After graduating from OU in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree in acting, Travis McElroy worked at a Best Buy for two and a half years.
Today, McElroy co-hosts “My Brother, My Brother and Me,” with his brothers, which has published over 600 episodes, a TV miniseries and “The Adventure Zone,” a role-playing podcast that has an ongoing series of graphic novel adaptations. McElroy also co-hosts “Shmanners” with his wife and regularly streams on Twitch.
McElroy first moved to OU after the university contacted him when he was awarded the National Merit Scholarship. He heard of OU’s theater program and decided to trek the near 1000 miles to Oklahoma from Huntington, West Virginia, to start his college career.
Living so far away from his mom, dad and two brothers caused him some homesickness, he told OU Daily, but he viewed it as an opportunity to learn how to be independent and learn more about himself separate from his family.
The university’s size didn’t overwhelm him, either, McElroy said, because he spent most of his time in the Helmerich School of Drama. McElroy even recently dreamed he was running late for class, racing through the rain from the Towers to the Helmerich School of Drama, almost two decades after he graduated.
Still, the move wasn’t entirely smooth. When he arrived at OU, he worried he wasn’t as experienced with acting as most of his peers. Though he grew up acting in school performances and in community theater and always knew he would go into performance, he was still nervous.
“That transition from high school to college can really make you feel like, ‘I’m the only one struggling with this and everyone else is doing great,’” McElroy said. “That also happens going into adulthood. … Of course, that’s not true. Nobody knows what they’re doing.”
As he went through college, he grew more confident and developed friendships he continues to value. While he said he learned a lot about theater, he spent most of his time in college socializing, especially as he learned more about what kind of friend he wanted to be.
“It started me toward understanding who I am in relation to other people,” McElroy said.
He and his friends spent a lot of time attending karaoke nights at bars around campus, eating cheese fries and drinking Swirls at The Mont and listening to burned CDs while driving late at night between Norman and Oklahoma City.
“Very little of what I did was studying, if I’m being honest, because I am not a good student,” McElroy said.
A lot of McElroy’s socializing actually happened after rehearsals and shows he participated in through OU’s theater program. McElroy said his favorite show he did during his time at OU was Texarkana Waltz by Louis Broome, a play following three different but interconnected storylines set in Oklahoma.
Prior to McElroy’s senior year at OU, his mother passed away. When he returned to Norman, he said he felt aimless and drifted for a while.
“For anyone below a certain age, to lose someone so close to them, and then it’s like, ‘But you can keep being a person, right?’ and it’s like ‘What? No! What are you talking about?’” McElroy said.
McElroy said he found solace in some of his professors.
“I had a couple of teachers that, if it hadn’t been for them, I probably would have dropped out,” McElroy said. “They made the point of like, ‘Your mom wouldn’t want that.’ So I finished and graduated.”
Still, McElroy admitted he did check out a bit during his senior year. He learned early in his college career there was a pattern with three-day classes. He said most of his classes would include learning new material every Monday, reviewing the material every Wednesday and testing on it every Friday. He started skipping a lot of Wednesday classes.
“This is not a good idea,” McElroy said. “I never lost my scholarship. I did great, but don’t do it. Be better than me.”
By his senior year, McElroy realized acting wasn’t his biggest passion. He knew he wanted to stay in the performing arts, but he didn’t have a set plan for what to do after he graduated. When May rolled around and he accepted his degree, he found himself back in his hometown of Huntington, West Virginia, working at a Best Buy.
A while into his retail gig, McElroy connected with a friend working with the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company. He loved the work the company did and decided he wanted to try getting a job with them.
His younger brother, Griffin McElroy, had recently graduated college and decided to move with him. Their older brother, Justin McElroy, suggested they start a podcast to have an excuse to chat once a week. In April 2010, their podcast “My Brother, My Brother and Me” was born.
That same year, McElroy accepted a job with the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company and met the woman who would later be his wife, Teresa. He worked in a few different positions at his new job before eventually landing the role of technical director, which he stayed in for five years.
“It took about two years before I was good at it,” McElroy said.
As McElroy worked in the field he studied for, he realized a lot of the seemingly small moments in college were what helped him the most. He once had to take a scenic design class, and in his first year at the company, he had to design six sets by hand based mainly on that one class.
In his final year of college, a casting director came to one of his classes to talk about what they look for in potential staff. The casting director told them that when hiring people, they look for someone that is fun to be around and that they can get along with. McElroy said his personality would eventually become one of his greatest strengths.
As he worked at the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, McElroy’s podcast with his brothers became increasingly popular. Eventually, he was able to start doing podcasts full time. McElroy said his love for performing was able to shine through in his new career.
When McElroy graduated, he said he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. The three years following college felt aimless. He struggled with the fact he didn’t have a plan like so many of his peers.
“I wish I spent less time worrying about the fact I didn’t have a plan like other people did or I wasn’t doing it the way other people did and instead focusing on doing it the way that worked for me,” McElroy said.
As he got more into podcasting, though, he realized the flexibility the internet offered allowed for more potential careers he had never considered before, from playing video games for a living to publishing a podcast just chatting with your brothers.
“It used to be so much narrower of how to get where you want to be,” McElroy said. “Now, the passion can be putting your full energy into the thing that makes you happy.”
He said the years following college were vital to making him who he is today in ways that he never realized at the time.
“Sometimes when you’re in the middle of it, time can feel like a waste,” McElroy said. “But you don’t know the things that you are learning, you don’t know the improvements that are happening to you. As long as you are looking for something, and spending time with people you love and doing your best to grow as a person, time isn’t wasted.”
This story was edited by Teegan Smith. Nikkie Aisha copy edited this story.
