In this NEW interview, David once again answered my call, but this time around he shares:

• Why he wrote a show about his teenage years
• What he learned about himself from writing TEENAGE WASTELAND: Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen
•   Heartbreaks, hard-ons, and hairstyles
• What advice adult David Dean Bottrell would give to teenage David
• So much more

Connect with David: Website, Facebook, Instagram

• New York City: May 8, 2025 at Pangea
• Palm Springs, CA: May 17, 2025 at Revolution Stage Company
• Los Angeles, CA: May 22-23, 2025 at Whitefire Theatre
• San Francisco, CA: June 4, 2025 at Eclectic Box
• Hyannis, MA: Jun 19, 2025 at Hyannis Arts Hall
• Nantucket, MA: June 20, 2025 at Nantucket Dreamland

In TEENAGE WASTELAND: Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, David Dean Bottrell shares five painfully funny (and tragically true) tales of heartbreak, hard-ons and hair. Click Here for tickets!

1. After sold-out shows in LA & NY, you are about to take your newest one-man show TEENAGE WASTELAND: Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen out on a mini-tour. How do you feel your previous shows will inform the way you perform on this new mini-tour? For me, taking shows out on tour is always a little scary. Just because the folks in LA and NYC laughed doesn't mean the material will play in a new town.

I was very nervous to play the Bay Street Theatre a couple of years ago. I wasn't sure the Hamptons crowd would dig my stories, but it was sort of amazing. They were a great audience. And I set a box office record for an off-season show.

This summer, I'm playing Hyannis for the first time, so I'm hoping the Kennedys will come. And I haven't performed in San Francisco since I did Streep Tease there over a decade ago.

I try to make my shows as smart and universal as I can. Even though this is a new show, I'm feeling weirdly confident about it, mostly because the subject matter is very universal.

2. What made you want to write a show about your teenage years? I'm always searching for new themes for my shows. I'm not a stand-up, so I can't just go out there and spill 85 minutes of jokes. Storytelling needs some kind thread -- like a clothesline -- that you can hang all the stories on.

Last year, I did a show about death, because who doesn't think about that now. As soon as I thought about my teenage life, my head flooded with stories. It was like a tsunami. The current show is called TEENAGE WASTELAND: Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen because the stories in it only cover those three ages.

I'm hoping to do a follow up next year that'll cover sixteen, seventeen and eighteen.

3. What did you learn about yourself from writing this show that you didn't know living through it? I think I gained some respect for my teenage self. Adolescence is such a weird, fragile time. And you're making decisions that really will affect how your life turns out. There was a lot going on for me, especially around my realizing I was gay. Plus there was a ton of drama happening in my family at that time that's not even in the show.

Nobody really had time to notice me, so I began to live this strange solitary existence and having all kinds of adventures my family knew nothing about.

I never thought of myself as strong when I was kid, but I really was.

David Dean Bottrell
TEENAGE WASTELAND: Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen
Pangea, NYC, Photo Courtesy of David's Social Media

4. In the show, you talk about how life is basically a series of falls, getting back up, falling again, and getting back up. What do you think your motivation was to get back up after your first fall? It's weird, a lot of my cousins fell and kept on falling. Just one crappy decision after another.

I think a couple of things really helped me get up and keep moving. One was television. It gave me these windows into these other worlds, these different ways of living. I vividly remember how much I loved Saturday Night Live (SNL), and how it made me want to move to New York and make my living being funny.

Another lifesaver was the library. I was terrible at sports and my only friends were the drama club nerds. So when I wasn't in rehearsal, I was in the library. I read a lot of stories that mostly had to do with people achieving things. Those books helped me feel like "If other people can do it, I can do it."

5. According to press notes, the show is "five painfully funny (and tragically true) tales of heartbreak, hard-ons and hair." What is one heartbreak you have not gotten over yet, that you don't talk about in the show? Wow. Excellent question.

In the new show, I talk about one teenage heartbreak that weirdly boomeranged back to break my heart again in middle age.

As a grown up, there were a couple of breakups I thought I'd never recover from, but I did. And of course (me being me), I wrote a show about them!

I'm a ridiculously optimistic person. I still wake up thinking I'm this young up-and-comer in both show business and in life.

About 20 years ago, I started to actively practice the fine art of forgiveness. I worked on it daily. Not just forgiving others, but myself, and it was a real game changer.

6. What part of your teenage life, or adult life, do you feel was your worst hairstyle? I would say my teenage years & my early 20's are sort of a tie for that prize. In the new show, I tell a very funny, kinda sad story about a hairstyle that ruined my life when I was fourteen.

In my 20's, I was living in the East Village and made a few attempts to make my hair look like Bowie or that 80's band, Flock of Seagulls. The good news is that we didn't have cell phones in those days, so there are (thank Christ) very few photos of those masterpieces.

David Dean Bottrell
TEENAGE WASTELAND: Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen
Photo Courtesy of David's Social Media

7. This next question has two parts to it:

• When do you feel a hard-on helped you get the thing you desired? Well, I've had a lot of fantastic sex in my life, and I'd say hard-ons played a big part in that.
•  What was the most embarrassing moment you popped a wheelie? Weirdly, they used to pop up a lot in church. My parents were deeply religious, and so attendance on Sunday morning was mandatory. Unbeknownst to them, I had become very good at climbing out my bedroom window, so I was usually hungover and doing a lot of daydreaming in my pew. I remember my mom had bought me this forest green polyester suit, and I used to take off the jacket and hold it in front of me to mask my boner.

8. What is one event from your teenage years that you wish you could go back and do over? I wish I'd have asked for more help. With everything. I didn't really understand anything that was going on -- with my body or my sexuality or my family -- and I could have reached out to a few people like high school counsellors who probably could have helped me, but I was way too embarrassed.

9. What is something that happened during your teenage years you can look back on and say, "I'm so glad this happened because if it didn't, I wouldn't be where I am today." I fell in love with one of the stars of the Drama Club and the only way to meet her was to audition for a play. It was a terrifying thing to do at the time, but that choice changed the whole course of my life.

Sometimes I think, "Wow, what would have happened if I hadn't auditioned for that play? Would I have found something else to do? Would I have more money? Be happier than I am? There's no way to answer those questions, but I do know that being an artist gave me an enormously wide vision of the world.

I have laughed more than most people I know, and I've had the great privilege to make other people laugh which is even better. I feel lucky to have had this adventure.

10. What advice would David Dean Bottrell of today tell teenage David? Don't worry so much. You'll find it. You'll understand it. You'll do it.

 David Dean Bottrell
TEENAGE WASTELAND: Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen
Pangea, NYC, Photo Courtesy of David's Social Media

More on David Dean Bottrell:

David Dean Bottrell has played many guest star and recurring roles on such shows as Frasier (Reboot), Modern Family; Blacklist; Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU; Rectify; Longmire; Castle; Criminal Minds; NCIS; CSI; Bones; Mad Men; True Blood; Justified; Ugly Betty; Days of Our Lives; iCarly, and got a bit of attention for playing the creepy “Lincoln Meyer” on season three of Boston Legal. 

He has written many scripts for Hollywood studios including the screenplay for Fox Searchlight’s hit comedy, Kingdom Come and is the author of a popular new book, Working Actor: Breaking In, Making a Living, and Making a Life in the Fabulous Trenches of Show Business (Penguin Random House).

An accomplished storyteller, he recently performed on the PBS series Stories from the Stage. His award-winning one-man shows, David Dean Bottrell Makes Love: A One-Man Show and The Death of Me Yet have played to packed houses in New York, Los Angeles, Sag Harbor, Nantucket and Palm Springs. 

His theatre work includes shows at Second Stage, Long Wharf, Dixon Place and the Colony Theatre. He also appeared in the smash hit, long-running comedy revue, Streep Tease: An Evening of Monologues from Meryl Streep Movies performed by an All-Male Cast at Joe’s Pub (as well as the sold-out runs in L.A. and San Francisco).

David is a native Kentuckian and splits his time between New York and Los Angeles.