Finding the Stage Again: Wesley Ryan and Places Please

At SONIQLOOX, we spend a lot of time exploring stories that connect sound and emotion. So when I came across a video about a Kickstarter campaign for a new TV show pulling back the curtain on Broadway life, I stopped doom-scrolling. It could’ve been just another afternoon—or maybe the middle of the night. Either way, that part doesn’t really matter. What does matter is the video that made me stop.

I was instantly transported back to the first time I stepped into the theatrical world, and my junior-high heart started racing. Back then, I thought I was destined to stay backstage—lighting, stage production, whatever part of the machine would let me keep the magic alive. But fate had other plans. In high school, our show choir needed more guys, so I decided to give it a shot. I can’t tell you where or when that first performance was, but I’ll never forget the rush. The stage called—and I’ve been hooked ever since.

Fast-forward thirty-some-odd years, and here comes Wesley Ryan with Places Please—a dark musical drama that captures the same collision of nerves, joy, and exhaustion I remember from those early days. Their story pulls back the velvet curtain to reveal what really happens between the spotlight and the silence.

Wesley Ryan is a multidisciplinary theater artist, performer, and writer based between Los Angeles and New York. A former cast member of Hamilton, they now channel their stage experience into storytelling that lives beyond the footlights. Their latest project, Places Please, is a dark musical drama that explores the emotional lives of the people who keep theater running when the curtain falls. Blending their background in performance with a sharp eye for humanity, Wesley continues to create work that bridges spectacle and sincerity—capturing what it truly means to live for the stage.

Places Please isn’t just a story living inside Wesley—it’s one born from years spent chasing perfection eight shows a week, then wondering who they were when the curtain dropped. A performer turned writer, they lived the rhythm of backstage life: the adrenaline, the exhaustion, and the small moments of connection that make it all worth it.

Co-created with Abby Powers, Places Please pulls back the velvet curtain on the human cost of performance—the cracks, the longing, and the light that still finds its way through.

We sat down with Wesley to talk about where it all began, what keeps them creating, and why this project feels like the story they were always meant to tell.

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SNQLX: You’ve lived both sides of the spotlight — on stage and now behind the script. What first pulled you toward performing in the first place?

WESLEY: I quite literally grew up in the entertainment industry. I did my first musical when I was 3 years old. Despite being a very shy child, I always had an affinity for the stage. It took me a long time to break out of my shell and really lean into the fact that I could be whoever I wanted when I stepped out on that stage. My sophomore year of high school I was cast in my first professional musical, the world premiere of ’13’ the musical composed by Jason Robert Brown, a month after my dad died. That experience changed the trajectory of my life and shifted my career path from wannabe surgeon to star of stage and screen.

SNQLX: Working on shows like Hamilton must’ve been a wild education. What did that experience teach you about the people who make theater actually run?

WESLEY: It truly was a wake up call. Being cast in that show proved to me that I was talented. I don’t know that I fully believed it before then. I have made life-long friends all over the world thanks to Hamilton. Unfortunately, it also taught me that the Broadway industry is a business first and foremost. Profit over people. The one’s who are on the ground keeping the lights on (quite literally) are replaceable. There are 50 people waiting on the sidelines to take your place if you don’t get in line and do as you’re told. I am so thankful for my time with that show because it inspired me to start my own production company—R Way Original—to produce my debut tv series, Places Please, and to do things R Way

SNQLX: At what point did you realize that writing stories was just as essential to you as performing them?

WESLEY: As I auditioned, I wasn’t seeing roles that I resonated with as a queer artist of faith. The lives of myself and those I was working with are rarely accurately reflected in the media I see today. The version we do get is one created by people who have never lived or worked as the troops on the ground. There are so many misconceptions about the industry and I think more people need to see themselves in the artists who create the art they consume. We need to amplify voices of those who so often go unheard—queer people, people of color, people with disabilities, etc.

SNQLX: Places Please looks past the bright lights and into the lives of the people behind them. What moment or feeling first sparked the idea?

WESLEY: When I joined the Hamilton tour I was so stressed by my rehearsal process that my hair fell out. I will never forget crying on the phone to my mom saying I didn’t know if I wanted to do this as a career anymore. I was falling apart pursuing this “dream”, meanwhile being told how lucky I am to be booked on a show like that. I didn’t feel lucky. It made me realize how much sacrifice and heartache goes unseen and unhealed because we’re told to be grateful for the thing that is breaking us. This isn’t just my story. So many people, creatives or not, understand this. I wanted to show the truth of what it takes to chase a dream, and what you lose along the way to your triumph.

SNQLX: How did your collaboration with Abby Powers begin, and what kind of creative chemistry drives this project?

WESLEY: Abby was one of the assistant stage managers on the Angelica tour. We became fast friends. We were in the trenches together on that tour post-pandemic and carried each other through some dark times. Between the two of us we have nearly 60 years of experience in this industry working in various capacities. We realized we had lived through enough behind the scenes drama to write 100 seasons of a tv show about our lives. So we set out to do it

SNQLX: You’ve called Places Please a “dark musical drama.” What kind of emotional territory are you hoping to explore with that tone?

WESLEY: This show explores themes that we all understand — love, loss, grief, childhood trauma, joy, infidelity, triumph and forgiveness. It’s a musical because my life is musical on a daily basis, separate from the fact that I sing and dance for a living. It’s the drugs, sex, and rock n’ roll of the entertainment industry and how fun and damaging that can be. If there’s one thing Inside Out taught me it’s that Joy can persevere through Sadness grief and pain.

SNQLX: How much of your own life in performance — the highs, the exhaustion, the identity shifts — found its way into the script?

WESLEY: There is no way to separate my life from the characters in this show. Everything from the loss of a parent, to substance abuse and failed relationships have influenced the experiences of the characters in this show. Each one of them has helped me heal parts of myself along this creative journey.

SNQLX: Why did you decide to launch Places Please through Kickstarter instead of chasing traditional production routes?

WESLEY: I don’t want to lose creative control of this project. If we went the traditional route and tried to get funding from a production studio, we risk them getting final say in how this project looks. I want to ensure that it remains true to form. No one can tell this story the way I can.

SNQLX: For people just discovering the project, what can their support make possible in real terms?

WESLEY: Their donations, shares and support help us complete pre-production so that we can be filming this season by our March deadline. That includes everything: content development and finalizing scriptwriting, planning and budgeting, casting, hiring crew, wardrobe, sets and shooting locations, securing permits for filming and the logistics of production. It costs a lot to bring art to life and we believe in paying our people fairly and to scale.

SNQLX: Beyond funding, what do you want people to feel when they become part of this story?

WESLEY: I want people to see humanity reflected back at them through these characters. They just happen to be those traveling and performing with a hit Broadway musical. I want them to feel seen, heard and understood through the lives of people who may look nothing like them, our humanity is so much deeper than skin color, religion or politics. I pray this show be my testimony to the world and how we can be more loving, kind and empathetic to the other souls we encounter in this lifetime.

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Wesley Ryan’s honesty cuts through the noise the same way great theater always has — by showing us the truth we recognize but rarely say out loud. Places Please isn’t just a series about the grind of performance; it’s a story about endurance, faith, and the fragile beauty of people who keep creating even when the spotlight burns too hot. Sometimes the images that hold the most impact aren’t photographs at all — they’re moving ones, flickering between light and shadow, capturing emotion in motion. Wesley’s story reminds us that what we feel can be just as powerful as what we see.

In their hands, the curtain doesn’t just rise — it reveals. It’s the kind of project that reminds you why stories matter, why art survives, and why we need the voices that have lived it to tell it.

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60 Seconds With Wesley Ryan

What song instantly gets you out of a bad mood?

There’s two! Joy (Unspeakable) feat. Pharrel Williams by Voices of Praise and like JENNIE by JENNIE.

Last show or movie that made you cry (and did you admit it right away)?

Oh babe, I cry at the drop of a hat. I have become quite the emotional soul as I’ve gotten older. I’m proud of that fact. I watched “Everybody Dance” about the Ballet for All Kids studio in Encino CA on my flight to London from New York and wept through the whole thing.

If your life had a theme song right now, what would it be?

Hills and Valleys by Tauren Wells. “On the mountains I will bow my life to the One who sent me there. In the valley I will lift my eyes to the One who sees me there. When I’m standing on the mountain I didn’t get there on my own. When I’m walking through the valley I know I am not alone.” I’m learning to be gratitude in every eb and flow of life.

Favorite piece of advice someone in theater ever gave you?

There’s a difference between waiting for blessings to arrive and waiting in READINESS to hold it when it arrives. If you’re waiting for a race to begin and your shoes aren’t tied then you’re not ready for that race, even if you’re at the starting block. How you show up determines if you hold your blessing. I’m ready to hold mine and Places Please is it!