Meet Andrew Strano

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Andrew Strano. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Andrew, so great to have you on the platform and excited to have you share your wisdom with our community today. Communication skills often play a powerful role in our ability to be effective and so we’d love to hear about how you developed your communication skills.

All my careers mean you have to be an effective communicator — that’s what acting or writing or directing are all about — but even more than that, the key to communicating effectively has grown out of teaching. Teaching forces you to notice not just what you’re saying, but why you’re saying it, and in what order. I’ve come to believe that explaining “why” is often as important as explaining “what”.

This is a broad example, but take something as simple as telling a young person in your care: “Don’t touch that!”. You’ll probably get compliance, but not engagement. If instead you say: “That’s hot — can you see the way it’s red? And how the air gets a bit wavy above it? If you touch it, you’ll burn yourself,” you’ve invited them into the reasoning, and you’ve given them the tools to look after themselves more. They’re no longer just following an instruction, they’re collaborating with you in understanding it.
I’ve found that you need this buy-in, and importantly, it gives more agency and more respect to the people you’re working with.

As for the order you communicate things in, we all had that teacher, who said. “It’s time for lunch, we just need to pack up,” only to hear the second half of that sentence drowned out by everyone leaving the room. Again, it’s a simple example, but you quickly learn that the way to give that information is “First, we’re going to spend three minutes cleaning up, and then, when I say, we’ll head out to lunch!”

This seems simplistic, but these basic principles have served me all the way up to something as complex as plotting the events of a full length musical… “but wait… If we don’t know THIS until THEN, we won’t be able to get on board with the protagonist until…”

Teaching in New York City is an incredible experience. With ArtsConnection I’ve been lucky enough to teach playwriting in classrooms where students used seven different first languages, all with varying levels of confidence with English. This is where accessibility comes in to play! We have to make sure the information is accessible, so it has to go beyond words. I utilize all sorts of tools – visual cues, sentence starters, translated materials… even things as simple as giving students more time than you think, or taking a more relaxed approach to tech have helped me. Breaking text down into digestible chunks, making space for mistakes, and – most of all – celebrating effort as part of learning. It’s not about the RESULT, it’s about the process. And when you break that down further, you realize it’s about the PEOPLE. You have to go to them, so they can come to you. Teaching in the arts has reinforced that communication isn’t just about clarity of what you’re saying, it’s about what the students are saying too. That means it’s about accessibility, empathy, and making sure every voice can enter the conversation.

Directing has taught me a similar lesson. As a director, you’re constantly noticing the gap between what’s happening and the potential of a moment, and then finding a way to bridge it. One of the best tools I’ve found is to offer collaborators that same thing: the why. For example, instead of just asking an actor to “lock into the rhythm,” I might explain how the rhythm embodies the character’s passion and insistence, might call attention to the way it emphasizes certain words, the way it helps the text stay alive and connected — and then build an exercise around that so the actor feels it in their body, working incrementally back to more naturalistic choices. I love to use a pendulum swing – intentionally taking something too far so we can feel it, then swinging back again! Of course this isn’t always appropriate… maybe someone is feeling too “in their head” and giving them a “why” or a discussion will only compound that — to help this I might I give them a playful task “I’m giving your scene partner this book. Your only job is to get it, and their only job is to make sure you don’t!”, but even in this instance, I’d explain that that’s what I’m doing – “I want you to re-engage physically, so I think a discussion isn’t going to help!”.

Underlying all this is a belief that we make our best work when the hierarchy is flat… when we’re all treated as collaborators. I’ve noticed I often phrase things as an ask… “How do we feel about trying xyz?” or “What if we give such and such a go?” That way, the process is shared. The goal isn’t just to solve the immediate problem — it’s to give people tools and principles they can carry into their own work, long after I’m gone, especially when I’m teaching.

Of course, I might be barking up the wrong tree altogether, but in explaining a why I’m giving people I work with the opportunity to contradict my reasoning, or let me in on their thought process. It might be that the help they’re looking for is completely different to what I’m offering, and it’s important that people have a chance to express this.

I haven’t always been the best listener, it’s something I’ve had to work on, and hard. One of the hardest things I’ve learned to do, and I still struggle with it sometimes, is to admit when I’ve gone wrong, or when I’ve handled something poorly. I try to cop to this as quickly as possible, and it’s led me to some wonderful outcomes. Often the most powerful thing I’ve been able to so in a position of leadership is to say “I’m sorry, I was wrong”. It’s hard, but I think it’s important to show each other that we’re willing to take responsibility for our actions. Especially when we’re teaching. It’s important to model that skill when we can… we all make mistakes, it’s how we deal with them that matters.

So if I had to sum it up: my ability to communicate comes from teaching, directing, acting and writing — but mostly from always trying to invite others in. For me, it’s about making sure the person across from you feels like a partner, not just a recipient. I’m grateful… I’ve had people patient enough with me to teach me that.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

Right now, my collaborator, composer Yuriko Shibata, and I are working on a new musical project inspired by the art and life of Yayoi Kusama, but filtered through our own experiences. We’ve been lucky enough to receive a Frank Young Writers Residency Grant from the National Alliance of Musical Theatre in partnership with Theatre Now New York, where we’re members of the Musical Theatre Writers Lab. It’s been an exciting chance to dig into Kusama’s art, exploring how her work makes us feel, what it reveals about longing, repetition, and resilience, and how those ideas can be refracted into theatre.

Something that’s been important to us in this process is giving ourselves permission to say yes to the strange or unexpected ideas. Kusama’s art itself has this sense of infinity, of daring repetition, of embracing the weird and the bold — and we’ve been trying to mirror that in our own process. Instead of holding ourselves too tightly to “the rules of musical theatre” (“first you must establish the world, then the protagonist’s want, then…”) we’ve been encouraged by our community at Theatre Now New York to treat exploration as the product. That sense of celebration of process, not just OVER product but AS product has been enormously liberating.

This dovetails with something I’ve been thinking about a lot as both a teacher and a director: the power of investing positively in people. Early in my career, I thought growth meant focusing on the fixes — “this went wrong, let’s fix it.” But over time, whether working with an improv team, a classroom of multilingual playwrights, or a cast in rehearsal, I’ve learned that real growth often comes from affirming what’s working and building on it. Process-focused, joy-forward feedback creates braver artists, stronger communities, and ultimately better work.

This is something I try to apply to myself too. Writing is hard. Directing can be daunting. Teaching can be messy. Acting can feel inconsistent, even as you’re delivering consistent storytelling. Instead of beating myself up when it isn’t perfect, I try to celebrate the wins in the PROCESS, not the PRODUCT: “hey, you sat down and wrote for two hours; it doesn’t matter if it’s the best work, you created something that didn’t exist before,” I made – at least a start – on a hat, where there never was a hat. That shift in self-talk — from critique to affirmation — is changing not just my work, but the way I live inside it. Slower than I’d like, but hey. I’ll take it!

What excites me about this Kusama-inspired project isn’t just what it’s becoming (we had our first reading in June!), but the way it’s allowing us to practice this philosophy: embracing exploration, building through positivity, and celebrating the process as much as the result. If there’s a “brand” to my work, that’s probably it: process as product, and allowing yourself to follow the inspiration, knowing you can shape it later!

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

I don’t know about MOST impactful, but here are three that matter to me, and have helped a lot!

1. Embracing failure joyfully.
I try to remember that failure doesn’t always mean you should stop trying. Improv taught me failure can actually be delightful, even necessary. I won’t lie, I don’t always feel that way, but it’s a work in progress. Ira Glass talks about the gap — that space between our taste (which is already good, or we wouldn’t want to create) and our ability (which lags behind). For me, writing musicals has shown this vividly. By the time you finish drafting, you’ve grown just enough that you can tell that the beginning suddenly doesn’t work anymore. You thought you’d reached the finish line, but really you’ve rounded a corner and discovered there’s just as much road ahead as behind. That can feel crushing — but I’m experimenting with letting it feel exhilarating, because it means I’ve learned something worth applying.

As a student, I was one of the youngest in my grade. On the sports field, that meant I wasn’t as coordinated as my older peers, and I gave up early. I didn’t make space for myself to stumble, and no one around me really highlighted the small wins. On the other hand, in theatre I found encouragement, community, and joy. Even when I wasn’t perfect, I was celebrated — and that kept me going. It’s why I try now to extend that same joy in failure to my collaborators and students.

There’s a story (it might be apocryphal) about a team trying to clean up a massive oil spill. After exhausting all the obvious methods, someone half-joked: “Seals always come out covered in oil – why don’t we just throw seals at it?” Of course, no one would do that (right?! BP?! RIGHT?!), but that exasperated declaration sparked the idea of coating barrels in synthetic fur, which could then be rinsed and reused. Whether or not it’s literally true, the lesson is sound. Sometimes a bad idea can hold the the seed of a breakthrough. That’s the vibe I try to carry with me: failure isn’t the end — it’s the process!

2. Building and sustaining community.
Theatre is a community artform. Nothing happens alone. All of the most impactful moments in my journey are really triumphs of the communities I’ve been part of — improv ensembles, writing labs, teaching cohorts, rehearsal rooms. Every project has reminded me that people are the whole thing, and nurturing those relationships matters as much as the work itself.
I’ve learned the importance of celebrating your community’s wins, and of investing positively in people. A rehearsal, a classroom, or a writers’ lab only thrives when people feel valued — when their contributions are lifted up, not just critiqued. Joy is contagious. Skills are shareable. And when one of us grows, we all grow. That’s the community spirit I try to be a part of, whether I’m teaching, acting, directing, or collaborating as a writer.

I often think of what my friend Daniel Pavatich says: “We’re not entitled to the fruit of our labor, only our labor.” Once a musical is out in the world, it belongs to the audience. The part that’s ours is the process, and the community we’re in process with.

3. Staying open to new challenges.
The third essential quality for me has been openness — to trying new things, to taking risks, to saying “yes” even when I feel out of my depth. That’s how growth happens.

A big example was when we received funding for the Off-Broadway cast recording of Skin. We’d never made a full cast album before. We could have said “too hard, we’ll just stick to demos,” but instead we leaned on our networks, dove in, and made it happen. Now we not only have a beautiful recording, but also a whole set of new skills we carry into future projects. This directly feeds into the as yet untitled Kusama project that Yuriko Shibata and I are developing — the production work she’s doing on our demos now is mind-blowing, and much of that fluency comes straight from the lessons we got to learn creating the album of Skin.

On a personal level, staying open also means finding ways to make the daily work bearable, even joyful. Everyone knows the best bit of writing is HAVING WRITTEN, but the trick for me is turning out to be finding joy (or at least tolerance!) in the daily process. Getting enough sleep, sitting down even when I don’t feel like it, reminding myself I always feel better after I’ve done it, being kind to myself, and crucially, making sure my life has enough space in it for me to make this time… Easier said than done in New York City. Those are all part of the skillset.

Ira Glass’s gap comes to mind again when I’m thinking about the process of getting better at the consistent approach: the work may not yet match my taste, but the act of continuing — with curiosity, with openness — is how I’m trying to close that gap. I don’t know about advice for other people, but what I’m trying to remind myself is: don’t be afraid to stumble, don’t be afraid to invest in the people I care about, and don’t be afraid to say yes to new challenges.

Looking back over the past 12 months or so, what do you think has been your biggest area of improvement or growth?

The biggest piece of learning for me this past year has been to let my inspiration win — or, as I’ve started calling it, to “let the gremlin out.”

The educator Gaia Malin likes to say “there’s no such thing as a bad student, just worms in their brains that sometimes make them do bad things”. It’s an old teacher trick: separate the person from the behavior, so you can guide the behavior without labeling the person. I’ve been practicing a version of that for myself: when my creative “gremlin” shows up with a chaotic or silly idea, instead of shutting it down, I let it out to play.

As a teacher, that might mean letting the Gremlin turn two students’ writer’s block into a race — who can write the most words in 5 minutes? As a director, it might mean throwing a left turn into rehearsal: “Do the scene while playing catch with this mug!”
As a writer, it might mean following a bizarre impulse onto the page, knowing I can always shape it later. I’m learning that joy begets joy, and investment begets investment. If I can make the process fun for me, chances are it’ll be fun for my collaborators, too.

I think back to my fifth-grade math teacher who made equations come alive by drawing WWE wrestlers on the board. Solve a problem correctly, and your team of bloodthirsty ten year old math students got to decide the next wrestling move: “Rip his leg off!” “Smash him through the ropes!” Suddenly, math wasn’t rote — it was the highlight of the day. That’s what I’m aiming for in my own work: not to abandon rigor, but to allow delight to be part of the rigor.

It’s still a balance, of course. You can only let the gremlin run free when you trust the room, and when the room trusts you. Your your collaborators, students, or fellow artists need to know they’re safe to try and fail. But in those spaces, the gremlin has been leading me somewhere freer, more surprising, and ultimately more alive. And I think that’s been the real growth: learning to say yes to the messy, playful ideas, and trusting that they’ll take me somewhere I couldn’t have planned.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://andrewstrano.com
• Instagram: @andrewstrano
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/shibata-and-strano/sets/skin

Image Credits

Yuriko Shibata, Darren Gill, Matt Davis, Erin Hoerchler, Genevieve Wilson