Editor's note: In the run-up to Mother's Day this Sunday, WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall will be documenting several Southwest Florida moms who have had an impact on their performance-minded offspring.
Tyler Scott, 2020 was a very, very bad year. His mom, Tracy Halloran-Scott, explains.
“He was very close to his grandparents. I was very close to my parents. So my dad died in January. My mom died in March. Six weeks apart.”
Then they moved to Cape Coral to be closer to Tracy’s older sisters. It wasn’t just that Tyler had to leave behind all of his friends in California. It was the height of the pandemic, and he had to endure the isolation that typified virtual schooling.
“It was soul crushing for him. It was. It was a really hard time.”
Tyler was 13.
To add insult to injury, he could no longer do the thing he loved most, theater. So Halloran-Scott immediately set about finding a high school that had an exceptional musical theater program. She asked around. One name kept coming up: North Fort Myers High.
“He wanted to be a theater major,” Halloran-Scott noted. “At North Fort Myers High School, you have to audition for that. When he started in his freshman year, he didn’t make the musical theater class. He was devastated.”
With his mom’s support and encouragement, Tyler refused to give up. He got into the musical theater program as a sophomore. But that wasn’t enough.
“His goal was senior year to get the lead in the spring show,” said Halloran-Scott. “That was his goal from Day 1.”
He had the raw talent, but his theater teacher, Janelle Laux, told him he needed voice lessons. His mom leapt into action. She did copious research. Once again, one name kept coming up.
“He did private lessons with Matt Kohler. One of the best things we ever did was that. His confidence went from zero to ten in that timeframe. I give Matt a lot of credit for helping him vocally find his voice, find his confidence. And that helped him get the lead, for sure.”
The show? "Pippin."
Tyler didn’t just score the lead; he blew audiences away with his portrayal of the iconic young prince searching for purpose.
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Tyler traces his theater origins to a summer camp in California, which he attended when he was 5.
“I took him because he was a ham,” his mom, Tracy Halloran-Scott fondly recalled.
“He started singing as soon as he could talk. He knew all the words to a Maroon 5 song when he was 4 years old, and I thought that was very strange, maybe a little inappropriate. But amazing nonetheless. So I decided maybe this might be something he would enjoy. It was the first time he had ever had a summer camp at his school, so I thought kismet, maybe it’s meant to be? He absolutely loved it. And that was it. He was bitten by the bug from that moment on.”
He went on to do every show that his elementary and middle schools produced.
“The first show they did was 'Seussical.' He had a very small part, and he kept asking them for more. ‘Can I please do more?’ ‘Oh, I can do a cartwheel.’ I can do this. I can do that. So they kept adding to his part.”
But he wasn’t satisfied being in the ensemble.
“’I want a speaking part, mom; I want a real part,’ he told me. So I said, ‘Well, if we keep working at it, you’ll get there. And then the next show that they had auditions for was Willy Wonka and he got the part of Charlie.”
Halloran-Scott was working backstage on productions. She was aware of “those moms who’d go crazy because their kid didn’t get the role they wanted or the lead.”
She refused to be like that herself.
“I didn’t deal well with those moms.” She preferred to let Tyler make his own way.
As he got better, Tyler also got noticed.
“He was being told by a lot of people that he should do commercials and kids shows and stuff,” Halloran-Scott recalled. “I didn’t see a spark in him, a fire for that. He didn’t really want to do it. He wanted to stay in theater. He loved doing theater and was comfortable and felt safe there. So I was like, ‘So that is what we shall do.’ And I said when you’re 18 and a grown guy, then you can make those sorts of decisions, but I won’t make you do that stuff.’
More than anything, Halloran-Scott wanted her son to be happy and enjoy what he was doing.
“At one point, he wanted to quit, and I said, ‘Cool. Fine if you don’t want to do this anymore, but that means you’re going to pick a sport because you’re not going to be sitting around playing video games all day long, I’ll tell you that much.’ I wanted him to be involved in something to stay out of trouble and to learn certain skills.”
He stuck with theater. Halloran-Scott was relieved. She confessed to being “absolutely enthralled with the stage” from a very young age. She saw her first show in 1972.
“I saw ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ at the Universal Amphitheater when it used to be outdoors. And that was it. That was like a whole new world just opened up to me, and I couldn’t get enough.”
That was the show in which Ted Neeley played Jesus, which ultimately led to him being cast in the lead in the iconic 1971 movie.
"So I absolutely had the bug myself, and I did theater in school and then in high school and got voted best actress, by the way. My five minutes of small fame. And then I did some community theater, but my parents were not supportive. They were old school. You can’t make a living at this. So, unfortunately, I went in a different direction.”
But Halloran-Scott derived invaluable lessons from her brief stint in the world of stage acting.
“Theater teaches you so much: commitment, dedication, hard work, responsibility to your cast mates. So many things go into it that you carry on for the rest of your life. That’s what I got out of it. And so that’s what I was focused more on.”
Although she enjoys watching her son perform immensely and characterizes herself as his biggest fan ("always sitting in the front row amazed and so blessed that he wants me to be a part of this journey”), Halloran-Scott sees herself as more laid back when it came to her son’s theater pursuits.
“I take more of a holistic approach when it comes to theater because I’m an older mom. I had him at 44, so I think I have a little different perspective than a lot of the moms do. I’m a little more chill about stuff. I don’t sweat some of the smaller things. I like to think that some of my experience helps me guide him in a different way, more of if this is what you want to do, you need to approach it from this angle – that angle of commitment and maturity and growth. And those are things that are more important to me for him.”
She may be chill, but she can also be incredibly pro-active when the occasion calls for it.
“When we relocated to Cape Coral, I hadn’t planned on where to send him to school. It was all very sudden and sort of crazy. I didn’t know anyone here. Both of my sisters are older, so they didn’t know anything about the school system here. I felt very ill prepared for starting him at middle school, which is like 8th grade, the worst.”
But COVID obviated the need to pick a school. Like many others, Tyler took classes online.
“It was very hard on his self-confidence. He went through a very, very difficult time. Developed anxiety and other issues that we’ve had to address. So it was a really tough year. But I’m just immensely proud of how he handled those challenges and for sticking to his passion.”
But now a new challenge loomed: high school.
“I asked every single person I ran into, my Realtor, the gardener, the cleaning people, my hairdresser, random people in the grocery store, where would you send your kid if they wanted to do theater? What do you hear about theater schools around here? Are there theater schools around here? And ultimately, North was always the first school that was mentioned.”
Many recommended that she and Tyler go see a show at North. The pandemic was still an issue, so she didn’t take that step, but Halloran-Scott did go online and conduct “massive research on the school, and read reviews, and what people were saying.”
Finally, she and Tyler visited the campus.
“We took a tour and all that. We’re like wow. There’s just something about it that felt right.”
Even though he wasn’t accepted into the musical theater program, Tyler still did theater. In addition to acting classes, he auditioned for the other shows North put on, such as comedies and dramas. By the time he hit sophomore year, Theatre Director Janelle Laux had taken notice. She told him that he had the capacity to do musical theater, but to achieve his goal of being cast in the lead of a musical, he needed voice lessons.
Halloran-Scott appreciated Laux’s advice and guidance.
“I rely heavily on that. I try to encourage him to listen to the directors, and if they’re telling him that he needs work in some area, then that’s the direction we need to go. ‘That’s what I’m here for, to help find the outside help, externally, to guide him as well.”
In addition to voice lessons from Matt Kohler, Halloran-Scott also enrolled Tyler for acting lessons with Kody C. Jones at Elevate Acting Studios. That tutelage was not only beneficial in helping Tyler win and excel in better and better roles. It prepared him for the FTCs and SETCs.
“You have to audition to be part of theater programs in a lot of colleges and universities, and then there’s a whole other level of audition that you have to approach for a BFA, which is far more exclusive. Most of the schools only take 15 or 16 students per year for their program. So you kind of have one shot to get into their BFA program in your freshman year. It’s very competitive. A lot of pressure. A lot of pressure. And you really do have to start preparing very, very early, at least a year ahead of time for that opportunity.”
FTC is the acronym for Florida Theater Conference. It’s a centralized auditioning venue for local Florida colleges.
“In one day, you can actually audition for all these different schools at the same time.”
SETC is short for Southeastern Theater Conference.
“That’s where national schools will come in to see you audition. He got 49 callbacks that day out of like 80 schools. It was insane. At FTC he got 25 callbacks,” Halloran-Scott said.
At FTC, Florida Southern College gave him a golden ticket to come for an in-person audition. He’ll join fellow North Fort Myers graduate and close personal friend Rilyn Dick at the private Lakeland college in the fall. They’re both incoming freshmen and BFA candidates in musical theater. Both intend to take advantage of FSC’s intensive performance training, challenging academics and rigorous schedule of acting and dance classes with a view toward learning the current vocal techniques and styles required by the industry.
Halloran-Scott credits her can-do approach to her son’s theatrical ambitions to her 20+ career in California as a financial advisor, where careful research and outside consultants were the order of the day. She walked away from that life when Tyler was 5, but the savvy she gleaned remains with her, all to her son’s aggrandizement.
Halloran-Scott’s favorite young Tyler Scott role was Donkey in Shrek.
“He’s very, very good at comedic timing. He has a real gift for that.”
That was in middle school.
More recently, Halloran-Scott can’t decide whether she liked her son more as Hades in “Hadestown” or the young prince in “Pippin.” Both parts surprised her, especially “Pippin.”
“I wasn’t that familiar with the show until I found out that they were going to do it. I was very moved by his performance because he got to do a little of everything. He was funny and sweet and goofy. And romantic and passionate and emotional. And that was the first time I’d seen him do all of that in one show, and I loved it.:
He hadn’t had the chance to play a romantic lead prior to that.
“They always tended to put him when he was younger in the comedic roles. So I hadn’t really seen him do that before. He was very natural on stage doing it. It was just one more thing for me to say ‘Wow!’ That’s a whole other aspect of himself as an actor that I didn’t get to see before. And good for him. It’s amazing.”
The character of Hades was altogether different. As the god of the underworld, Hades is dark, brooding and vengeful. At the same time, he’s complex and often sympathetic even though he is the story’s main antagonist. Tyler was masterfully menacing in the role.
Halloran-Scott’s assessment?
“Seeing him in that commanding, powerful role was really cool, and he pulled that off really well. He did a great job in that show.”
He’s also done a great job navigating life’s challenges, especially those that characterized 2020 and his first couple of years as a California transplant in the competitive world of Southwest Florida theater.
“Just seeing from the beginning of high school to now, and watching him being this man performing on stage, with all of the nuances and stuff that he brings, is beautiful.”
Halloran-Scott likes the man Tyler has become.
“He is funny. He is sensitive. He’s kind. He’s had some struggles, as well. I’m so proud of him that he worked so hard to overcome. And honestly, he’s one of my best friends on the planet. I don’t just love him, I like him. He’s a really good guy.”
Tyler Scott has been nominated for a Jimmy Award as Best Male Actor for “Pippin.”
The National High School Musical Theatre Awards® (the Jimmy Awards®) are a national celebration of outstanding student achievement, recognizing individual artistry in vocal, dance, and acting performance and elevating the importance of theatre arts education in schools. The Jimmy Awards are presented by The Broadway League Foundation. The 16th Annual Jimmy Awards will take place on June 23, 2025 at Broadway’s Minskoff Theatre. The ceremony highlights the best of high school musical theatre talent and features nominees from over 50 regions across the U.S. To date, more than 1,000 student nominees have participated in the program.
Support for WGCU’s arts & culture reporting comes from the Estate of Myra Janco Daniels, the Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation, and Naomi Bloom in loving memory of her husband, Ron Wallace.
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To read more stories about the arts in Southwest Florida visit Tom Hall's website: SWFL Art in the News.