The song “If the World Only Knew” has greatly impacted my life. It won an ASCAP award for Social Message, and it is now sung around the world in show choirs, graduations, concerts, and stadiums. I never could have dreamt when I wrote it that it would reach so many people.
As part of my series about “authors who are making an important social impact”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Scott Evan Davis.
Scott Evan Davis is a New York City-based composer/lyricist and social media influencer. He has 226.5k followers on Tik Tok as the Prince of Snarkness, (a sarcastic coffee drinking persona) as well as 52.6k on Instagram. After working as an actor around the country, he began composing in 2010, and since then has gained widespread recognition in the worlds of musical theatre and cabaret. Scott has performed concerts and song cycles of his music at NYC venues such as Birdland, Duplex, and Don’t Tell Mama’s as well as in Washington D.C. at the Kennedy Center, and in Los Angeles. He has performed concerts internationally in London, Dublin, and Australia.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us a bit of the ‘backstory’ of how you grew up?
Of course, Thank you so much for having me. I grew up in what is considered central New Jersey. I definitely marched to the beat of my own drum for as long as I can remember. I think when I was little, I was convinced that had magical powers, and remember having a wild imagination. As I got a bit older, I wanted to be a professional bowler and not much else. I also think at one point, I wanted to be a cartoonist. When I was 12, I found music, theatre, and sarcasm… that is when my ambition started.
Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?
I feel as if my career has had so many different chapters. The path I am currently on is nowhere near the path that I had originally set out for. But life finds a way, I guess.
I was a professional actor for quite some time until I was about 30 years old. I had taught myself to play the piano at 12 years old, but my passion was to be on stage, as a performer. When I was 30, I remember being cast in an Off-Broadway production of a play called “JOY”, and ironically…Joy was one thing I didn’t feel during that time.
I went to bed one night, had a dream which involved an old friend humming a melody to me. When I woke up, I couldn’t get it out of my head and had to write it down. That became my first song, and I have been writing ever since.
Once I became a composer and became more known, I was hired to write an original musical for a group of 10 autistic students about their experiences. I wrote a song for them called “If the World Only Knew”, which then went on to change the entire course of my career.
Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that occurred to you in the course of your career? What was the lesson or take away that you took out of that story?
I had just written a new song, called “You Make Me Crazy”, and I was walking through Midtown, New York City with a friend of mine. We passed by the Broadway theatre that a show called “Promises Promises” was playing at. Kristen Chenoweth, a huge Broadway star, was playing the lead. When I had written that song, in the back of my mind I had always heard her singing it. But, as a new composer, it was obviously just a fantasy.
However, that didn’t stop my friend from convincing me, well, forcing me…more accurately…to go to the stage door and drop off the song with a note to her and leave my information.
Begrudgingly I agreed and nervously dropped it off. We continued walking for about ten minutes when I get a text on my phone. They asked if I was the person who just dropped off a song. It turns out that her dresser on that production was an old friend of mine who showed her the song. The next day I was invited into her dressing room to meet her and talk about the song. To this day, I won’t ever get over that coincidence. This just goes to show you that you never know what is going to happen.
What would you advise a young person who wants to emulate your success?
I would say that success is always subjective and that the best thing you can do for yourself, and your career is two things:
- Always do the things you say you will do, I can’t repeat that enough. Always hold yourself accountable when you have committed to something.
- Be nice to every single person you work with. I have seen more careers made and destroyed based on kindness.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you explain how that was relevant in your life?
There has been a quote from Stephen Sondheim that I have gone back to many times in my life. The quote is: “The choice may have been mistaken, but the choosing was not”.
There is something so powerful in that. Sometimes we have to make choices. We don’t know if they are the right ones, the wrong ones, the smart ones, or the practical ones, but we know we have to make the choice. Sometimes it turns out that it isn’t necessarily right for what you thought you wanted, but then something more magical happens. I think this quote sums that up perfectly.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
Absolutely, as I mentioned earlier about my friend who I dreamt about, who hummed a melody to me. That person was a mentor I had in college. He believed in me when nobody else would. He helped me through a very difficult time in my life and saw through to something he thought was special about me. He had been diagnosed with cancer and at the time, the doctors gave him a year or two to live. At that time, he really took me under his wing and taught me everything I could ever hope to know about theatre and music. When he passed away, I was still working towards being a performer. When I had a dream about him 7 years later, I woke up and changed the entire course of my career and my life. I will always say that he changed my life twice.
Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview, how are you using your success to bring goodness to the world? Can you share with us the meaningful or exciting social impact causes you are working on right now?
Bringing neuro-diverse inclusivity and representation into theatre has always been a huge part of my life. I am so grateful to have found a company that I musically direct and teach masterclasses for called Epic Players. It’s a nonprofit professional theatre company in NYC for neuro-diverse performers. All performers are paid and this past weekend we did 9 concerts at Lincoln Center.
I also have a show in pre-Broadway development called “INDIGO”, where the lead character who is autistic and nonverbal was played by an autistic actress. That show also had a character who is suffering from Dementia, and in the show, she sings a song I wrote called “Before I forget”, which recently won an award.
Other than that, I very recently released a pop single called “Falling Everyday” which is a song about my struggle with Imposter Syndrome, and I find myself talking about that more and more.
Can you tell us the backstory about what originally inspired you to feel passionate about this cause and to do something about it?
As I mentioned earlier, I was hired as a composer to write a show for 10 autistic students. This ended up setting my life on a path I had never thought I would be on. It became very important to me, to represent all people in theatre. I was grateful to be in a documentary called “Spectrum of Hope”, produced by Musical Theatre International (MTI) in which I, the teachers, and that particular group of students, flew to Atlanta to perform for 5,000 people at a theatre festival. We were the first neuro-diverse group to be in the festival, and we won! 🙂
I think having that experience and being a part of that documentary really set a course for me for the rest of my life.
Many of us have ideas, dreams, and passions, but never manifest it. But you did. Was there an “Aha Moment” that made you decide that you were actually going to step up and take action for this cause? What was that final trigger?
Yes, this is another story of the universe working in mysterious ways. I remember having written “INDIGO”, an earlier draft anyway, and feeling pretty lost about what to do with it. I was a new composer, and even though I had won a few awards and had an album or two out, I still was new and didn’t really have a “name” for myself yet.
It was a Sunday afternoon, and I had been invited to a party that I didn’t necessarily want to go to. But I forced myself out and went.
At that party, I met who would become the Broadway producers on the show. We talked about the concept, I had a meeting the next week and before you knew it, we were all partners on the show. They were able to take it places and levels that I never thought possible. The moral of the story, go to the party.
Can you tell us a story about a particular individual who was impacted or helped by your cause?
The song “If the World Only Knew” has greatly impacted my life. It won an ASCAP award for Social Message, and it is now sung around the world in show choirs, graduations, concerts, and stadiums. I never could have dreamt when I wrote it that it would reach so many people.
One day some years back, I received a comment on the YouTube video of the song. The comment was from a parent of two autistic boys, both nonverbal. I messaged back and she told me that her boys loved that song and they listened to it constantly. We went back and forth for a few weeks, and one day she sent a video of them singing the song. Two boys that never really used words somehow connected to the music and had a breakthrough. As a writer, I can’t think of a more beautiful gift.
Are there three things that individuals, society or the government can do to support you in this effort?
Social Media has given voice and awareness to a lot of people who needed to be heard, in ways they couldn’t be heard before. I think society as a whole needs to always come from a place of understanding that autistic people deserve every single chance and opportunity that anyone else has. I think more funding into neuro-diverse programs, where the focus is on embracing who they are as people rather than trying to find a cure would be a great thing. I believe theatre producers as a whole can embrace inclusivity and representation.
Fantastic. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or an example for each.
- Be patient with yourself. It takes time.
Nothing happens overnight, but at the same time, it all happens quickly. If someone had told me that I needed to look at the years and not months, I would have been a lot easier on myself. I think success is very much a “steady wins the race” thing. For me, it’s also a bit different because I started a new career at 30, and one that I had never planned. So, I constantly, to this day, feel like I am racing against the clock because I started late.
2. Don’t compare and despair.
When I first started out, I compared myself to everyone. And there has never been anything good that has come from that. I would sit, and doom scroll and convince myself that I could never do what those people were doing and that I would never make it because I could never be as good as them. All of that was noise. Silly stories we tell ourselves to mask the fact that what we are really afraid of is, succeeding.
Failing is easy. Succeeding is scary. Because what then?
3. The power of positive thinking is not a cliche.
One of the things I have learned over the years is how much control we have over our experiences and the things that we attract to us. When I first started out, I always thought of everything as things happening to me, whether they were personal or professional didn’t matter, but I definitely spent a lot of time feeling a victim of circumstance in a lot of ways. But that isn’t really true. The truth is, we do have control of the things that we intend to happen.
4. Recharging yourself does not make you weak.
I always thought that pushing myself meant success. Or that pushing myself meant I was beating the clock. I guess to some degree, that’s true, but it’s unsustainable. Recharging and knowing when you need to do it, is just as important as working hard. I think you get to a point where you know yourself enough, to know when you can give everything to people, and when you can’t.
5. I wish someone had told me how happy I would be.
I was definitely the person who only focused on what was next, not what was now. The next thing, the next opportunity, the next paycheck, the next relationship and on and on. I think I worked so hard when I first started because I was trying to hide from actually dealing with whether or not I was happy. So, I wish that someone would have sat me down and said “Enjoy this, everything is chaotic, but relax. You’ll be married, you’ll be fulfilled, you’ll be happy”.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I would love to see the company I work for, Epic Players, go national. There are so many states in this country that don’t have professional neuro-diverse theatre companies or opportunities, and if I could wave a magic wand, I would like to see that happen.
We are blessed that some of the biggest names in business, VC funding, politics, sports, and entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂
Anyone that knows me personally would probably answer this easily for you, Barbra Streisand.
There aren’t articles long enough to accurately describe what she has meant to me, both professionally and personally, and all without her ever knowing! Her ambition, her mind, her energy has just been something I have felt close to my entire life.
Thank you so much for these amazing insights. This was so inspiring, and we wish you continued success!
Music Stars Making A Social Impact: Why and How Scott Evan Davis Is Helping To Change Our World was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.