Kyle Kellams: The musical Water for Elephants covers plenty of emotional ground while delivering a more complicated than you might think narrative. There is love, loss, hurt and triumph among the characters inhabiting a 1930s-era circus. The hard life of the circus is summed up in a first-act song, "The Road Don't Make You Young":
If I had one wish in this godforsaken life, I'd wish to be back home with my children and my wife. But my debts keep piling up, so my work ain't ever done. Ain't it so the road don't make you young.
Of course in 2026, the cast for Water for Elephants is also on the road, landing at Walton Arts Center this week. Connor Sullivan and Tyler West are members of that cast, and they spent a few minutes at the Carver Center for Public Radio yesterday.
Tyler West says a touring Broadway production does travel, but not quite like the circuses of the first third of the 20th century.
Tyler West: Most of the places would be like a one or two-nighter, if that, and then they would pack everything down. Literally, they would pack — all the while the last show of the night would be going on — they would be packing down the front-of-house tents and moving to the next ground, and then everything from the circus tent would move afterwards. But it definitely makes you appreciate the hotel rooms we stay in. It's a little nicer than a tent covered in animal poop.
Kellams: Acting is tough enough, but this incorporates song and movement. What do you have to do while you're on the road with this production to stay in shape, to not be hurt, to be emotionally present?
West: It's a lot of taking care of yourself, whether that is mentally — with journaling, meditating, whatever your rhythm is — or physically, whether it's going to the gym, getting a walk outside, biking. You love biking and you bike everywhere. It's a lot of finding wherever you are in the country: What is the routine and the habit that I can keep as much the same as possible, so that I feel grounded and present, and I have extra mental and emotional bandwidth to show up to do the work?
Kellams: August is not a nice guy.
West: Not. He's really not. No. Unfortunately — spoilers — he's not a good guy.
Kellams: You find this out pretty quickly.
West: You find this out pretty fast. It's not a big spoiler.
Kellams: What does it take to be violent, to be cruel?
West: I always tell people it's cathartic. You get to express your darker side.
Sullivan: Everyone loves to play the villain.
West: And honestly, we all know something about being the villain, even if it's not the way we would behave. We've all felt the emotions of anger, betrayal, disgust at another human being. But most of us seek to be good people and redirect those feelings and make the right choices — even in our worst moments. August is a character who does not make the right choices, does not seek to learn anything about himself, just lashes out at other people. So I think it's interesting to play a character where you're like, I know about all these emotions, I know about all these human flaws.
Kellams: The circus of the '30s — we have these mental images, and it conjures up both a grand and sometimes claustrophobic world. What will we see on stage that reminds us — or doesn't remind us? Because most of us didn't see the circus in the 1930s or '20s, but we'll conjure up that feel.
Sullivan: It puts circus in a theatrical context. Just the other day, we had one of the ensemble members go on for a principal character, and she noticed that her choreography is taking her hands and making a rope-pulling gesture, up and downward. And at that same moment in the show, we have a physical tent set piece that gets raised, and there are two crew members that take ropes and pull it up. She was back there in that moment — which normally she's on stage, not seeing that — and she saw it and said, "Oh, that's where the choreography came from." And it's like, yeah, that's the action of you pulling the tent. So the show does a really great job of highlighting the behind-the-scenes of the circus — the glamorous slash not-so-glamorous lifestyle of performing for thousands of people, but with mud and dirt and chaos happening as well. It's a very well-organized chaos.
Kellams: I love hearing that months in, you and your colleagues are still figuring out things and learning things about the script and the performance. Does that keep you riveted to the production?
Sullivan: For sure. Each place we go to, the audience is also giving us different stuff. This job is like "Groundhog Day" — you have the same day over and over again, and you can make slight little changes to see what the domino effect is. There's a fun thing in doing that. What if I say the line like this? And then suddenly you're like, what the heck was that? And especially if an understudy comes on, they have their own way of presenting that character. That's always fun — to snap out of the rhythm you've been used to.
West: I think sometimes you learn about the show, or you're reminded about the show, because a month and a half down the line a certain audience reacts to a certain line in a way, and you're like, yes — I remember during rehearsals when this was all fresh for me, I was also really deeply impacted by this line. And now I've kind of gotten into the rhythm, and then you'll hear an audience react and you'll be like, wow. Yes. I'm reminded that this is a really powerful moment. That's something that keeps you on your toes and keeps the show fresh.
Sullivan: You said that during touring like this, you will do the show in every emotional state imaginable. You can have a really amazing day and do the show, or you could have a really crappy day, and you still have to show up. Those things highlight what you say or hear in the show — you might feel them or react to them a little bit differently. On the outside, it hopefully looks the same to everyone. That's our job: to make it consistent. But on the inside, it's like, whew, that was tough. Or, I didn't feel anything today, but I think I put what I needed out there.
Kellams: August wields a bullhook — a horrible implement used, I think, primarily on elephants, to make them do something. What is it like to wield something so dangerous?
West: It's really interesting when you look at characters, specifically characters we see as the villain, and you look at things that from the outside seem so disgusting and so violent and so awful, but no one thinks they're the villain. As you're playing the villain, you have to remove yourself from the mindset of, how is this character disgusting? How are they awful? And instead say, what do I know about this character? What do I know about these feelings? Maybe it's because August in that moment doesn't feel awful and violent — he feels powerful. And that's not a great thing, and the audience is not on his side for good reason. But as the character, you have to say, what are the moments I have felt powerful as Connor, and how can I bring that to August, wielding this bullhook and doing this horrible thing? So it is an interesting mind game you have to play.
Sullivan: And the character's justification is: if this elephant doesn't do the tricks, all of us will not eat. So in that regard, he's actually trying to save the circus. If you don't move, elephant, I'm going to —
West: He sees himself as the leader and potentially the hero of this circus. Look, if I make this elephant do this, we all make a lot of money and eat really well and provide for our families.
Tyler West plays Walter and Connor Sullivan plays August in the national touring production of Water for Elephants. It's on stage at Walton Arts Center through Sunday afternoon. They were in our studio yesterday.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
