different teachers. I wound up with a piano scholarship to Western Michigan, which I did for a year.

00:05:51    BRAD BAILEY
And that was in college?

00:05:52    TOM FREY
That was in college.

00:05:53    BRAD BAILEY
But I'm still going back to before 15.

00:05:55    TOM FREY
Um, music was just huge in the family. I mean, we were in church. multiple times a week because that was a big part of how, you know, my father was a minister of music.

00:06:06    BRAD BAILEY
Oh. Was he? Okay, yeah. At what type of church?

00:06:08    TOM FREY
A methodist church.

00:06:09    BRAD BAILEY
And we go- Sorry, we go with details here.

00:06:11    TOM FREY
Yeah yeah yeah,

00:06:12    BRAD BAILEY
We- we do details.

00:06:13    TOM FREY
Tell me.

00:06:14    BRAD BAILEY
And so he was in a methodist church in Kalamazoo?

00:06:17    TOM FREY
In Kalamazoo.

00:06:18    BRAD BAILEY
And so did you stay in Kalamazoo your whole childhood?

00:06:20    TOM FREY
Yeah.

00:06:21    BRAD BAILEY
Okay. And so at 15, what was the decision then to come to Interlochen?

00:06:26    TOM FREY
I don't remember. A personal decision. I remember it was something if I had a chance to do, I was going to do. My parents were going to bring me.

00:06:36    BRAD BAILEY
Okay.

00:06:37    TOM FREY
It's a little foggy.

00:06:38    BRAD BAILEY
Explain that.

00:06:39    TOM FREY
I don't really remember is the real- the real answer. But I know there was a lot of cachet about Interlochen.

00:06:46    BRAD BAILEY
Okay. So you just you- Did you audition to come?

00:06:49    TOM FREY
I don't remember that.

00:06:50    BRAD BAILEY
Okay. So. But you just remember coming. Your dad must have been proud, though. You're, I mean, especially if he had come. Like what? I was just curious as to what his feelings were. You know, all these years later in like the 80s, it's almost like a, like, almost a 30 to 40 year time span.

00:07:07    TOM FREY
The same amount of time it's been since I came back.

00:07:09    BRAD BAILEY
Exactly. So, I mean, I'm sure there must have been some feelings of nostalgia or pride or. I don't know if you can describe. What were his feelings with you coming up here, if you can recall, if you can't recall, it's fine.

00:07:20    TOM FREY
Well, I can't specifically recall. I'm sure he was. He was not the kind to be all that out loud about that sort of thing. It would be, "You did good, chum".

00:07:29    BRAD BAILEY
Got it. And so what about your mother?

00:07:32    TOM FREY
She was very proud.

00:07:33    BRAD BAILEY
And so you got here and tell me about your experience here.

00:07:35    TOM FREY
The first year..

00:07:37    BRAD BAILEY
You were 15?

00:07:38    TOM FREY
I was 15. I think.

00:07:39    BRAD BAILEY
You went to- for summer camp?

00:07:40    TOM FREY
For two weeks, which was All-State.

00:07:43    BRAD BAILEY
Oh, you went to All-State? Okay.

00:07:44    TOM FREY
Yeah, the first year. And I don't remember a whole lot except I had.

00:07:47    BRAD BAILEY
And what was your concentration?

00:07:49    TOM FREY
I think it was voice.

00:07:50    BRAD BAILEY
Voice, okay.

00:07:51    TOM FREY
Yeah. I remember having a lot of voice lessons and being in chorus and stuff.

00:07:55    BRAD BAILEY
So what was it like that first summer?

00:07:57    TOM FREY
I'd been away to other camps before, but it wasn't like any other camp. - been to, like a YMCA camp, which was about archery and swimming. I don't know if it was that summer, but I remember early on, the way in which you're looking at me now was the way teachers looked at us.

00:08:14    BRAD BAILEY
And what's that? Describe that for people who are- who can't be here.

00:08:17    TOM FREY
It is a sort of fabulously probing way of looking at you. And when you're 15, you haven't- I had not had that. And somebody taking me seriously and patiently waiting for me to get over my whateverness, my whatnot, so we could get to the work.

00:08:36    BRAD BAILEY
Yeah.

00:08:37    TOM FREY
And that was the first time I'd ever really felt that, whether it was an All-State or whether it was certainly in the eight week program, I certainly felt it there.

00:08:46    BRAD BAILEY
And so you came back for the- when did you come back for the eight week program?

00:08:50    TOM FREY
The following summer.

00:08:51    BRAD BAILEY
The following summer. So talk to me still about that first summer. Do you remember who you learned with or who you taught with, or who you? Who were the professors or teachers?

00:08:58    TOM FREY
The first summer I believe I did operetta, so it would have been, Dude, is that Stevenson? I'm trying to remember some of the names, and certainly Mel Larimer, who actually was a friend of my dad's, and Mel was, I think, the vocal, maybe the music director or the vocal coach. So I did operetta, where I learned a phrase that I used in my own directing career for years from I think the Dude. And the phrase was, I bet I'll be corrected and I'm happy to be corrected. But which was "You can fool all of the people all of the time, some of the time", which I thought was fabulous Zen, sort of.

00:09:34    BRAD BAILEY
Current political- For our current political climate.

00:09:38    TOM FREY
Yes, for it works throughout the ages. But it was the beginning of that kind of teaching. You know, there was a lot of lore.

00:09:46    BRAD BAILEY
Okay. What do you mean by that?

00:09:48    TOM FREY
When I came back yesterday, I got a tour with J, and we're ten years apart.

00:09:53    BRAD BAILEY
J Berry, of course.

00:09:54    TOM FREY
J Berry, the fabulous J Berry took me and my partner Bridget on a tour and it was incredible, the amount of shared both language and shared touch points that we had.

00:10:08    BRAD BAILEY
Cultural nodes? Yeah.

00:10:09    TOM FREY
Nodes. That's. Yes, exactly.

00:10:11    BRAD BAILEY
And what do you mean by that? And what do you mean by that?

00:10:15    TOM FREY
Yeah, there's a very seems to be a very strong tradition of teaching here. My relationship to it feels very healthy as opposed to teachings in other institutions where I, where I went that got pretty harsh and things like that. I don't have that memory here. I'm sure there are problems and were problems, but do you ever when you reminisce with people that you've been through a tough time with? Occasionally we're sort of glorifying the trauma, which I think is problematic, but now I'm starting to remember things that weren't trauma, but we're just genuinely embracing that memory together.

00:10:47    BRAD BAILEY
You're remembering it right now?

00:10:49    TOM FREY
Yes. When you're remembering right now. And I felt that way with J. It wasn't like, oh, and we were treated so, you know.

00:10:56    BRAD BAILEY
What were some of those? Can you recall some of the memories or moments?

00:10:59    TOM FREY
Just talking about Dude a little bit and just the references of the campus itself, what was what was where, when? And she would often say during the tour, "When you were here, it would have been like this."

00:11:12    BRAD BAILEY
Because she's been here 50 years.

00:11:13    TOM FREY
So she can recall that. Yeah.

00:11:16    BRAD BAILEY
So what did you learn personally as a person and as a musician that first summer? You had said it was different than other camps, and by the end of that it was only two weeks. Did you learn anything particularly, particular that you like took back to Kalamazoo?

00:11:30    TOM FREY
The first summer, I think had much less impact on me than the following two. I went back kind of encouraged by All-State. I had a great time, I had some nice voice lessons and I was encouraged to go on. I learned a little bit about what serious practice was, which you know, I knew a little bit about from studying piano, but just not the entire.. The atmosphere here is so suffused with a kind of earnest. And I saw that yesterday, too, watching people who were the age I was when I was here and seeing there on purpose, which is both fabulous to see and also concerning.

00:12:10    BRAD BAILEY
Why do you say that?

00:12:11    TOM FREY
I hope they're also learning to take care of themselves with that drive.

00:12:17    BRAD BAILEY
With that drive.. And so what was the next few summers like when you came back at 16 and 17?

00:12:22    TOM FREY
Yeah.

00:12:22    BRAD BAILEY
For the eight weeks each?

00:12:24    TOM FREY
Each, yep.

00:12:24    BRAD BAILEY
And what was your major again for each of those?

00:12:27    TOM FREY
The first year I think I studied guitar and dance and operetta, but not musical, and I and started acting class there and I'm not sure it was the first, that second or third year where I met one of the teachers who is one of the teachers. I remember really changing my view.

00:12:47    BRAD BAILEY
Who was that?

00:12:48    TOM FREY
That was Arno Selkoe, who I think was the dean of Ithaca at the time

00:12:53    BRAD BAILEY
Ithaca College?

00:12:54    TOM FREY
Ithica College, or the drama program.

00:12:56    BRAD BAILEY
That's a great drama program.

00:12:57    TOM FREY
Yeah it is. I've worked with people since from there, and he had some relationship with David Rabe, as I remember, and in creating In The Boom Boom Room. And I think he would maybe have been part of that. But he had these incredible stories, but also a point of view about acting that I had never engaged, I had never had.

00:13:15    BRAD BAILEY
And what was that?

00:13:16    TOM FREY
It was what I now consider like a process. Well, I think I grew up with a lot of performance, a lot of performing, and the idea of a performer, not so much here, but in Kalamazoo and in those programs. And being in the musical theater, acting was not necessarily an emphasis. Not that it shouldn't be, and not that it isn't now. But you weren't being taught some of the fundamentals of acting, which back then were probably from Strasberg and were method or something like that. And that was part of what Arno brought. And there was just a simple and serious way of going about working on a scene that I had never done before and I found amazing. I know now, I probably did because it was the first time it entered into the subconscious, meditative part of talking and listening to another human being on stage and being as present as possible, as opposed to jazz hands. You know, there was something amazingly grown up feeling about being in, in his class and working on whatever we were working on.

00:14:24    BRAD BAILEY
And how do you use that in your process now. Tell me how that impacted your life in the decades after?

00:14:29    TOM FREY
I didn't know until Bridget and I came back yesterday and she went, oh, this explains a lot.

00:14:33    BRAD BAILEY
What does she mean by that?

00:14:34    TOM FREY
I think she meant that the way I expect people to work is the way I learned to work here. And I didn't really know that. I metabolized that so completely and, you know, went on and had a whole lot, a lot of other life happen. But I know now this has been an Incredibly important trip back. I know that maybe, for better or for worse, the parts of how I learned to work here I expanded on, or messed up or used or perfected or whatever over and over again, and it made me think about work now, the work I've been doing.

00:15:11    BRAD BAILEY
So I always call these memory triggers. So what memory triggers did you see here? How long have you been back this trip?

00:15:17    TOM FREY
We were back for the afternoon yesterday. And then this morning I just got-

00:15:20    BRAD BAILEY
You've been here just in less than 24 hours?

00:15:22    TOM FREY
Oh my God.

00:15:23    BRAD BAILEY
And so what about this trip has triggered your memory and letting you understand that this place did impact your trajectory in any sort of moments or situation that you can recall?

00:15:35    TOM FREY
Just driving down the parkway and starting to have these context clues come into my brain, brought up stories I hadn't thought of in years.

00:15:45    BRAD BAILEY
Like, like what? Anything you'd like to share?

00:15:48    TOM FREY
Well, you know, when you drive in here, I think it's called Ormandy now. And maybe it was then, but that was where your parents would come pick you up at the end of this journey, where you had found your people and where you had lived a summer where you weren't the weirdo, but you were around every other weirdo, and you'd fallen in love with people and with pieces of music and with a play and with a way of doing things and a rhythm of living that you knew you were going to not walk back into. And so I remember that. And I was telling Bridget, you know, this is where the very patient parents would wait for us to say goodbye, our final goodbyes to people and to this place and hope, hope we got good train letters and you know, all of that. And then there was just a ton of emotion. So that came back to me just turning in the to the parking lot.

00:16:45    BRAD BAILEY
Just by viewing the-

00:16:47    TOM FREY
Mhm. And this is something because I've been on a little journey, a trip of collecting for the past 3 or 4 months.

00:16:54    BRAD BAILEY
Before you got- Tell me about that.

00:16:57    TOM FREY
We had a summer off that I haven't had in 17 years or more and really had this inflection point in my life, and I wanted to come back and collect things that had become, I think, memories that I didn't.. they'd been changed and become a little ghostly, and I wanted to come back and see what Kalamazoo was like now. See what, you know, Chicago is like. It was a place I went a lot. And see what places in the U.P. are like with who I am now. And focal point of it for me was Interlochen.

00:17:36    BRAD BAILEY
And so having had this trip, what is your biggest takeaway so far?

00:17:41    TOM FREY
I don't know yet. I have another month in South Haven where we're just going to be in one place. My plan is to do a lot of meditating and writing about that. I'm not sure. I think one of the things I was, if I'm being too dendritic, you can pull me back in. But one of the things when I, when I was looking at the young humans here, I was thinking, I don't know what I would say to them, but I know what I would say to me, and the me at that age wouldn't listen. That doesn't matter. But I would say many of you are going to do exactly what you think you came here to do and are going to do in the world, and even more of you won't. And that's beautiful. That's fine. I hope that they learn to take care of themselves, as I said before, while they're striving, and I've been working with a lot of young people because of second company in the theater that I ran, one of the encouraging things I find is they are learning to rest while they're working, and they're demanding that. And it doesn't make sense to a lot of us that that demand is being made. But that's only because we didn't do it. And we were not taught that that was-

00:18:49    BRAD BAILEY
You pay the price for it.

00:18:50    TOM FREY
And we paid, yes. And I paid a price. So I think one of the things that's dawning on me is I can do that now, from now on.

00:18:59    BRAD BAILEY
And it's not too late at all.

00:19:00    TOM FREY
And it's not too late at all. And I have this picture on my phone that I only have there because of RuPaul, which is a picture of me as a four year old. And it's not because I think he's cute, but it's because I know I have to father that child and I'm the only one that can do it, you know? And coming back here is an act of that.

00:19:20    BRAD BAILEY
Explain the picture for people who can't see it.

00:19:22    TOM FREY
It's a picture. If you saw it, you'd realize I didn't have any choice but to go into show business. It's a little boy with his mama's hat on and his dad's cane, or his grandfather's cane, and already doing some kind of Fosse at that age.

00:19:37    BRAD BAILEY
And so what about your life did you take away from here? You said the most was the acting. So tell us how this place impacted your career in the arts after you left.

00:19:50    TOM FREY
Well, I think it was very subconsciously for a very long time. The school that I went to, the conservatory that I went to for, for acting.

00:19:57    BRAD BAILEY
Where was that?

00:19:57    TOM FREY
North Carolina School of the Arts. It's now University of North Carolina School.

00:20:02    BRAD BAILEY
In Chapel Hill?

00:20:03    TOM FREY
Winston-Salem.

00:20:04    BRAD BAILEY
Winston-Salem, okay.

00:20:05    TOM FREY
It was very much to tear you down school, which I only recently understand the impulse for because I think unless we understand the causes and conditions that make us the set of processes we are now as an actor, as a performer, you're not going to be able to do other than that. But there are ways to get to that without the brutalism of the 80s or the 1980s and '90. Well, I guess I graduated in '89, but they were working with their causes and conditions, teaching us. I think that what I learned technically here was one thing, and I'm sure I have used parts of that in some sort of way, and I have to think more about this, but I think it was more the experience of being a student here among all the other people, all the other people doing what we were really serious about doing and having great older humans helping us do that in a way that I didn't get in the public school system and didn't get in private lessons before that. And the kind of community, you know, there's a critical mass kind of idea you're around enough of that that it really imprints on you, if that makes any sense.

00:21:23    BRAD BAILEY
All right. We'll continue. What else did you do as your career?

00:21:26    TOM FREY
After I graduated from North Carolina, I did not pursue the arts at all for many years. I developed a very difficult relationship to- I had also gone for a year as a piano student in Western Michigan. But I developed a horrible case of stage fright to the point where I couldn't perform in front of people, which is a barrier if you're going to spend your life performing in front of people. And so I didn't touch the piano for a while, and then I went- when I graduated from North Carolina, I went to New York City. I ended up running restaurants for about ten years, opened a couple in New York and one in Chicago, and started to take voice lessons again.

00:22:03    BRAD BAILEY
In New York City?

00:22:04    TOM FREY
In New York City, kind of just as an outlet. And that led to a few other things. And I ended up getting an agent starting to book a little bit as an actor and a singer, and then a show called Two Pianos, Four Hands Came Along, which is a Canadian show. And the brief version, if I can do it, is they needed replacements for the two Canadian guys who had written it for themselves and were ready to turn it over. But, you know, every actor in New York is going to say, yeah, I play the piano. And so they said, no, you have to go. You have a free ticket if you want to audition, but you have to see it. And it was a weeding out process because you have to play piano at an incredibly high level to do the show.

00:22:41    BRAD BAILEY
Okay.

00:22:42    TOM FREY
It ends with the first movement of the Bach D Minor Piano Concerto from memory and there's no faking that one. And I went and saw it, and I was terrified. And I knew if I didn't audition for it, I would be sorry.

00:22:56    BRAD BAILEY
Okay.

00:22:57    TOM FREY
And I ended up after. I didn't get it. I auditioned for it. I didn't get it. They kept having me back. But flash forward 20 years. I'd ended up performing that show, I think almost 700 times.

00:23:11    BRAD BAILEY
On the North American tour?

00:23:13    TOM FREY
Yeah. And I'm now the US resident director.

00:23:15    BRAD BAILEY
Oh, wow. Okay.

00:23:16    TOM FREY
Of that show. So 99% of all the productions I'm either part of or responsible for.

00:23:22    BRAD BAILEY
The ones in all over or just in the US?

00:23:24    TOM FREY
Mostly in the US. But also I performed a ton in Canada, and I've directed a few times in Canada as well.

00:23:31    BRAD BAILEY
Congratulations. All right. Great. And then what's next? Or what was next? Next after that was 2006 to when?

00:23:38    TOM FREY
That was 2000 until now.

00:23:42    BRAD BAILEY
Okay. Okay, great.

00:23:44    TOM FREY
You know, but in the meantime, I worked in developing plays in New York and workshops and did lots of other projects.

00:23:51    BRAD BAILEY
So in many ways you actually, even with the advice that you're going to give to the young kids, you actually end up doing what you sort of came here to do. Correct?

00:24:04    TOM FREY
I did, and I'm as surprised as anybody.

00:24:07    BRAD BAILEY
Why is that?

00:24:09    TOM FREY
Because there was a long time where I thought that didn't work. You know, there was a decade in New York where I was watching my friends work, and it was.. I didn't see any path to that work for me.

00:24:20    BRAD BAILEY
Well, what got you re-inspired again in that ten years?

00:24:24    TOM FREY
I think I just really needed- I wasn't trying to get a job. I wasn't trying to work professionally. I just desperately needed to play again. I needed to reconnect to that essential part. As it turns out, I didn't think it was essential. I wanted to reconnect to that essential part of me I needed to play. At the time, I don't- I didn't need to play for other people. I needed to and I, I don't sing so much anymore but I, I needed to get back to that feeling, to that practice. I needed to get back to a practice. That's what it was.

00:24:59    BRAD BAILEY
And so looking back on this place, what was your favorite place on campus?

00:25:04    TOM FREY
That's so hard. That was on the list of questions and I thought, I'm not going to be able to.. I loved parts of the camp life itself.

00:25:13    BRAD BAILEY
Okay?

00:25:13    TOM FREY
I think part of being in a cabin with- that's the other thing, right, is that it is interdisciplinary. And that's a huge part of what I realized I've carried forward, whether I knew it or not, but because I was in a cabin with a bass player and a pianist who was so just beyond, I couldn't believe that he was playing, you know, the Mephisto Waltz, and he's 15 or 16 and, you know, a dancer and etc. when we would go to each other's concerts, we were as amped up as if we were going to, you know, see people in our own discipline. And I think that that just built, that was something that built through, you know, throughout my life. So the cabin itself, as horrible as Reveille was, you know, and as horrible as forced fun. Have people talked about required recreation?

00:26:01    BRAD BAILEY
They don't have that anymore, but they have mentioned it. But you can tell me your idea for forced fun.

00:26:06    TOM FREY
Forced fun was, I don't know when it was. Maybe every other Friday or something. We had to go play a soccer game or something out in the field over here before you cross over into camp. And all of us were like, I need to work on the concerto. I have to learn lines. I do not have time for this, you know? And we were all so focused.

00:26:26    BRAD BAILEY
On not wanting to have forced fun.

00:26:27    TOM FREY
Not wanting to have forced fun. It was derided. It was so beneath us.

00:26:31    BRAD BAILEY
And I think it was gendered, wasn't it?

00:26:33    TOM FREY
Yeah. Oh my God.

00:26:35    BRAD BAILEY
I understand that. I understand why that was the case.

00:26:38    TOM FREY
Yeah, well, I mean old school, heteronormative, patriarchal, you know.

00:26:44    BRAD BAILEY
So are there people you keep in contact with?

00:26:46    TOM FREY
There were for many years, but not anymore. My life kind of went a different direction.

00:26:51    BRAD BAILEY
Where are they now?

00:26:51    TOM FREY
I don't know. I do not know.

00:26:54    BRAD BAILEY
Would you like keeping contact with them or are you trying to keep in contact with them?

00:26:57    TOM FREY
I have not, but I'm at a point where I'd love to know what.. where they are in their life and journey.

00:27:04    BRAD BAILEY
Well, maybe the alumni office can always help with that. The folks you just left. Yeah. Access to people.

00:27:09    TOM FREY
Yeah.

00:27:10    BRAD BAILEY
All right. Perfect. And so how would you describe Interlochen to somebody who has not been here?

00:27:14    TOM FREY
Who are these people?

00:27:16    BRAD BAILEY
Anybody.

00:27:17    TOM FREY
I want to try to answer this, not as an artistic director who's trying to spin something so that donors give money. I'm just going to answer from the heart. I think Interlochen is a place, if you're lucky enough to go to, as a certain kind of person, it gives you the courage to get through some of the next tough years that are coming up. The real world is not Interlochen, although maybe it should be in part. And you know, the nuts and bolts of it are, it's an incredible arts institution. Obviously, you know, and I think that part is fundamental and great. For me, Interlochen was a place where I felt like I was on the planet. I was in the right room for the first time, and I didn't know that that was even a thing.

00:28:00    BRAD BAILEY
And so what is your hope for Interlochen's future?

00:28:04    TOM FREY
Well, it seems like it's moving in the really great direction. You mentioned it being gendered in the past, and it's not now. I think that is just- finally. That is so fantastic. My hope is that it, and it seems to be doing this from what I, you know, what do I know? I've been here for less than 24 hours. It doesn't seem to be celebrating its nostalgic past. It seems to be moving forward. It seems to be making at least an honest attempt to move in the direction of the future. And what I would hope is that it keeps doing that. And I would hope that it in some way can have an impact beyond the whatever, however many acres are here, I know it does professionally. I mean, Interlochen people are everywhere, in every orchestra and company and you know all of that. Part of what I always thought the job of the theater that I was trying to build was that if you work on a tiny- if you work to heal a tiny part of reality, of your reality, maybe there'll be ripples, small interactions that can maybe undercut the menace. So I would hope that Interlochen keeps growing and whatever the best part of its core, whatever it is that Joseph Maddy most purely had in his intentions, I hope that keeps being manifested and realized, if that's not too twee.

00:29:31    BRAD BAILEY
No, not at all. And so I always ask this question because you already answered the question I was asked about. What advice would you give to future Interlochen students? Anything you would like to add to that? What would be your advice you gave before about taking time for yourself and sort of understanding rest and self-care and taking care of yourself? Anything you'd like to add to that? Or you think you answered that part?

00:29:54    TOM FREY
Yeah, I want to add something, but I want to preface it by admitting that I wouldn't have listened to it. You know, when I was at North Carolina. We had a lot of people who came to talk to us, who really talked a lot of sense, but we were all going to get famous, so it didn't matter. But along with taking care of yourself and not burning out and learning how to be, you know, a healthy artist has a chance to be a great artist. I would say if you can try to take a moment while you're here to realize where you are and who is around you and just appreciate that and not try and change it or work on the concerto in your head. Just breathe for a couple of moments, sometime during the summer, and realize that you are in this incredible place that is going to stay with you for the rest of your life.

00:30:43    BRAD BAILEY
And so last question I always ask is, what do you think is the importance of art in our world today?

00:30:50    TOM FREY
Well, art is a healer. In my discipline of theater, I think that it's an empathy machine. And I think you have a chance to, for a little while, when you go to the theater, either experience somebody else's interior or stand next to them through whatever the conflict is they're going through, depending on the storytelling style. And at the end of this roller coaster of real, you know, chemicals and emotions and joined heartbeats, you get to go home unharmed, but possibly changed with a little deeper understanding of how to be just a little kinder to each other. And, you know, I think these are not my words, but words of a dear friend of mine, an artistic director, who said, "We sit together in the dark to learn how to love each other in the  light.”

00:31:42    BRAD BAILEY
Very nice. Well. Thank you. Thank you so much.

00:31:45    TOM FREY
Thank you.

00:31:46    BRAD BAILEY
Is there anything you'd like to add?

00:31:47    TOM FREY
You're awesome. Thank you.

00:31:50    BRAD BAILEY
Yeah. No. Thank you, thank you. Like I said, I always enjoy doing these interviews because they really do give an opportunity to get a wonderful perspective of Interlochen from a wide range of folks.

00:32:00    TOM FREY
Yeah.

00:32:01    BRAD BAILEY
But who really do have overlapping and similar themes together.

00:32:04    TOM FREY
What are those? What-

00:32:06    BRAD BAILEY
As you said, just like really a passionate love for Interlochen. So yeah, thank you for your time today. And that's it. So today is July 27th, 2024. This is Brad Bailey concluding interview with-

00:32:19    TOM FREY
Tom Frey.

00:32:20    BRAD BAILEY
On the campus of the Interlochen Center for the Arts.