Entertaiment Diet: Troy Heard

The town’s so nice, he moved here twice.

That’s director-producer Troy Heard’s (double) take on Las Vegas.

Now firmly ensconced in Las Vegas’ theater scene as producing director at the Onyx Theatre, Heard first called Las Vegas home between 2005 and 2007, after graduate school.

He was en route to do an internship in Los Angeles — and his truck broke down. So he stuck around and established his Table 8 Productions.

Heard returned to his native Georgia to run a nonprofit, but the recession hit, convincing him it was “no time to run a nonprofit.”

So, in December 2009, he returned to Las Vegas for good.

“Vegas is a city full of potential — it grows and grows and grows,” Heard says. But “it’s like the Wild West. You have to creature your own opportunity.”

Which is exactly what Heard has done — while running the Onyx, continuing to oversee Table 8 and working as a freelance writer-director.

In between all those professional obligations, however, Heard has managed to acquire a taste for Las Vegas life. Here are some favorite ingredients in his Entertainment Diet:

THEATER

“Super Summer Theatre (at Spring Mountain Ranch State Park). The experience of being out there on the lawn is unmatched. You bring your bottle of wine and you bring your blanket. The show’s just the dessert, the cherry on top. … And The Smith Center, hands down. It’s the crown jewel in Las Vegas. Having Broadway in the Hood as a resident company brings more diversity in what they’re offering. We can all come in and share.”

DINING

“I love sushi. I looooove sushi: Goyemon Sushi House (5255 S. Decatur Blvd.) and Soho SushiBurrito (2600 W. Sahara Ave.). At Soho, you can’t go wrong with the firecracker (roll). The attraction to Goyemon is that it’s all you can eat. And they have fresh, real wasabi. … With sushi, it’s a great social food. It’s like tapas; you share your plate. Also, you can eat a lot and not feel incredibly guilty, because — hey, it’s fish; hey, it’s rice; hey, it’s vegetables. You can pass it off as health food. It’s healthy food.”

TELEVISION

“I watch very little TV, since rehearsals are at night. But we’re (he and wife Kady) Food Network junkies. ‘Cake Wars,’ all those cake battle shows. I used to watch ‘The Walking Dead’ religiously. I just got into ‘Sons of Anarchy’ — I’m a few years behind the band. I like ‘Broad City’ (Comedy Central). And ‘Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’ (on Netflix). I love it. The writing’s so great. I knew there would be a backlash, during the reality boom, that the next thing would be really strong TV writing. It’s a shorter form than feature film. So many working playwrights are doing TV these days.”

BOOKS

“Tons of scripts. If I’m not reading a book with a mind toward adaptation, a lot of nonfiction. A lot of biographies, usually of creative people so I know I’m not totally insane. … And ‘A Confederacy of Dunces’ (by John Kennedy Toole) — for the fifth time.”

MOVIES

“The last two movies I saw were ‘The Peanuts Movie’ — that was brilliant. So nostalgic and pure, so not pop culture-referential. And ‘Spotlight’ was fantastic. ‘Inside Out’ I thought was brilliant. (Wife) Kady’s into Disney — she’s a veritable Disney princess. Every so often, there’s really great writing in animation.”

HANGOUTS

“We theater people tend to hang out in bars. The Velveteen Rabbit and the Golden Tiki. And we love to go to Mount Charleston. That’s our go-to — you’re not in Vegas anymore. We love it in winter. She climbs — I try to.”

Read more from Carol Cling at reviewjournal.com. Contact her at ccling@reviewjournal.com.