He's best known in New Zealand for his role as Salvatore Romano in Mad Men (the Italian-American closeted gay artist, who was fired after he rebuffed the advances of a Lucky Strike head honcho, and was then required to be removed), but Bryan Batt has a few more strings to his bow, it turns out.
He's been a Broadway star for decades and, as well as being an actor, designer, and civic activist, has written two books. He has also toured the world with his one-man cabaret show Batt On A Hot Tin Roof, and now he's bringing it to Auckland, for one night, on Sunday, June 22 at the Auckland Town Hall Concert Chamber.
Speaking to TimeOut from a Chicago airport, on his way home to New Orleans, he sounded just as fabulous and flamboyant as Salvatore, and keen to bring his all-singing-dancing-comedy skills to New Zealand.
"The show really came about because of Hurricane Katrina. A friend of mine owns a wonderful club in New Orleans, and while I was evacuated to New York - where I live part-time anyway - she called me, and asked if I would put together a one-man show as a benefit for displaced actors, and of course I said yes, I wanted to do everything I could to help, as everyone should. Except immediately when I hopped off the phone with her, I realised I'd never done anything like that before. Although I'd done Broadway shows and musicals and acting, it'd never just been me alone with a piano, telling stories and singing songs, so I went 'Oh my God, I can't do that', and I called her back to try and come up with something else, but she talked me into it," he laughs.
