Ye Dyke’s first audition felt like a botched tryout reel from America’s Got Talent. His cheeks still burn remembering the cringe moment, midway through his vocal interpretation of “Something’s Coming,” when the director had interrupted: “Thank you. We’ll let you know.”
“It was just bad,” the 19-year-old theatre major recalls. “I started early; the pianist started late. He tried to follow me, and I sped up.”
Next came the movement audition. The casting call was for Something Rotten!—a musical comedy set in Shakespeare’s merry olde England. With no dance training whatsoever, Ye tried his best.
That was a year ago. Ye had never before stood on a stage or even been inside a theatre. Never sung with a piano accompanist. Didn’t know what a Broadway musical was. In his homeland of Burma (Myanmar), acting isn’t a viable occupation.
And yet, Ye (“it’s pronounced Yé, like Kanye”) dreamed of becoming a movie star. So in his first semester at Santa Monica College, he bravely jumped into the unknown, trying out for Something Rotten! just for the real-world audition experience. He hadn’t expected a callback, let alone a minor role as Peter Quince in the ensemble.
“There were 80 people who auditioned, and only 30 people got cast,” he says, beaming with pride.
Some of Ye’s success can be attributed to a big, open personality. He exudes confidence and infectious energy.
Perhaps Ye’s dramatic monologue tipped the scale in his favor: he’d chosen a Timothée Chalamet speech from the 2016 movie, Miss Stevens, and it went smoothly.
No surprise there. Ye has been performing movie monologues in the mirror since early childhood, when he first dressed up as Spider-Man and mimicked the cadences of his favorite superhero.
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Growing up in Yangon, Ye’s first passion had been soccer, but in Burma the sport’s golden age (opens in new window) had waned in the 1970s. Chasing a career as a professional “footballer” seemed “way too risky.”
Acting wasn’t much safer, “but that’s a risk I wanted to take,” Ye says.
His parents backed his choice. Both are intellectuals: his mom is a marine biologist by training; his dad is a journalism scholar and prolific screenwriter who is so supportive of Ye’s acting ambition that he penned two screenplays with roles written for him. (Neither passed muster with regime censors. Under Burma’s repressive military junta, theater is banned and movies can only be made with government permission.)
Ye’s parents shielded their only child from state-controlled propaganda. “They wouldn’t let me consume any Burmese media,” he recalls. Instead, Ye watched American movies on DVDs that his father brought back from business trips in China.
“We had stacks of them,” he recalls.
Cable arrived in 2014, and “that’s when I started watching Cartoon Network,” Ye says. From Tom and Jerry, he graduated to Ben 10, Regular Show and The Amazing World of Gumball. In 2017, Ye discovered the internet.
He attributes his fluency in English to a steady diet of American pop culture.
Ye’s father is a prominent political dissident, but Ye himself is apolitical. “My dad doesn’t want me to be involved, because he knows how dangerous it is. My whole family from my father’s side were political figures. My great uncle helped write Burma’s first constitution,” he says.
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Ye has appeared in two other SMC shows since his theatrical debut in Something Rotten! Last summer, he landed a lead role as Charlie Brown in the musical, Snoopy! (opens in new window) In the fall, he had two smaller roles in the production of Tony Kushner’s towering Angels in America: Millenium Approaches (opens in new window) .
He’s constantly practicing for future auditions. Asked what he does in his free time, Ye replies: “monologues, more monologues, songs, more songs.”
There have been disappointments, of course. He didn’t get callbacks for the fall 2024 production of Pirandello’s classic, Six Characters in Search of a Playwright (opens in new window) , or the spring 2025 musical Grease. Unperturbed, Ye says he’s excited for the next round of auditions. In late February, he’ll try out for the SMC production of Dara, playwright Shahid Nadeem’s epic set in 17th century Mughal India.
And he’ll be singing again in the spring, when he takes the Musical Theater Workshop course with Terrin Adair-Lynch—the same director who had cut off his audition song for Something Rotten! and then cast him anyway.
Ye has finished most of his major classes and is now working on his GEs, aiming to graduate in December. His top choice for transfer is UC Berkeley, his father’s alma mater, with UCLA in the number-two spot.
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When he isn’t practicing lines, Ye can usually be found in the International Education Center, where he is a peer mentor, tour guide and Unibuddy. He also plays recreational soccer, having started a Sunday league with a few friends, and amuses himself online with the PlayStation FIFA (opens in new window) videogame simulator.
But Ye’s favorites role-playing games are Marvel’s Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 (opens in new window) .
“My first-ever DVD was Spider-Man,” he explains, and cartoon superheroes remain close to his heart. “If I could win an Oscar playing Spider-Man or Robin, that would be my perfect life.”
The wallpaper on Ye’s laptop is a picture of the golden statuette.
“It sounds corny, but that’s the dream: I want the world to know my name,” he says. After finishing his bachelor’s degree in theatre, Ye plans to audition aggressively, land gigs in high-profile movies, and eventually win an Oscar.
“My mom and dad coming to see me at the Academy Awards—that would be so awesome!” he says, grinning.
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SMC in Focus Volume XI, Issue 2
Esports Advantage
SMC’s pioneering Esports Program instills the skills needed to become industry players in this burgeoning digital media arena. Read Article
AI for Educators
A new SMC course prepares educators from all disciplines to train their students in using artificial intelligence appropriately, effectively — and ethically. Read Article
Haute-to-Go at SMC
Produced annually by SMC’s Photography & Fashion Department, the LA Mode Fashion Show of today is practically a de rigeur rite of passage for aspiring designers at the College. Read Article
When Trauma Makes You Better
For 25 years Dorothy Chin has peeled back the layers of the human psyche to curious Corsairs. Since the pandemic, she’s discovered a new layer in her own mind—and it’s a gamechanger. Read Article
Bragging Rights
The SMC Foundation organizes a multi-day distribution drive for those affected by the LA fires. A journalism instructor elected regional director for National Association of Black Journalists. Read Article
Spider-Man, the Musical?
Ye Dyke’s first audition felt like a botched tryout reel from America’s Got Talent. But this student from Myanmar—who’d never been inside a theatre—wouldn’t let a first setback get in the way. Read Article