Matt Doyle: In Familiar Company

In Matthew Lombardo’s ‘Conversations with Mother’ and a Special Gay Bond

By FRANK RIZZO

Yes, it’s a stereotype, but do mothers and their gay sons really have a special relationship like no other?

Matt Doyle believes so. The Tony Award-winning actor from the gender-switching product ion of the musical Company is now starring with Caroline Aaron (TV’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) in off-Broadway’s Conversations with Mother.

It’s a new play that follows an Italian-American matriarch and her gay son over five decades of emotional ups and downs. The two-actor, semi-autobiographical work is by Connecticut’s Matthew Lombardo (Broadway’s High, Looped and Off-Broadway’s Tea at Five) and continues at Theatre 555 in New York through May 7.

“I was so drawn to this really beautiful thing that isn’t discussed much, especially in gay media, and that is the relationship between a mother and a gay son,” said Doyle in a Zoom interview.

It’s also a theme in which the 37-year-old Doyle personally relates, reminding him of his own family, especially the Italian side, he says, and his relationship with his mother.

“I’ve been so close to my mother my entire life,” he said. “She has been my rock, my support system and really my best friend. I wanted to do this play because I wanted to pay tribute to what mothers can do for their [gay] sons and especially what mine has done for me.”

Part of the play deals with the mother, named Maria Collavechio, learning that her son Bobby is gay.

“It’s scary to come out,” said Doyle relating the scene to his own experience, “but I knew that if there was anyone who was going to be by my side and lift me up, it was going to be my mother.”

Like Maria in the play, Doyle’s mother initiated the challenging conversation. For Doyle, it was when he was 16.

“One night she came to me when I was upstairs in my bedroom. She said, ‘We need to talk.’ She was the one that asked the question. A mother knows her son, and she knew I was holding something back from her, something she knew I was dying to express and understand and wanting to start the conversion. And so I did. I told her—and I was terrified. But I also told her that I was sure [that I was gay], and I felt that way every single day—and it wasn’t changing,” Doyle said.

It wasn’t a shock to her, he added.

“She said she kind of knew I was gay because I would walk down a hallway and see beautiful girl after beautiful girl and not react. But seeing me walking down the same hallway and seeing a beautiful guy, well…”

But it was a journey for her, too.

“She had a process ahead of her as well,” says Doyle. “That’s something a lot of gay men don’t understand when they’re coming out. It’s hard enough for many of us to accept it about ourselves that to expect the world, and especially the people closest to you—like your parents—to immediately accept; isn’t fair.”

Mother and son made a pact to keep the information from Doyle’s conservative father until Doyle felt his father could handle the information.

“I also knew that I had a very, very long journey ahead of me in terms of everyone understanding,” he said. “It wouldn’t be until I was 21 when I would ever discuss it openly with my father—and that [coming out to him] was a long process, just step one.”

Growing up

Doyle’s earliest years were spent in Manchester-By-the-Sea, MA before his family moved to Westin, Connecticut when he was eight. After spending two years there, Doyle’s family then moved to northern California.

Did he have any gay crushes during his formative years?

“Bruce Willis for me was a huge sexual awakening, especially in the Die Hard movies and in The Fifth Element where he is wearing this orange tank top and just giving this amazing performance. Yeah, Bruce Willis was a big part of that journey for me.”

After graduating Redwood High School, Doyle trained for a year at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.  Doyle made his Broadway debut in 2007 when he was just 20 as a replacement in Spring Awakening, which was followed by a revival of Bye Bye Birdie, and then War Horse. In 2012, he joined Broadway’s The Book of Mormon in the starring role of Elder Price for a two-year run. Off-Broadway roles included Anthony in Sweeney Todd, a stage adaptation of A Clockwork Orange, and most recently Little Shop of Horrors, playing Seymour. He is also a singer-songwriter who has released several early EPs and an album, “Uncontrolled.”

But Conversations With Mother shows Doyle’s talents in a non-singing role, one that has a number of parallels with his own life.

Bobby’s journey is similar to Doyle’s own as an artist, moving to New York in his late teens, but also having a mother who supported him — and would also call him out on everything.”

The echoes don’t end there. In the show, the character of Maria, the mother, swoops into Bobby’s life multiple times during her son’s many crises “and essentially saves him,” said Doyle.

“I struggle with mental health and my mom on multiple occasions has shown up unannounced, just like Maria does in the play,” he said. “My mother flew out to Seattle once just showing up at my door. She just knew I was at my lowest. I wasn’t willing to admit it to her because I usually close off and shut down when I’m in crisis, But she knew.”

Recently, he said, she did it again, unexpectedly showing up at his Jersey City home. His parents now live in Newtown, Connecticut.

Doyle says he is now completely revealing to his mother about himself, “probably more things than most sons would share with their mothers. I tell my mom everything. Probably too much. But she knows it all.”

Frank understandings 

After his Company success and his joyous acceptance speech at the Tony Awards (“I’m the next bride!”), Doyle played Frank Sinatra in a new bio-musical, directed by Kathleen Marshall, which premiered in England.

“There’s definitely a future for the show,” he says. “We presented a reading at the Apollo Theatre with a full orchestra [in November] and it went great. I would imagine it would be coming to Broadway in the fall of ’25, at least that’s the goal.”

Following his role in Company as Jamie—who stops the show with the pre-wedding-jitters song “Not Getting Married”—Doyle said, “I’m not sure anyone was expecting me to take on [Sinatra]. But I felt I knew this man. My father’s side of the family is Italian, very Italian, like VERY Italian, so I grew up around Frank and all those guys. My natural center walking around in the world might not be like Frank, but I certainly understand him. I love him. He is so flawed but also so human and relatable.”

Significant markers

Doyle sports several tattoos that reflect the ups and downs of his emotional life.

“Boundless as the sea” on his bicep references Romeo and Juliet. “I was 27 and was going through a terrible breakup, so I was ready to change my life—and get my first tattoo.”

Another marking is “Play On,” an upbeat Shakespearean line inked when he was recording his first EP. Still another is an elegant feather which lines his forearm and references “rebirth and the idea that the further you get pulled back the further you are launched forward, so the feather represents taking off again.”

“I do have a lot of darkness in me, but I also have one right here that says, ‘Hope.’ It’s very, very small and I try to hold on to it, especially right now because, my god, what a scary time are we living in.”

What would a tattoo stemming fromConversations with Mother be like?

“Hmmmm.” Doyle said, “Maybe a picture of Caroline Aaron,” he says laughing. “Or at least something coming from a place of joy.