From Theatre Lab to Hollywood:
Will Tiao’s Amazing Odyssey

He walked into his first acting class ever—Buzz Mauro’s Drama Workshop—a little over a decade ago. Today he is traveling the country to promote the feature film Formosa Betrayed, which he co-wrote, produced and stars in alongside Hollywood powerhouses John Heard (Home Alone) and James Van Der Beek (Dawson’s Creek). What a long strange trip it’s been for Will Tiao—from changing careers to changing coasts to changing the way he looks at what really matters in his life.

"My journey started with The Theatre Lab,” says Will. In 1999 he had just moved to Washington, having graduated from Columbia University with a Masters in International Relations. He was working as a trade negotiator on the powerful Ways and Means Committee, but realized pretty quickly that, even in a high-intensity job, “I was bored with government."

"I remember so clearly walking into that class with Buzz--it changed my life. I felt like I was free to be fully me for the first time in my life. At least my life in the United States. As an Asian-American growing up in the Midwest, I always felt pigeonholed into being a certain kind of person ... you know, polite, smart, good at math," he laughs, "all the things I'm NOT! I wasn't supposed to be loud and rambunctious and full of zest. I'm a passionate person and I never felt I was allowed to express that in a way that was safe in the U.S. In (drama) class I was not only allowed but encouraged. It was an extraordinary sensation."

Bitten by the acting bug, Will immediately enrolled in another class at The Theatre Lab and soon found himself cast in the Alan Ayckbourn farce A Small Family Business as part of The Theatre Lab's Creating a Role class directed by Buzz and Deb Gottesman. (Fellow students may remember that Will completely rid himself of inhibitions in that production, and proudly dropped trou to reveal colorful boxers in a critical scene!)

Adjusting to his new acting life wasn’t always easy. He chuckles as he recalls being in the middle of a major trade negotiation with China and suddenly telling his Congressman, “I gotta go. I have a play to be in!"

Will began auditioning around DC, landed lots of theatre and industrial work in town (Asian-American actors were "really in demand," he says), and soon got an agent who represented him in New York. He spent the next three years trying to balance politics and his love for acting--leading a crazy and exhausting double life on the Hill and on the boards.

By the end of 2001 he felt the need to follow his heart, and he took a six-month leave of absence from his political job to move to New York and seek work as an actor. A meticulous planner, Will knew he wanted to continue his acting training at a New York studio run by Susan Batson, a highly regarded coach whose many famous clients include Nicole Kidman. Will’s performances in student showcases at the studio caught the eye of casting directors from the Fox network who auditioned him for a sitcom—an environment in which he immediately felt at home. But the realization that sitcoms generally film in Hollywood, along with the high cost of living in NYC, prompted him to pick up and move again, this time to L.A.

The move was major but, again, Will was a man with a plan. The Intro to Screenacting he took at The Theatre Lab, he says, gave him a pretty good handle on what to expect in L.A .auditions. And, luckily for him, acting coach Susan Batson had just opened a new studio on the West Coast, so Will could continue to study with her. He also landed a job working for a casting director where he got an "invaluable insider's view as to what actors were doing right and what they were doing wrong in their auditions,” he says.

Pretty soon after moving to L.A., Will auditioned for and was accepted into a theatre company, and his organizational and business skills soon prompted fellow classmates and castmates to ask him to produce showcases. As part of one of those showcases, Will acted in a short play about walking into a Starbucks and seeing your ex-lover behind the counter. The play was a hit. He got an L.A. agent out of it, as well as some interest from producers in optioning it as a sitcom. In the end, it became a short film--called A Starbucks Story--that Will produced. He hired a commercial TV director and suddenly it all became very real. "I walk onto the set of the first movie I ever produced and there were over 100 people there working on the film. I mean, the team from Desperate Housewives was doing the final color correction on it.” Describing the experience as “surreal,” Will was shocked and thrilled when the film went on to win Best Picture and Audience Awards at an L.A. film festival and even played at Grauman's Chinese Theater.

A well-known indie director saw A Starbuck’s Story and asked Will to produce his next short, a dark comedy entitled Stan. Mindful that he had come to L.A. first and foremost as an actor, Will agreed to produce only if there was a part in the movie for him. So the director wrote him in. These experiences were "like going to film school," he said. "I learned it all by doing it."

A defining moment for Will came when he took stock of where he was and where he wanted to be. "Suddenly I had two films on my hands and thought 'if I'm really going to do this I want to do something that I want to do--to tell a story that I want to tell.'"

And that was the genesis of Formosa Betrayed.

“They always say you should write what you know,” he says, “and I know two things: politics and Taiwan.”

Will's parents were political dissidents from Taiwan. "They taught me and my sister to call ourselves Taiwanese, not Chinese" and they were blacklisted for these sorts of actions. "My parents told me that in the late 70's and early 80's we had to be careful because there had been murders (in the U.S.) linked to the Taiwanese government. This is something most people don't know about."

So Will decided to tell the story, which required lots of research into the secret persecution.

Formosa Betrayed is set in the Midwest where two FBI agents (Van Der Beek and Heard) are investigating the murder of a Taiwanese professor at a University. The murders are ultimately linked to the Chinese Mafia, of which the U.S. government is aware but looks the other way in order to preserve U.S./China trade relations. Will plays a Taiwanese activist, Ming, who helps to uncover the murder plot.

After writing a treatment based on actual events, Will engaged a respected screenwriter and director. He set up a company called Formosa Films and began looking for backers. As it turns out, Taiwanese Americans had long wanted their stories told and Will managed to raise more than five million dollars in a little over a year-and-a-half by selling shares into the movie. "Once you hit the five million mark," he says, "people start to take you seriously," and he soon managed to raise another three million from investment banks, which gave him the funds he needed to complete the project.

The movie, which wrapped early last year, was shot in Chicago and Asia. Since then it’s won numerous awards at prestigious film festivals (San Diego and Montreal among them) and was picked up for distribution by Screen Media Films. It's been playing in multiplexes across the country ("right next to Alice in Wonderland," Will marvels) as well as in art houses like the Avalon Theatre where it screened in early April. If you missed its DC run, you can catch its DVD release on July 13 (or likely see it "on demand" before that time).

Will has lots of producing projects on the horizon now (including one that will shoot in Hawaii) but still identifies himself as an actor first.

His advice for others hoping to hit the big time?

"I hope that my story lets people know that anything is possible. Don't wait. If you have an idea and want to do something, nothing is stopping you--not money, not connections. You can always get those things. I didn't have anything when I started. The biggest limitation for people, I think, is themselves--the voices in their own heads that say ‘it's not practical!’ I have the same thing. I come from a conservative culture. My parents and most of my friends thought I was crazy. Well, maybe I am, but there are other crazy people out there," he laughs. "If you have a vision, you will attract other like-minded people, which is what it's about."

And he has a special message for Theatre Lab students who have made or are planning to make the journey to L.A.: "My door is always open for you. I came from The Theatre Lab. It was my womb. I don't know where I'd be if I hadn't walked through those doors. It’s such a safe and loving environment to grow as an artist. The students are lucky." From advice to internships, Will wants fellow Theatre Lab alumni to know that he is happy to be a resource for them.

And, putting his money where his convictions are, Will and his production company are generously donating $1,000 to The Theatre Lab's Send a Kid to Theatre Camp Benefit so that young people who wouldn't otherwise be able to access the benefits of drama training can participate in Theatre Lab camps on scholarship this summer.

Thanks, Will. We’re proud of you and we can’t wait to hear what you’re up to next!