Tim Federle, author of “Life Is Like a Musical,” on why a sofa matters more than seeing your name in a copy of Playbill.
When certified theater geek Tim Federle turned 14, his mother took him to New York for his birthday, a gift that included tickets to a revival of “Carousel.” He still has the stubs; they’re wedged into a mirror frame in his apartment on the Upper West Side.
“We were staying at a Marriott,” said Mr. Federle, 37, a singer and dancer turned author of middle school and young adult novels including “Better Nate Than Ever” and “The Great American Whatever” (both New York Times notable books). “And I remember pressing my nose to the window and looking down and seeing an ocean of yellow cabs and thinking, ‘This is where I belong.’ ”
Five years later, determined to test his conviction and his time step, he moved from Pittsburgh to Manhattan, where he performed in Broadway shows like “The Little Mermaid” and “Gypsy” before wearying of the grind (if not necessarily the bumps), and doing a career pivot.
But no sad songs for Mr. Federle, please. He was able to live the dream, and all those show business experiences became grist for his novels, as well as his latest book, the self-help guide “Life Is Like a Musical: How to Live, Love, and Lead like a Star” (Running Press). And after all, touring in “Spamalot” helped him buy his freshman apartment, a studio on the Upper West Side.
“The first 10 years of my career meant a summer doing a show in Philadelphia and a winter doing a show in St. Louis,” Mr. Federle said. “Anyplace I hung my hat was home, but I wanted to be able to have just one home. I began subscribing to Elle Decor because I thought that someday I’d have a place that I wouldn’t have to leave so often.” His longing was such that on tour he would haunt galleries and furniture stores, shopping for an apartment and life he didn’t yet have.
Last year, Mr. Federle sold the studio apartment and moved a few blocks away to a one-bedroom in a prewar building that he now shares with his boyfriend, David Muto, a copy editor.
“I always tried to keep my expenses low when I was a dancer, because you kind of never knew when the next gig would be,” he said. “But when I started writing and had some success, I wanted to have a bedroom door that closed, in part because when you write at home as I do, your laptop and your job are always 10 feet away.”
When you move to New York, that’s when you can get a dog, Mr. Federle’s mother always told him. “Instead of getting a dog, I painted my ceilings pink,” he said. The foyer walls were brushed with broad stripes of brown and white; the radiators, depending on the location, with blue; the doors with black; the floor with white.
“I have this dear friend, Nick Olsen, an interior designer who’s my decorating equivalent of a horse whisperer,” Mr. Federle said. “One thing Nick taught me was that if you don’t like the way something looks, and you don’t have the budget to take it down to the studs, paint it.
“I didn’t have the money to be able to say, ‘Hey, Nick, can you do my whole place?’” Mr. Federle added. “But I could say, ‘Am I crazy to want to do yellow curtains?’ And Nick would say, ‘No, you’re not crazy, and this is the yellow fabric you should get. And if you’re getting yellow curtains, paint the back of your bookcase yellow, too.’” Done and done.
Mr. Federle’s rehearsal hat from “Gypsy” hangs in the living room, and a few “Tim Federle” nameplates, once part of the cast boards in theater lobbies, are on display in the bookcase. But the aesthetic tilts more toward midcentury modern than toward mild narcissism.
Evidence includes the turquoise kitchen table and the Finn Juhl armchair that is upholstered in geometric-patterned yellow-and-pink curtains Mr. Federle bought at an estate sale. The chair is as much a pat on the back as a place to sit.
“I began to realize that shows come and go, unless it’s ‘Phantom of the Opera’ or ‘The Lion King,’” Mr. Federle said. “And as a performer, you’re looking at the stack of Playbills on your coffee table, and you feel your life is in the past. So what I started to do when something great happened was to buy something for my apartment to commemorate that great thing.”
Thus, the Finn Juhl chair — a hosanna when Mr. Federle was cast in a San Francisco production of the musical “White Christmas.” When his cocktail recipe book “Tequila Mockingbird” did well, he celebrated by buying a sofa, an armchair and a rug. And upon completing the first draft of “Life Is Like a Musical,” Mr. Federle bought a large abstract painting at an antiques shop in Hudson, N.Y.
“In publishing, as in showbiz, you don’t know if something is going to hit or tank, but I thought, ‘Well, at least I’ll have a painting,’” he said.
Because Mr. Federle has clocked a considerable amount of time on and around stage sets, he has a sense of compatible colors, he said, and of what sorts of furnishings play well together. Where he founders is with proportions.
“I’ll say, ‘This should be a four-foot sofa, right?’ and my friend Nick will say, ‘Uh, Tim, it should be a nine-foot sofa.’”
Mr. Federle sighed. “I need help with math. I’m a dancer; I can only count to eight.”
