Tisch Drama Senior Appears on NBC’s 'Rise'

While many think the “jump” from musical theatre to film and TV is a broad one, Tisch Drama senior Nacho Tambuting would wage otherwise, having landed a role in NBC’s new high school drama series Rise.

Tambuting said his primary training at the New Studio on Broadway (NSB) did an excellent job in preparing him to perform across multiple genres and fields. He is now completing advanced training at Stonestreet Studios.

“As actors, we’re constant­ly evolving our process based on what we’re working on,” he said. “You have to be able to adapt. In theatre, you rehearse and rehearse and then you put on a show, and each performance is a separate performance in itself. Whereas on TV, you don’t rehearse as much—you just come in and do the scene.”

Tambuting said he was stunned to get the role, but also relieved at how prepared he felt in the professional environment.

“NSB was really tough,” he said, now in his final semester. “To be honest, I’d say the expectations of NSB actually exceeded what was expected from us in the professional world on this show—not that the standards weren’t as high—but I felt that because I had been given this experience at NSB, all the work and effort we had to put in, it sort of made the professional life a little bit easier.”

Tambuting wasn’t expecting to join that life so soon. The 22-year-old tenor was gearing up for his last year at NYU when he got an email inviting him to audition for the series. 

“It all happened very fast,” he said. “I went to maybe four or five open calls throughout my time at NYU and developed a relationship with casting directors.” And thanks to making a good impression, one emailed him directly.

An international student—he hails from the Philippines—Tambuting wasn’t in the country when he got the invitation to audition. So he asked if he could send in a self-tape, which he recorded on an iPhone in his bathroom. A few days later, he learned he had advanced to the next round and before long read the words:

We’ve been given permission to hire you for ‘Rise.’

“It was Sept. 9,” he recalls. “I was just in shock. I remember thinking ‘this is going to be taken from me,’ that I’d get there and they’d be like, ‘Oh, this isn’t the person we wanted.’”

But they did want him.

Tambuting was cast as “Francis Russo” on the show, a recurring role that appears in nine out of 10 episodes. He said it took about two or three weeks into the shooting process for him to realize “this is real, this is happening.”

Tambuting took a semester off to do the show, which shot around New York, primarily at a high school in Queens and a soundstage set in Brooklyn. Given that the story centers around a high school musical theatre department, Tambuting was able to show off his singing and dancing skills.

“A lot of the scenes are of us in rehearsal, doing a bunch of numbers or working through issues that have come up”—kind of like in primary training. “One of the things that NSB taught me was that it’s not about you, it’s about the show, it’s about the work that you put in,” he said, “that’s the most important thing.”

Tambuting credits his professors—special thanks to Michael McElroy and Kent Gash—for all that they taught him.

“I learned a lot from Michael McElroy,” he noted, “he was awesome in ‘Vocal Performance.’ He really helped me to ‘act the song’ as opposed to just singing it.”

Tambuting said it still dawns on him when he sees the New York buses go by, giant banners of Rise splashed across the side, or when he opens a Playbill to a full-page ad with the cast.

When asked if there’s any advice he would give to his “younger self,” he paused to think.

“I’d tell myself, ‘Don’t worry so much.’ A lot of times, as a freshman, a sophomore, I doubted myself. There are going to be enough people out there who are going to doubt you—you have to be your No. 1 supporter and trust that there's something about you that is unique and will be attractive to others, that will set you apart from everyone else,” he said. “Everyone that comes here is so talented, it can be a little bit overwhelming at times, but that’s part of the journey. Trust, and allow yourself to feel that.”

See Tambuting on Rise Tuesdays at 9/8c on NBC.