Welcome to South Asian Trailblazers! 👋🏼 I’m Simi Shah, and I dive deep into the journeys of trailblazing South Asians. Listen to the podcast that inspires this newsletter on Apple, Spotify, or any major podcast platform. Follow us for updates on our events and more on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, & TikTok.
Support us into 2024 🎆
Thank you all for your immense support this year — for listening to our episodes, reading these newsletters, attending our events, and elevating South Asian Trailblazers simply by being. Stay tuned for our exciting 2023 Year in Review. In case you’re interested, here are some quick & easy ways to support us in the year ahead!
🎙️ Subscribe and write us a review on Apple and Spotify
👍🏾 Follow us: Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, & TikTok.
✍🏼 Share this newsletter with a friend
👕 Sport some South Asian Trailblazers swag (all the cool kids are wearing it!)
🎭 Nikhil Saboo, Broadway Star & Actor
Season 7 continues with our last episode of 2023. Meet an icon whose story will capture your head and heart in seconds: Nikhil Saboo, Broadway Star and Actor.
Nikhil's career in the arts is extensive. Most recently, he played the iconic Connor Murphy in the National Tour of Dear Evan Hansen, becoming the first South Asian ever to take on the Tony-nominated role. He also performed in the 1st National Tour of Hamilton: An American Musical and in the original Broadway cast of Mean Girls: The Musical.
In addition to appearing on Broadway, he has been featured on television as a singer for the 72nd Tony Awards and in SNL’s Season 43 Finale. He has also served as a camera operator and cinematographer for Amazon Prime.
Nikhil received his Bachelor’s in Music and the Business of Entertainment, Media, and Technology from NYU. Upon graduation, he immediately jumpstarted his career, doing national tours with A Christmas Story: The Musical and Junie B. Jones. Tune in to hear about how Nikhil's early inclination toward the arts was spurred by a battle with heart disease and how he's stayed resilient in the face of all kinds of adversity.
Read on for episode excerpts, which we’ve edited for clarity + brevity. Curated by our Content Fellow, Nikki Zinzuwadia. 👇🏾
Simi Shah: In high school, you were diagnosed with heart disease, which inadvertently led you to musical theater. Can you share how this diagnosis impacted your life, and also your mindset regarding your creative passions?
Nikhil Saboo: I found out that I had a heart disease my freshman year. I stopped all sports. My life took a pause. I had to recalibrate. And what's so interesting is that a guitar fell in my lap during that time. I started to teach myself guitar and I started to sing. I remember walking into my advisory at 8 AM one day and asking my advisor, Mr. Estberg, who was also the Assistant Choral Director, ‘How do I start singing?”And I remember him being like, “We'll do it tomorrow,” as in literally tomorrow. He gave me my first song. He coached me. It was because of him that it all started.
My heart disease made me think about time and how precious it is. It shifted the mentality of my family too. My family's always been this way, but it fine-tuned that mindset even more of “Nisha (my sister), Nikhil, just go towards the things that you love.” I don’t know that if I found out about musical theater some other way, and my heart disease didn't happen, they would have supported me in the same way. Maybe this sounds dramatic or cheesy, but that actual appreciation for life, how you want to invest yourself, and also what you output shifted for us as a family. I don't think that I would have dove in headfirst if I didn't feel this need to take hold of my life — even though I was going towards a path that I didn't see anybody else really pursuing.
Simi: How did it feel to pursue something outside the stereotypical scope of careers expected of South Asians? Did you face any barriers at the outset?
Nikhil: So much doubt. I had to continue to listen to myself, but there was so much doubt because I did not know anything about musical theater. I was trying to be a sponge because I was literally attending NYU to study this. I had to educate myself. But I also needed to educate my family at the same time.
And then you're in New York City, so you have the opportunity to see every single Broadway show. As a student, I didn't go to see a Broadway show for enjoyment. I would go to study. I would go to understand, ‘Where do I see myself?’ But I didn't see myself anywhere. What do you do in that situation? When you feel something so naturally within yourself, but it isn’t out there in the world? Do you stop? Do you pack up shop and go somewhere else? Or do you make the choice to lean into that curiosity, lean into that ambiguity? And then truly take a shovel and create a space for yourself.
I don't think I actually knew what I was doing in college. I did not know the impact I would make. I graduated in 2015. I booked Mean Girls in 2017. But I didn't know the impact of what it meant to be South Asian and on Broadway at the time. I didn't know because there was no example. There was no lily pad for me to stand on. I would go see a show or a reading of something or a workshop or read breakdowns of these characters and think, ‘I could play that. I'm not the description of the character, but I know I possess that. I possess that as literally the artist that I am, the human that I am. I know I can play that. But I know that that role is not written for me.’ So there was a lot of doubt, but I just kept with it.
Simi: Your role as Connor Murphy in Dear Evan Hansen on Broadway was particularly memorable for you. What was it like to be the first South Asian, first Nepali-American to take on the Tony-nominated role?
Nikhil: I was with Hamilton before the pandemic. And I think post-pandemic, this was the story that I wanted to tell because it was such an important story about mental health. The first scene is me coming out with my family on a breakfast table — me and my three white family members. I thought, ‘I'm so glad that 3,000 people out in that audience are seeing this, are seeing me.’ Like literally look at the color of my skin. Please acknowledge the color of my skin and acknowledge maybe the backstory that is happening. Was he adopted? Did they have to take him in as a foster child? Claire Rankin who played my mother said, ‘This is even more heartbreaking because I took you in. I adopted you. And then I failed you.’ The story got even deeper, literally, because of who I am as a person and what I bring to the project. All of it added so much more depth to the story. This opportunity, really etched out with so much clarity of what I want to be who I want to be, how I want to trailblaze in this industry, especially within theater and also beyond.
Nikhil Saboo’s story on and off stage is poignant and powerful at every turn — from his battle with heart disease to how he embraces his identity in full. Catch up on the full episode now on Apple, Spotify, and our website!