“My favorite New York song is sung by this amazing young singer named Sam Tutty,” Taylor Trensch says in a new Playbill video, naming the actor at the center of the Broadway conversation and handing him the evening’s spotlight before a note has even been sung.
Playbill released the clip as part of Two (Broadway) Strangers, its interview series tied to the musical Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York), which is currently playing at the Longacre Theatre. The short features Trensch and Sam Tutty trading favorite New York songs and movies, riffing on dressing room snacks and confessing which Broadway show they’d sign up for even if they didn’t feel qualified.
The exchange lands because Tutty is already part of the musical’s origin story: he originated the role of Dougal in London, the naïve, impossibly upbeat Brit who arrives in New York for his estranged father’s second wedding and is collected at the airport by Robin, the sister of the bride. From that pickup, Dougal and Robin set off on the serendipitous adventure through New York City that drives the show, written by Jim Barne and Kit Buchan and produced on Broadway by Kevin McCollum, Tim Johanson, Glass Half Full Productions and Jamie Wilson Productions.
That production context gives the Playbill clip extra texture. It is one thing to hear actors name favorite songs; it is another to hear the performer who introduced Dougal in London described, on camera, as the voice behind someone else’s favorite New York song. The video underscores the crossover between the West End origin of the role and the Broadway staging now at the Longacre.
Playbill’s piece also leans toward backstage intimacy. The two talk about what snacks are reliable in a dressing room and the guilty-pleasure casting fantasies performers carry—details meant to humanize a show that, onstage, depends on chance encounters and city-sized coincidences. Previous Two (Broadway) Strangers episodes have followed the same mix of fan and cast moments; earlier installments included a fan who had seen the show 19 times, Schmigadoon! actor Isabelle McCalla and composer Michael R. Jackson.
The video contains an odd, telling friction: Tutty and Trensch say they had never met before the camera rolled, even though both are associated with the musical. The admission punctures the neatness of theatrical networks—two performers tied to the same title, only now meeting to swap personal lists that, in Trensch’s case, foreground Tutty’s voice.
Playbill leaves some questions deliberately unresolved. The clip offers a taste of the favorites they traded but does not publish a full list of song and movie choices beyond the excerpt in which Trensch credits Tutty. It also does not commit to a schedule for more episodes of the series, beyond the pattern established by earlier releases.
For audience members following Two Strangers at the Longacre, the Playbill video does two things at once: it amplifies a performer who helped shape the role of Dougal and it reminds viewers that the Broadway run exists within a wider, cross-Atlantic creative life. Fans hungry for the complete rundown of which New York songs and movies each named will have to wait; Playbill has not announced the next installment, leaving the full list and any future on-camera meetings to whatever the series publishes next.
