In this interview, Matt Farnsworth recounts his evolution from a classically trained pianist and choir student in Cincinnati to a Broadway performer and later a sought‑after vocal coach. He describes early exposure to theater through a school production of The Wizard of Oz, his formal training at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music where he studied piano, voice, and dance (jazz, ballet, modern), and how his dance skills enabled ensemble work on shows like Cats, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Sunset Boulevard, Tommy, and Blood Brothers. Farnsworth details his unconventional path to New York, including a brief stint on a cruise ship, a pivotal meeting with agent Jerry Hogan, and landing his Equity card on Tommy. After a period of waiting‑table work, a call from friend Heidi Marshall led him to play piano for the original production of Rent, where he transitioned into vocal coaching, drawing on 21 years of study with renowned teacher Bill Shuman. He later coached for major productions such as The Lion King and Aida, balanced performing with intensive teaching, and eventually took a sabbatical in India working with the ASTEP orphanage. Returning to New York, he now performs selectively while focusing on coaching, emphasizing the stability and fulfillment it provides.
Chapters
I was a classical pianist my whole life, and I went to private Catholic school my whole life, and then my dad moved to Cincinnati with Delta, and I went to a public school for the first time, and they said you have to take art or choir, and I thought, I know I can't draw, and Aldo DiMartino told me I couldn't sing when I was like 7 years old, so I hadn't sang for years, and They tested me to see if I could sing. They said, you're great, and do you want to be in The Wizard of Oz? I was like, yeah. And so I was an Oz person, and that was it. I wanted to quit piano. I only wanted to do theater. Like, I found my love. And my parents didn't let me quit piano, thank God. Yeah, I'm very grateful to them. They did not let me quit.
Comes in handy now for everything you're doing.
For everything I'm doing. But yeah, so I started with piano, and then when I was 12— no, when I was 14, I started singing lessons and continued with piano. And then I went to musical theater school, and that's where I started dancing. And I loved it, you know, and that also was very important when coming to New York that because the parts I was right for, I was too young for, but I wasn't too young to understudy them and be in the ensemble. And in order to be in the ensemble, you had to dance. So that again was another really important thing for me is to be able to dance when I got here.
And what styles of dance did you study?
Mostly jazz and ballet and modern. We were required to take that at school. And, you know, when I got here, I was able to do Cats here on Broadway. I did Thoroughly Modern Millie. Sunset Boulevard, Tommy, Curtains, and all those shows, you know, basically I was dancing in. So I mean, it's the reason I had a career here, because if I couldn't have danced, I don't know that I would have been as castable.
And where did you go to school, I guess I should ask?
Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. Yeah.
And that gave you your foundation.
Gave me my foundation.
Moving from school to— you're in New York.
Yeah.
What was that like?
Well, I was a bit of a hothead in college because I left my senior senior year of high school. I actually graduated early and went to a conservatory early. And I kind of thought, you know, that I was invincible and my ego was kind of out of control. So, and then I got cast my freshman year, which you're not supposed to get cast, so my ego just kept growing. And then my junior year I didn't get the part I wanted, so I said, "I'm leaving, you know, and I'm going to Carnegie Mellon, your competition school." And I got accepted at Carnegie Mellon, but they wanted me to start as a freshman. And my parents were like, "No, we're not paying $40,000 a year for you to start college again." So I went on a cruise ship, actually. And I came here and I started working. I was living in Long Island, Massapequa Park. My mom knew a woman that she worked with whose brother was an agent. And I was always like, "Mom, please, like, do not try to set me up with an agent." It's humiliating having your mother do things for you, you know what I mean? I was just like so against it. Anyway, she got me a meeting with Jerry Hogan, who's now passed away. And she worked with Jerry Hogan's sister. And I went to a meeting. He sent me out to a general audition with Johnson-Lift Casting, which was his partner, was Jeff Johnson. And they said, you know what, you're going to work in 6 months. And they— it was like a lucky, lucky, lucky break just getting that in. And then my first— I got my Equity card doing Tommy. That was my first show. And I got 2 shows the same day, actually. My agents called and they said, we have good news and bad news. The good news is you got 2 Broadway shows. The bad news is that you're only going to take one of them. I said, oh, that's good news and good news. So I got Blood Brothers the same day as I got Tommy. So, you know, when it rains, it pours.
Let's talk about the transition now between performer to sage instructor guide. How did that happen first?
Well, when I finished doing Tommy, I was waiting tables again back in 1994. I was really unhappy because I'd been like achieving my dream and then I was back, you know, having people treat me really badly. Being a waiter is a terrible job. I mean, it was just— so I got a phone call one day. It was my friend Heidi Marshall. I love you. Thank you. You changed my life. She was working for Bernie Bernie Telsey Casting, and Bernie Telsey Casting was in a little office back then. He did mostly television commercials and downtown theater, and she said, listen, we're working on this show called Rent, and we need a piano player. And I was like, Heidi, I'm an actor, not a piano player. And she was like, it's $40 an hour. I said, I'll be right there. So I ran down and I started playing for this musical Rent, and then it just became this huge hit. I became kind of like the vocal coach. They would send people to me for coaching the material, and I kind of knew I knew how to fix people's voices. I've studied with a man named Bill Shuman here in the city for years, for 21 years, who I consider— he's one of the top voice teachers in the world. And he gave me such a strong foundation that I just intuitively knew what to do. And then Lion King opened, Aida opened, and I became like this rock vocal coach, per se. Yet I was acting all at the same time. So I would be doing a Broadway show but teaching like 5 hours, 6 hours a day. For me, the daily grind of doing and being an actor started to weigh more heavily on my happiness of doing it. And something just changed in me and I had this other thing that was so flourishing, like my teaching was just, you know, they say go where it's warm. It was just, I had more business than I knew what to do with, so I went to India and I worked at an orphanage for my friend Mary Mitchell Campbell called ASTEP, Artists Striving to End Poverty, and I kind of did like my own version of Eat, Pray, Love a little bit where I tried to look for myself. I came back and I just said, you know, I decided that was it. I left the show and I still perform. Like, I still— I went and did Guys and Dolls after that at Seattle Fifth Avenue, but I don't actively pursue it. If somebody asks me to do something, I'll do it just to keep my chops up. And I love it still. I love it, but I love helping other people achieve their goals, and I love the steadiness of my job, and I love that it builds on itself and that I've gotten to do more and more exciting projects and So, I mean, when I think about my life, I always knew I wanted to live in New York ever since I came to New York to visit. I just feel like I'm doing exactly where— I feel like I'm exactly where I should be, you know?
And now you're not going to the daily auditions. People call you and say, would you like—
They'll say, yeah, I mean, they still sometimes want me to audition, but they'll call and my agents will call and say, hey, do you want to go in for Blue Bloods and just audition? And I'll do that kind of stuff because it's here in New York, it's easy. Or, you know, do you want to come out and play Scott? For 6 weeks. I'll do that, you know, right? That's fun.
