Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Tyler Bueno. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Tyler thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you tell us about a time that your work has been misunderstood? Why do you think it happened and did any interesting insights emerge from the experience?
This answer might be a bit of a stretch for the question. I’m not sure if misunderstood is the right word but underestimated seems more on point.
I knew I wanted to be an actor ever since I was at least 11 or 12. I loved Power Rangers when I was younger… Well I still do… but Austin St. John who played the red ranger was the only thing I had to a big brother and so I modeled myself after his character Jason. I loved to pretend I was the red ranger. I’d make stories and act them out. In middle school I caught the acting bug big time. It became what I wanted to do and when High School Musical came out, it only deepened that desire. I made it all the way through high school in choir and drama. But when I graduated and started to audition for local theatre I started to feel like I was either not good enough or I wasn’t the body type they wanted. Which I never got. It was community theater, not Broadway! I would try to go on an audition for other projects and even made it into a movie, web series and some commercials but nothing really was sticking.
In 2016 I auditioned for a musical in college called Lucky Stiff where I played the comedic scared brother of the antagonist. It wasn’t a great show but it brought the love back. I told myself I was going to pursue this full time. I even was telling myself I was going to be in the next Star Wars film. But God has a funny way of doing things. Instead, I started to write plays. I wrote a small one act loosely based on me and my now wife. We read it in my acting 2 class in college. I love that instructor, I learned a lot from him, but he told me something that lit a fire in me. “It’s a great start, but it’s just juvenile”. That rang in my head. So I put that to the side and focused on a fan film based on power rangers called Legacy. Where I played the son of Jason the original red ranger. It was a fun project but it wasn’t anything that I could write home about. There was a calling to this script i was writing. But I still moved to another project. A parody musical of the anime Fairy Tail. It was a student ran project that we tried to get the school to help fund but again I was met with “It’s really ambitious. Maybe try to do it another way.” So we raised the money ourselves! We made the costumes, promoted it ourselves and did the show at The Library Center in Springfield Mo. 2 sold out shows! That instructor came and saw it. He was so amazed at what we accomplished! I realized, this is what I wanted to do. Tell stories that amazed people. I loved acting, but telling stories was my true passion. So we moved on to Who We Really Are, the script my instructor called juvenile. It went from a one act play to a 2 act original musical. The show centered around a young successful writer named Kurt Skylar who gets struck with writers block while writing his next novel in The Beautiful Wings series. He ends up meeting the new girl in town Melissa who lives across the hall and he begins to get a crush on her. His friend Garret, who is his self proclaimed manager sees Melissa as a distraction and wants her gone. He ends up meeting Melissa’s ex boyfriend Donovan who is trying to get her back and they make a plan to get what they want. The show took from people I had met and things my wife and I had experienced. It merged our story, our faith and our love for all things nerd. This show me what I could do as a director and writer. Since then I have written and directed several musicals and plays either centered around faith, or something in nerd culture. Which is why our company is called Rebel’s Guild. We are different from the rest. We don’t fit their mold.
if I have learned anything, it’s to not change who you are to fit the mold of the world. Just create and be you.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Yeah! I’m Tyler Bueno, a writer, singer and actor from Springfield Mo and now Atlanta Georgia! I own Rebel’s Guild Theatre and run the YouTube channels Tyler Bueno Music and the soon to be Faithful Trainer Tyler. Rebel’s Guild was born out of Covid. At one time we were Nerds4Entertainment but I felt I wanted the company to reflect what I was feeling in that time. We were Rebel’s. We are different. We make faith based shows but not preachy and in your face. But shows that get you thinking. We make shows based on some favorite properties as fans! Currently we are doing an old school audio drama based on the character of Nightwing. It’s completely for fun and non profit. I also create original music and Pokémon content.
My goal is to inspire those who feel like they don’t belong or the world has told them they are no good enough.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
So I actually wrote a whole shows about this called Don’t Lose Sight. Basically we were coming back from the pandemic and we had out first show in what seemed like years. I was approached by a theatre individual who liked what I was doing and wanted me to help him with his theater. It was a dream come true or so I thought. Every time my company of actors wanted to see the theater, he would give a reason why we can’t and then finally admitted he didn’t have the space yet. And when there was a space, it wasn’t ready. and when they finally got the stage built it wasn’t safe. I had and actor fall and hurt herself the minute she stepped on it. I also felt I was being used as a cash cow. He had all these plans for me to write this show and do that show. The truth was he just wanted me and constantly said my company was a bunch of misfits. I was creatively stuck and wanted out. So I walked away. He then later retaliated, months later and tried to scare me. It didn’t work. But, I realized I wasn’t going to end my dream because of one person. So I started writing songs about how I was feeling. Being 30 and feeling like my dreams were so far away. Yes I know this was the plot to Tick Tick Boom. But this was my story. The events of this also took place near a very hard personal time for me almost losing my best friend to a stroke, my big brother (not blood related) getting a divorce and deciding to become a rapper. I kid you not. My wife and I nearing divorce. I knew I couldn’t let all of this end. And then the song Don’t Lose Sight came to me. I wrote it months before this for a different project but it fit so well here. What I was going through. “Don’t lose sight down that road. keep on fighting, he’ll protect your soul. Gather your strength for your soul can be free. Keep on holding and fight beside me. ”
This was the moment I knew I wasn’t going to stop. It didn’t matter what was thrown at me.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
Honestly, if all I do is reach one person and change their life, that is the most rewarding thing for me. Would I love to make big money, sure. But it’s about the human journey, if we don’t help each other and make connections, then are we even doing life right?
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @tylerbuenomusic
- Facebook: @tbuenomusic
- Youtube: https://Youtube.com/TylerBuenoMusic
