Kissimmee actor finds perspective amid ‘most awful year of my life’
Evan Todd’s Christmas was extra sweet this year: “My mother is alive,” he says simply.
So he made sure his family’s holiday was extra bright — surprising his colorblind stepfather with a pair of glasses that make his world more vibrant.
Todd, an actor who grew up in Kissimmee and spent more than two years starring in the musical “Beautiful” on Broadway, says the ups and downs of 2020 have left him grateful.
“It was an awful year, on paper the most awful year of my life,” said Todd, 31. “But I am thankful that my relationship with my whole family has shifted.”
Based in New York City, Todd was suffering along with the rest of the entertainment industry when COVID-19 brought work to a standstill. But that paled in comparison to the phone call he got from his sister, Danielle Morris, late on June 12: His mother had been in a serious car accident in Kissimmee.
“A driver jumped the median on Pleasant Hill Road and hit her head-on,” he said. “That driver was killed.”
Todd’s mother, Debbie Todd, spent six weeks in intensive care and underwent more than a dozen surgeries and procedures. She was given a 20 percent chance of survival.
But survive she did.
“It’s a miracle that she didn’t break her spine,” said Todd, a self-proclaimed “lifelong mama’s boy” who calls his Philadelphia-born mother a “tough, Italian, Catholic, Philly girl.”
And after several more weeks in a Jacksonville rehabilitation facility, Debbie
returned home, where husband Don Middleton— who spent “eight straight weeks sleeping on couch es in my mom’s hospital and rehab rooms” — became her primary caretaker.
Todd, who attended the Osceola School for the Arts, returned to Kissimmee and spent about three months with his family. He set up an online fundraiser for medical expenses at gofundme.com/f/missdebbie, and hundreds of friends donated more than $30,000. But he needed to feel more active.
So he began building a deck to make his mom’s pool more accessible to her. He figured it would help with her recovery, both physically and mentally, because “she loves her pool more than anything… she always smells like sunscreen and oregano.”
Although he knew his way around tools— Todd built his own furniture for one apartment — a deck was a new proposition.
“I had no clue,” he said. “I watched as many YouTube videos on it as I could.”
Enter his father, Evan Todd Sr., to offer a hand.
Todd’s parents split more than 20 years ago, and though cordial didn’t see much of each other. But thiswas a family pulling together.
“He showed up every day for 12 hours at a time,” said Todd, as the project also became an opportunity to reconnect with his dad.
But stress and worry over Debbie’s recovery still took a toll on the household; Todd and his stepfather had uncharacteristic dust-ups.
“Itwas a pretty difficult time for us,” Todd said.
Back in New York, Todd wanted to do something special for his stepdad.
For Middleton, one of the 8 percent of men who are colorblind, the hues most people see appear washed out: redl ooks brown, pink is grayish and purple more like blue. While Todd was in Kissimmee, they had talked briefly about the EnChroma glasses that help some people see more vibrant colors.
Todd reached out to the company with the story of the year his family had endured and asked if EnChroma could help; the company “happily obliged” by providing a pair of the glasses, a spokesman said.
“I thought it would be a sweet thing to do at Christmas,” Todd said.
Shortly before the holiday, with Todd participating from New York on Zoom, Middleton received his surprise gift— andthe glasses have had an effect.
“He definitely sees a difference, and he’s really excited,” said Todd, adding the family quizzes him on colors that he usually couldn’t distinguish “and he’s getting them right.”
As Debbie continues to recover — she has progressed from a wheelchair to a cane — life is slowly returning to normal.
Work is picking up for Todd, whose other credits include a New York production of the musical “Heathers” anda recurring role on TV’s “Jane the Virgin.” Auditions are returning, and he is attached to amovie scheduled to begin filming in the spring. But appreciation for work is now balanced with something more personal.
“I just didn’t really grasp the magnitude of how my relationships with people would change,” he says.
He returns to the idea of gratitude — for his mother’s life, for his stepfather’s care, for his dad’s helping hand, for the realization that relationships are just askey to happiness aswork.
“It was a really good lesson to learn,” he says.