A longtime actor, Weiler has made a splash as a playwright with The Saviors and Well, I'll Let You Go .
The old show business maxim goes: “Never work with children or animals.”
But when Bubba Weiler was casting for his Off-Broadway play The Saviors, he was adamant that he needed to have real 14-year-olds play the main characters: two Catholic altar boys who begin to question their faith. As he explains it: “These kids are at such a specific point in their lives, and they are wrestling with questions, these big questions. And I was just interested in those big questions of faith and life and morality coming out of the mouths of real children who are processing in real time.” He then adds, with quiet confidence, “I was a child actor, and so I just had a hunch that kids could do it.” Weiler knows something about being a 20-something actor playing a teenager; he once played Scorpius in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on Broadway.
Weiler is aware of those acting techniques. The 33-year-old has been acting professionally since he was 14. After making a healthy living as a stage and screen actor, Weiler has spent the past year breaking out as a playwright; his quietly devastating play Well, I'll Let You Go had a sold-out run last year in Brooklyn and then was brought back for an encore run this year at Studio Seaview—it earned Weiler an Outer Critics Circle Award for playwriting. Weiler’s also currently writing the book for a musical with composers Ellen Winter and Chris Littler, for Jonathan Groff to star in (it’s called 36 Questions and is based on the podcast musical of the same name).
In the world of Weiler’s plays, people are flawed, but they’re not malicious. They don’t scream at each other. They also don’t monologue about their feelings. Instead, Weiler’s plays invite you to lean in, and to really hear what someone is trying to say, even if they aren’t able to find the words. His plays are a showcase in how, sometimes the quietest moments are the most powerful.
Says Weiler, earnestly, with a hint of self-consciousness, “This is so trite, I almost don't even want to say it. But if you pay attention and you listen long enough, everyone is going through something. Recognizing that is obviously so simple. But remembering it, and moving through the world with an openness to see what other people are going through, is the cure for what we're all going through right now. We are in a time where we're not trying to understand each other. That is what theatre is. Theatre is just about trying to understand humanity and human behavior.”
