Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Jason Suel
Perpetually in motion
“Jason has a magnetic personality — he attracts people to him.” — Kassie Misiewicz
Jason Suel’s spirit animal must be an octopus. It’s the only possible reason why the Northwest Arkansas theater artist and host of Fox 24’s variety show “Later with Jason Suel” can juggle so many projects at one time. Both
Suel and those who know him best say he draws energy and inspiration from staying busy.
“People often say, ‘How do you have the time to do all these things,’” says Suel. “But I just feel hugely, artistically fulfilled.”
“Jason really likes variety,” says wife Jill. “He loves being in front of people and working as a team to create a project.”
CRITTERS AND CREATIVITY
Born in Camden, Suel was well rounded from the very beginning: As a member of the Future Farmers of America, he raised two sheep that he showed at the county and state level.
“It was kind of brutal,” he says. “We raised them, we showed them, and then we had them butchered and ate them. It was a life lesson, I guess.
“We didn’t have a pasture, so I just walked this sheep around my yard to keep it healthy. I had to sheer the thing, too. You build a relationship with it. That sheep was named Vader, because he was very defiant. At the State Fair, one time, he jumped the fence and escaped from his pen.”
When his parents bought a video camera to record family events for posterity, Jason’s artistic side was awakened.
“That kind of changed my life,” he says. “I began to find my creative voice. My cousin Tim and I would get together and started working on movies, little creative explorations.”
“We developed this whole folklore around this character called ‘Woodwalker’, which was really just a werewolf,” laughs Suel. “My
Suel started going to see high school theater when he was in middle school, and he says he felt an immediate connection.
“Tenth grade was when you started the theater program at that time, so I auditioned first in the fall of my 10th grade year for the play ‘Our Town’,” he remembers. “I got cast as George Gibbs, one of the principal roles. From there, I was addicted. I was hooked. What I really enjoyed about it was the social dynamic. I think a lot of people don’t recognize that theater isn’t about one person, it’s about that social inclusion that you feel being part of a group of people working toward a finished product.”
But even at this young age, Suel didn’t limit his interests. He straddled the line between the artistic and athletic worlds by performing while playing basketball, football and baseball.
“I might have to say, ‘Coach, I can’t really practice today because we have a dress rehearsal,’” remembers Suel. “Looking back, I guess it was really bold to ask, but I thought that I had more of a future in theater than I did in basketball. So he let me go, and it was fine. Maybe I had to run some laps or something. For the most part, I think people recognized that I was a little bit unique, and they wanted to support that.”
COMMUNICATION CHOICES
College took him to the University of Central Arkansas, where, true to form, he promptly got involved on campus. He made instant friendships with his fellow honors students and wasted no time incorporating himself into the theater department.
“I remember auditioning for things right away, like where the seniors have to direct a scene, or they have to direct a one act,” he says. “Right from fall of freshman year, I was in somebody’s something. The honors college, every year, puts on a production of ‘No Exit’, and I was cast as one of the four actors for that play. So I thought, ‘Theater is kind of blossoming for me!’”
By spring of his freshman year, he was performing in the college musical and was cast in the traveling children’s theater troupe. Still, when it came time to declare a major his sophomore year, he shied away from taking the formal step of naming theater.
“I think it was partly because my parents were a little iffy when I would bring that up, because, you know, they wanted me to have a job,” he says with a laugh. “You could be in plays and not be a major, so I continued to take classes and perform in shows. I just didn’t major in it. I continued to have that be a part of my life because it fed my soul. But my degree was in communication with an emphasis in public relations.”
Suel met his former wife, Sarah, toward the end of his college years. She was majoring in occupational therapy, and he stuck around the area after graduation, waiting for her to finish, working as a youth minister
at a church in nearby Maumelle. The two got married, and, after Sarah finished her degree, Suel decided to go back to get a post-graduate degree, as well — in theater. He ended up at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.
“The graduate school required all of their students who had a fellowship to have a variety of jobs,” says Suel. “I worked at the scene shop every semester for 10 hours, and, the other semesters, I was doing different things. I got a chance to assistant direct, teach a class, work the box office, go out with another touring company like I did when I was at UCA — I got this wide variety of different activities to sort of foster the theater side of me.”
When he graduated, the two took advantage of Sarah’s highly sought-after career choice and moved to England, where they lived for four years and had their first child. Suel continued working with children while in England. He realized he not only enjoyed it but had a talent for it.
“I had formed a relationship with someone who was in charge of after-school arts integration, so I did that for a while,” he says. “[Sarah and I] had it planned out that we were going to move back [to the US] in April of 2009, but my sister died in February, so we just literally moved our timeline up by a month and came home a little early. It needed to happen.”
Suel’s sister’s death was unexpected, and that, along with the fact that he and Sarah had a child now, meant Suel wanted to stay near his parents, at least within a day’s drive. He searched for theater jobs in all of the nearby urban areas like Kansas City, St. Louis and Dallas before he decided to check out what Northwest Arkansas had to offer. Through TheatreSquared, he found Kassie Misiewicz, who had recently established a children’s company, Trike Theatre.
“[TheatreSquared Artistic Director] Bob Ford sent him over to me and said, ‘I think this is a guy you might want to work with,’” remembers Misiewicz. “At that time, there weren’t a lot of theater professionals who had extensive experience working with kids and who had an interest in working with and for children. We talked, and I realized he was someone who would be on board with what we were doing at Trike and someone I would want to work with. Once [he and Sarah] moved to the area, I immediately got him into the classroom, teaching, and then I cast him in plays. Jason coming to work with Trike was a very easy transition.”
“I went to the Trike Theatre website, and there was a phrase on it: ‘Life skills through theater skills,’” says Suel. “And I said, ‘That’s me. That’s my heart. I have to do that.’”
LAUGHTER AND LEARNING
Of course, it would not be his only outlet for theater in Northwest Arkansas. Through his work with Trike, he met Virginia and Justin Scheuer, who were in the process of starting a new improv group called Phunbags.
“I said, ‘Virginia, I’ve never done improv before! It’s scary to me!’ And she said, ‘That’s OK, none of us have. We’re all figuring it out. Just show up to a rehearsal.’ So I did.”
“Jason just jumped into the mix,” says Julie Gabel, Phunbags ensemble member, noted Northwest Arkansas actor and Trike’s interim academy manager. “The rest of us knew each other really well, and he just jumped in and was super fun, as though he had known us for a long time. I love being on stage with Jason because he is not afraid to jump in — he’s fearless on stage, he’s got great comic timing, and he’s a great acting partner. We have so much fun at Phunbags’ rehearsals that we get headaches from laughing so hard.”
The group has continued to perform regularly in and outside of Northwest Arkansas for nearly 10 years.
“And the same real nucleus of people that originally started it are still there,” says Suel. “Of the eight people performing right now, six are the same that were there at the very beginning. We know each other’s jokes so well, but it’s still fun. We try new things and push the boundaries and get out of our comfort zones.”
The year 2009 also marked the birth of “Digging up Arkansas,” a play written by fellow Phunbag member and esteemed Northwest Arkansas actor Mike Thomas. The project was a collaboration between Trike and the Walton Arts Center’s SmART Residency program, which seeks to help Arkansas teachers incorporate the arts into their curriculum.
“I remember being in rehearsal for that for what seemed like forever,” says Suel. “Mike was writing the play, and he would bring us a couple of pages and say, ‘Act this out.’ Then he would see us and say, ‘Oh, I have to change this, change that.’ We workshopped that piece over the course of the summer, and during the 2009 academic year, [Trike] went and did that show at schools around the area. I was part of that show for five years. It continues to be one of the more successful things we can hang our hat on.”
Through the Walton Arts Center, Suel met Kennedy Center-affiliated arts instructor Sean Layne, who operates an arts education consulting company called Focus 5.
“He presented on strategies to bring arts into the classroom, and man, did that become my thing,” says Suel. “Now I teach for Sean. Kassie and I are vetted Focus 5 presenters, so we can go and present all over the country. I also do demonstration lessons in the classroom. Just this past year, I’ve been in North Dakota, Phoenix, Las Vegas, California, Connecticut and Florida.”
There is little doubt that Suel had found his home in Northwest Arkansas.
“I was like, ‘This is the community for me,’” says Suel. “Everything that I was involved in was so successful, because the community supports it. That’s the thing that is so huge about Northwest Arkansas — it’s very supportive of the arts.”
UNDER ONE ROOF
While 2009 was the Big Bang of Suel’s arrival in Northwest Arkansas, he continued to find other opportunities to get involved in theater-related projects as time went on: ArkansasStaged, where he remains in an advisory position; the Fayetteville Film Fest, where he currently sits on the board; Ultra Suede Party Band, in which he serves as a lead singer; and another improv group — this one using long-form improv — called Rodeo Book Club.
When Dan Robinson, operational manager at Fayetteville Public Television at the time, approached him in 2012 about starting a late night talk show, it was Suel’s chance to link all of the interests he’d fostered over the years.
“I knew that one thing the channel would benefit from was a locally focused talk show,” says Robinson. “My first thought for a host was Jason. I pitched him the concept, and it took a bit of convincing, mainly because we were building it from scratch. I had a feeling that Jason’s talents and connections would be a great cornerstone for a talk show, which proved to be the case.”
“Dan said, ‘You seem like a good fit,’” remembers Suel. “‘You’re good at talking to people.’ So we decided we wanted to showcase Northwest Arkansas in a late night talk show. It seems like the show is about me because my name is attached, but it really has little to do with me. It’s really about, ‘This band is awesome, and you want to know about this restaurant’ — it’s about putting all of that together in one show.”
“Later With Jason Suel” premiered on Fayetteville Public Television in April 2014. Each episode runs anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes with Suel as the affable host. He seems as comfortable playing straight man to some of his wackier guests (and his sidekick, Bo Counts) as he is yukking it up in the three- to five-minute sketches that air during the course of the show. Area chefs demonstrate cooking techniques, and Suel interviews guests from various nonprofits, as well as artists of all stripes. There is always a musical performance, too. These started out as in-studio performances but have since morphed into slickly produced, professional music videos.
“Around 2015 or 2016, I became friends with the guys that became Red Barn Studio,” says Suel. “They said, ‘We want to do some music videos,’ and I said, ‘I know some people — let’s put our heads together.’” The team received funding from Experience Fayetteville to film artists attending the Roots Fest that year.
Last year, the Northwest Arkansas Fox affiliate, Fox 24, took notice of “Later With Jason Suel,” and Suel and his team launched their first episode on the station on Dec. 31, 2016. It was a great opportunity for Suel to widen his audience — and a great opportunity for more of Northwest Arkansas to see Suel doing what he loves to do.
“Jason has been committed to the show connecting the I-49 corridor, making the audience regional,” says Robinson. “I believe this was one of the main things that attracted Fox 24 to the show. It was monumental for a show produced at FPTV to make the leap to a regional network affiliate.”
The show received a National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Mid-America EMMY nomination in 2017.
“With this project, there are a lot of things I love in one place, all tied up with a little bow on the top,” says Suel. “I’m a people person, I love to talk. It’s the creative community of Northwest Arkansas coming together in a different format. There aren’t a lot of entertainment television shows in Northwest Arkansas, so getting to work with these actors, getting them to come here and do this thing, is awesome. Food is always great, and music is another passion of mine. I know we won’t be able to showcase everything — you can’t do that, even with a weekly show — but I feel like we showcase a lot of it, and that’s really fun.”
“It has been amazing and rewarding to see the impact the show has made on unifying the region,” says Robinson. “I would say the most significant contribution has been how Jason has specifically made the show Northwest Arkansas-focused, featuring community events and leaders that reach from Bentonville to Fort Smith, and all the towns between.”
STILL PEDALING
Beneath all of Suel’s other projects and accomplishments, his work with Trike Theatre continues to hum along.
“Jason was really part of the very first year of Trike’s birth, and since then, really has taken on so many different roles,” says Misiewicz. “As a teaching artist, as an actor, a director, a teacher trainer. He’s willing to do anything that’s going to help the team. He’s always willing to try something new. He’s head of outreach now, and he has really found a niche. He has come out as a leader to help us create new partnerships, maintain and cultivate those partnerships and envision those programs so we can meet the needs, not only for our partners but also for our kids.”
“As head of outreach, I get to work in a lot of area schools, teaching them arts integration,” says Suel. “It’s a very rewarding experience.”
“He is an amazing teacher,” says Gabel. “I am still constantly learning from him. He’s consistent, he’s calm, he knows how to motivate the students and encourage teachers.”
Jill, says he doesn’t let family life take a back seat to any of his work obligations. She says daughter, Pippa, 9, and son, Felix, 7, share their father’s love of theater arts.
“He is a really involved dad,” she says. “We love to play games as a family. ‘Twenty Questions’ is very popular. But our favorite thing to do is sing. Really loudly! Our favorite song right now is Gaston from the new ‘Beauty and the Beast’. We all take turns doing solos … music and performance is a part of our daily lives.”
“Moving here from England was definitely the right choice,” Suel concludes. “Providence, fate, whatever. I ended up in a place that really fosters my creative need and fulfills me.
“I couldn’t see myself being anywhere else.”