Tom Levitt

Tom Levitt (played by Christian Borle) has been one of the most colorful presences on Broadway in the last decade. One half of the popular Houston-Levitt team, Levitt lives on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Tom is first seen in Pilot after returning to New York after he and Julia return after the West End opening of Heaven on Earth. He is very proud that he has a new assistant, and he and Julia have a mock fight over whether Ellis is gay. After catching him reading a Marilyn Monroe autobiography, they begin to talk about how she would make a great musical. he visits his friends at Heaven on Earth and runs into Dennis. He catches Ivy as she comes off stage and in her dressing room after she is turned down for an audition. He asks her to come and record a song for them. After Ellis records the song and it is posted online, Tom fires him. After the reviews for the song are great, Ellis confronts him and asks for Tom to take him back. He does and shares his ideas, playing the 'baseball' number. Tom and Julia are confronted by Eileen who wants to produce the musical. She also suggests that they have Derek direct it, much to Tom's disgust. When they begin to audition for the musical, he asks Ivy to audition, thinking that they should just give her the part. Levitt is an American composer and director for theatre, best known for his collaborations with playwright and lyricist Julia Houston. He wrote the music for Bombshell and Heaven on Earth, winning a Tony Award with Houston for their Bombshell score. Levitt got his first big break when Kristin Chenoweth performed a song of his on the Rosie O'Donnell Show. Tom is seen as being tired most of the time, usually snapping at or being unintentionally rude to people he may work with. With his friends, he has an excellent sense of humor, and it’s actually very awkward when he doesn’t have the upper hand in social situations. He gets extremely nervous around men, describing himself as a “hopeless romantic” who frequently gets crushes on most men he meets. He knows when to and not to joke around with certain people, being very smart when it comes to helping people out.

Tom is very upfront about his feelings, whether it involves his latest crush, his preference for Ivy over Karen, or his impression of his current musical partnership. He finds it hard to separate his strong opinions from the task at hand, and also has trouble correcting others and keeping them in line when he is in charge of Bombshell. He finds it easy to encourage and affirm others, and to open up about his struggles with them in an attempt to relate. Tom worries about what others will think about him, and is emboldened and elated when others think well of him or praise his work. He is more open to “changing, adapting, and altering” his work than Julia, because he is all about compromising to keep the peace. He has a fascination for “old things,” and memories that tie him to the past; his own experiences with people and his interactions with them all influence his decisions in the present (and often give him a “bias”). Tom is attentive to the details of the musical score and the plot of their musicals, and doesn’t mind handling the more mundane aspects of being a composer or director. He invites everyone to throw their ideas into the mix, and considers all of them with open-minded interest. He brings a lot creatively to the table when discussing ideas, but is rarely tied down to just one way of doing something. Limitations or being unable to change things do not appeal to him. Though he is a good judge of character, able to pinpoint flaws in others and tell them in gentle but firm terms what hypocrites they can be, Tom finds it harder to do that to himself. He impulsively leaps in to “people please,” and then second-guesses himself later, when he has to step back from his emotions and realize that was the wrong decision.