Tommy Dorfman on Being Maternal, Feral and Everything in Between in Her Romeo + Juliet Broadway Debut

Age: 32

Hometown: Atlanta, Georgia

Current Role: Tommy Dorfman doubles as Tybalt and the Nurse in Sam Gold’s revival of Romeo + Juliet at Circle in the Square Theatre. She performs opposite Kit Connor and Rachel Zegler, who lead the production in the title roles.

Credits: Dorfman played Ryan Shaver on Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why. She had recurring roles on American Princess and Jane the Virgin, and was a featured character on the miniseries Love in the Time of Corona. She made her off-Broadway debut in 2019, performing opposite Alan Cumming as Max in Jeremy O. Harris’ Daddy. Dorfman also co-wrote and directed I Wish You All the Best, a film starring Cole Sprouse and Corey Fogelmanis, released in March 2024.

*Photos shot at Lillie's Victorian Establishment

AT THE BALLET
Tommy Dorfman has been an actor, a photographer, a fashion designer, a writer, a podcaster—a multi-hyphenate with too many titles to hyphenate. Her earliest one might even be a surprise to her fans. “My first foray into any kind of artistic expression was through classical ballet,” she says. She danced from early childhood through high school, performing with the Atlanta Ballet and admiring the older dancers in the company. She was on a pre-professional track—which naturally included annual productions of The Nutcracker—but she also had opportunities to join the pros for their repertory productions (“There was always a serving kid,” she laughs). Then she found musical theater. “Rent was on tour when I was like nine, and my cousin brought me to see it at the Fox Theatre. That blew my brain.” She started performing in musicals herself in high school “and really fell in love with that,” but a career as any kind of musician didn’t feel feasible. “I can carry a tune, but I knew that professionally that probably wasn't going to be the avenue I would go down.” To drama school she went.

GRAND DELUSIONS
Dorfman landed in New York City at Fordham University’s theater program without any particular professional aspirations. “The only way I got into college was through acting,” she says, explaining through gritted teeth, “I was a party kid—so my grades weren’t very good.” College didn’t squash her party-kid ways, but her classes did manage to capture her attention. She ended up studying at the Moscow Art Theatre School and “really fell in love with Chekhov and Stanislavski and the technical work that goes into all of that—and the physical work as well.” When she finally decided to commit to a career as an actor, graduate school seemed like the logical next step. “I would read Playbills and I felt like everyone who was doing really reputable theater had some sort of MFA: Yale, NYU, Julliard…” she lists. “I auditioned and I didn't get in.” Still, she didn’t take it like a fatal blow. “I'm really optimistic and delusional,” Dorfman comfortably admits. “I just had this innate feeling that it would work out. The thing will come and it'll happen.” She had a specific vision of what that “thing” would be. She remembers deciding, “I'm going to book a guest on a TV show and I'm going to do an off-Broadway play in my first five years after graduating college.” Reality exceeded her ambitions.

OFF THE CLIFF
“I was on a TV show in a much bigger role than I ever thought I would be at that point in my life,” says Dorfman about her big break as Ryan Shaver on Netflix’s viral teen drama 13 Reasons Why. The show premiered in 2017, and in 2019, Dorfman landed the off-Broadway play on her five-year plan—Jeremy O. Harris’ Daddy, a sexual melodrama mired in art-world power struggles that starred Alan Cumming, was directed by now-Tony winner Danya Taymor and featured a giant swimming pool in the middle of the stage. Dorfman played Max, an ancillary character who offered snarky commentary poolside. “More than anything, I learned a lot about professional theater in a way that I hadn't been privy to when I was in school,” she says looking back on the experience. “Had I not done that, I wouldn't feel as confident about doing this.” At the same time, Daddy—and the circumstances that surrounded it—came with its challenges. “That time in my life was really complicated because I was dealing with a lot of—just gender sh*t, frankly.” Dorfman was still identifying as male and remembers that production as “probably the most masculine I've ever been in the world.” It was personally tumultuous, but as an actor, she says, “It was interesting to investigate, ‘What is the most performatively masculine version of myself?’ I felt like I ran that car off the cliff when I was doing that play.” By the time Daddy closed, she knew with certainty, “I've played all my boy cards. I can't live with this anymore. I have to transition.”

A DIFFERENT FIVE-YEAR PLAN
“This is the first time I've acted since then,” says Dorfman about her Broadway debut in Romeo + Juliet, where she doubles in the obverse roles of Juliet’s vengeful cousin Tybalt and the tragic heroine’s devoted Nurse. Minus a few small parts here and there, she’s spent the past five years cultivating the writer-director side of herself, releasing her debut coming-of-age film I Wish You All the Best earlier this year. Now back on stage, “I feel the difference in those five years,” she says. “I feel like I have less to prove, even though the stakes are really high.” The pliability of gender in this production—a trait that’s both inherently Shakespearean and heightened in Sam Gold’s picture of fair Verona—has also made for a warm return. “Sam has an understanding of humanity and the expansiveness of expression—and also identity,” she says. “He's not imprisoned by whatever systems and structures we’re raised in.” As for Gold’s vision of a Tybalt-Nurse fusion, “Those roles were never supposed to be doubled,” Dorfman shares. “I think I showed up to some of the auditions in a more maternal, feminine energy, and then a more feral, violent energy, which could be perceived as masculine. So I think it just came out of that.” As someone with a known history of setting goals and bringing them to fruition, was this anywhere on the proverbial dream board? “I could have never manifested this,” she says. “There's no world in which this would be the thing I was doing this year. It’s life beyond my wildest dreams.”

BOTH AND
“Theater has always been a place to explore parts of myself through characters safely and expansively,” says Dorfman. Getting to play on two poles in Romeo + Juliet has meant tapping into a “deep maternal care that I don't always have access to myself” while simultaneously channeling “the rage I have at the world”—something Tybalt is much quicker to do than Dorfman is in real life. “I get to be a vessel for these two people,” she says. “It's very masculine and it's very feminine, but they're both kind of androgynous in a way. I get to really have a full expression of identity.” And best of all, she gets to do it in a body that finally feels like hers. “It's so much easier,” she says, comparing this production to her last. “I really am shocked that I was working as an actor before because I was doing a performance of myself and then a performance of myself performing something else. I was so dissociated. To be able to just show up without all of that extra work is so great.” She also credits Gold with building a world where that’s possible. “Sam just instilled a safe space to do whatever my version would be. I've never had a director believe in me the way that Sam believes in me.” Every part of Romeo + Juliet has been beyond the scope of any design. “This is never going to happen again,” she says matter-of-factly. “This is going to be the best job of my entire life. So every moment I just have to soak in.”