Theater Kid

A coming-of-age tale from one of the most successful American producers of our time, Jeffrey Seller, who is the only producer to have mounted two Pulitzer Prize–winning musicals—Hamilton and Rent. Read by the author and a full cast of Broadway and Off-Broadway actors!

The star-studded cast includes: Annaleigh Ashford, Kyle Beltran, Steven Boyer, Danny Burstein, Darren Criss, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Sas Goldberg, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Lindsay Mendez, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Alex Newell, Andrew Rannells, Conrad Ricamora, Jonathan Marc Sherman, and Christopher Sieber. The program also features original music composed by Tony and Pulitzer Prize Award winner Tom Kitt. Before he was producing the musical hits of our generation, Jeffrey was just a kid coming to terms with his adoption, trying to understand his sexuality, and determined to escape his dysfunctional household in a poor neighborhood just outside Detroit. We see him find his voice through musical theater and move to New York, where he is determined to shed his past and make a name for himself on Broadway. But moving to the big city is never easy—especially not at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis—and Jeffrey learns to survive and thrive in the colorful and cutthroat world of commercial theatre. From his early days as an office assistant, to meeting Jonathan Larson and experiencing the triumph and tragedy of Rent, to working with Lin-Manuel Miranda on In the Heights and Hamilton, Jeffrey completely pulls back the curtain on the joyous and gut-wrenching process of making new musicals, finding new audiences, and winning a Tony Award—all the while finding himself. Told with Jeffrey’s candid and captivating voice, Theater Kid is a gripping memoir about fighting through a hardscrabble childhood to make art on one’s own terms, chasing a dream against many odds, and finding acceptance and community.

© 2025 Simon & Schuster Audio (Audiobook): 9781668111772

Release date

Audiobook: 6 May 2025