MY STORY

Heath is the second oldest of the five Saunders siblings, or the fourth youngest,
depending on who you ask. What does Heath actually do though?

Heath has been juggling many things their entire life. It took Heath awhile to figure out that they were mostly orbiting the “artist” moniker, because they fancied their self a mathematician, but even those two spaces aren’t so far apart. First, Heath wanted to be a roller coaster designer. Then, a composer of video game music. Then, a pit musician. Then, a musical theater writer. While all of their siblings generally chose a single instrument to study, Heath played cello, piano, oboe, saxophone, and guitar. While all their friends took a single 5th period class like normal eleventh grade students, Heath had to take three at the same time, with orchestra, marching band, and calculus 2. When the family started to do musical theater more regularly, Heath didn’t just perform, no - they wrote, directed, musically directed, orchestrated, arranged, composed, choreographed AND performed, and MOSTLY not all at the same time! (There is one horrifying production of Annie that marked the first and only time Heath was in the pit and the cast simultaneously, and not in that cute actor-musician way, and it was horrible. 12/10 doctors would not recommend.) They finished their first full length musical (the hilariously adolescent Story of Three) when they were 17, and presented selections from it, utilizing their extraordinary brothers and sisters, for their senior project in high school.

University of Miami wasn’t much different. When Heath realized that they and the other freshfolk in the theater program wouldn’t be allowed to perform, they organized a first year cabaret -- a tradition that, as far as Heath knows, continues to this day -- and wrote new lyrics and arranged a mash up for the opening number. Heath helped reinstate the theater student leadership group, stepped in as associate director and staged an entire new musical in three days when the director was caught in New York, accompanied voice lessons for extra cash on the side, took two independent study classes specifically tailored to musical theater history and orchestration/composition, and still managed to barely graduate in the requisite four years.

These days, Heath basically spends his time perfecting the art of rejecting labels. An actor-singer-writer-composer-diversity dramaturg-director-multi-instrumentalist-theater-artist-and-not-necessarily-in-that-order type. You’d probably recognize them most from purely musical theater performance. But, honestly, Heath never really meant to perform professionally, at least until someone (probably their mom) very wisely mentioned that actually, the idea that you had to pick one thing to do with your entire life was wholly illusory, and, indeed, every job that they could possibly do would only augment and enrich all the other careers. The point is, the story of Heath is many stories, and always has been, but...it begins and ends with this collective. Family: best friends and support system. Heath still dreams of one day designing a perfect steel giga-coaster for Six Flags Magic Mountain. And the whole crew will be there opening day to ride it.

DIVERSITY DRAMATURG / SHOWDOCTOR

Diversity Dramaturgy is an emerging theatrical discipline which supports creative teams in investigating cultural bias, racism, and anti-blackness in a theatrical setting. Learn more about Heath’s approach at “What I Think About When I Hear That Broadway Is Racist (The Blacker The Body, The Sweeter The Juice)” published in June 2020 on Medium.com.

@feeltheheath