Since graduating from Glendale High School in 1982, Drew Pollock has been on a journey of self-fulfillment. With an adventurous spirit, Pollock has picked up skills and experiences across the country, but it wasn’t until he turned 40 that he found his true passion. After enrolling in an acting class nearly two decades ago, he uprooted his life to pursue the field.

Pollock discovered OUT COMES BUTCH by David Schein as a theatre student at the University of New Mexico. The script explores the bounds of gender and identity through one man’s quest for love and truth. At the time, the material pulled Pollock outside of his comfort zone and pushed boundaries. Today, the topics are timelier than ever, and Pollock has grown into the character, discovering new angles to his performance.

OUT COMES BUTCH has been a consistent in Pollock’s life between theatrical and film bookings with credits including GREY’S ANATOMY, BREAKING BAD, and Frank Miller’s THE SPIRIT. Now stationed in Oklahoma, Pollock has mounted the demanding one-man show from the Midwest to LA, but for the first time, he is bringing the show to his hometown.

Why was Springfield a town you wanted to bring OUT COMES BUTCH?

I grew up in Springfield. Springfield is my hometown. I’m the youngest of four. We all graduated from Glendale High School. It’s wonderful every time I come there. I went to Missouri State when it was SMSU for three semesters, then I transferred to KU.

What was your path to a life in the arts?

I was a corporate guy for the first half of adult life. Then I went through a midlife crisis early and couldn’t see myself going back into corporate sales. I wound up going back to school and taking an acting class on a whim. It makes me emotional. Within five minutes of being in that class, I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be a doing what I was supposed to be doing. That was almost 20 years ago. I went to theater school when I was 40.

Are you now a full-time actor?

I do other things to stay afloat. It’s a tough business. Mostly industry stuff. I’m a union painter for film and television. Sometimes I’m a prop builder if they’re shorthanded in that department. Prop builders are basically set builders. And I worked in set decoration a few times too. If you can make a full circle around the camera, it makes you a better actor and definitely makes you a better artist. You appreciate everybody else. I love it and the acid test is walking away to get a regular job. That goes through my head sometimes, but I’m like, ‘You’re crazy. You’ll never be happy doing anything else. Just do it and press on.’

How were you introduced to OUT COMES BUTCH?

When I was in theatre school at the University of New Mexico, I was searching for a monologue for an audition. I went to one of my professors and said, ‘Can you help me find something that’s appropriate for this play?’ He just got a big smile on his face and said, ‘I’ve got just the thing.’ He pulled a page from the script of OUT COMES BUTCH. I didn’t know anything about it. He goes, ‘You’ll find whatever you need in this page.’ Then he said, ‘Once you’re done with this show, I want to give you this whole script and you should read it. You should really consider doing it.’

This is a really difficult piece of art to perform. Did you find it challenging to develop this character?

I did a lot of [characters] naturally – the cowboy, the heavy, the hardcore guy. [My instructors] wanted to see me get stretched out. I read the script, and I was like, ‘Oh, buddy. This one is going to stretch me out.’ It’s not a stretch anymore. Candidly, I’ve got life experience with most of what’s going on in the play. That’s a long story, but I have the will to play it. I get scared, what are people going to think? But that’s really gone to the wayside. I think it’s fantastic art. It’s really thought provoking. If I have any talent, I think it’s my will to embody different characters without hesitation. That said, on the front end it did stretch me out a bit. On this end, it becomes more digging deeper into the meaning of it. Finding more comedy in this. Every time I perform it, I find things that just weren’t popping up before.

How do you describe OUT COMES BUTCH to new audiences?

It’s a fantastical story about this guy’s journey from blue collar construction guy to hip slick cool swinger guy to gay guy to transvestite guy to transsexual to lesbian in one show. It’s very comedic. There’s a lot of shock value in it. But the story underneath is very poignant. I just think it’s great theatre. It’s not perfect by any means, but I really, really enjoy doing it. I think people that really tune into the show. It’s thought provoking and it’s conversation provoking. People leave the theatre, and they talk about it. It’s cathartic. What it’s really doing is looking at relationship issues that run true across the board whether you’re gay, lesbian, trans, queer. It doesn’t matter. It seems like the relationship issues people have kind of run across the board.

There are multiple full costume changes in the show. Are you changing characters?

It’s the same person, but he becomes way different as he moves through. He has personality changes, belief changes, he has physical changes for sure, voice changes. In that regard, from an actor’s perspective, it’s really playing five different characters. With the costume changes, I go on the fly in front of the audience. It takes a lot of rehearsal and a lot of memorization. It’s every bit of a sixty-minute monologue. I love performing it. I love that we’re doing it in a smaller venue like Nathan P. Murphy’s. I think the play is more suited for that type of venue. The audience is as much of a part of the performance in my opinion with a show like this as I am. There’s an energy exchange that takes place. People who knew me growing up, particularly at Glendale High School, I don’t know if they can see me in this type of light, but we’ll find out.

Are you looking forward to bringing this show to your hometown friends and family in addition to new fans?

I put all this stuff wherever I’m doing this show on social media, and I have a lot of friends in Springfield that I stay in touch with via that mechanism. Especially on this last show that I did in Oklahoma City back in April, everyone was like, ‘Come on! Bring it to Springfield!’ I’ve never toured it out of a town that I wasn’t living in, but it sounded like fun. It took a little bit for me to find the right player, but Beth Domann is the ‘theatre woman’ in Springfield. I just gave her a gist of what I was wanting to do, and she just goes, ‘Yeah, bam! Let’s do it!’ It was a breath of fresh air. No resistance on her part whatsoever. They’re coproducing it in conjunction with Springfield Little Theatre. They’re doing great things for me regarding technical and getting space ready for me and some rehearsal time.

Springfield Little Theatre presents OUT COMES BUTCH October 24 – 26 at Nathan P. Murphy’s. Tickets are available now.