This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:06] Gordon Cox: Welcome to Stagecraft, Variety's theater podcast, bringing you backstage and behind the scenes with stars, creators, and industry leaders on Broadway and beyond.

[0:16] Gordon Cox: I'm Gordon Cox.

[0:18] Gordon Cox: On this episode of Stagecraft, I'm talking to the actor Anthony Rapp.

[0:22] Gordon Cox: Broadway fans know him best as one of the original stars of Rent, and he's also appeared in shows including If Then, You're a Good Man Charlie Brown, and Six Degrees of Separation.

[0:32] Gordon Cox: He's been in films like Dazed and Confused and Adventures in Babysitting.

[0:35] Gordon Cox: And in 2017, he stepped into a major sci-fi franchise as one of ‘Star Trek’'s first openly gay characters on the ongoing series Star Trek Discovery on Paramount Plus.

[0:46] Gordon Cox: Now, Rapp has returned to the New York stage, starring off Broadway in his solo show Without You.

[0:52] Gordon Cox: It's based on his 2006 memoir about his experiences in the original cast of Rent, coinciding with first the death of composer Jonathan Larson, and then the death of Rapp's own mother.

[1:04] Gordon Cox: Now the actor is in the virtual studio with me to tell us about the unexpected joys of reliving loss, his advocacy for making the entertainment industry safer, and the Shakespearean role he's really itching to play.

[1:31] Anthony Rapp: Uh right now. How is it going this time around?

[1:35] Anthony Rapp: Um, it's going very well. It's been a long time desire slash dream of mine to get to do New York. It's you know the epicenter of where everything happened in my life and where Rent happened.

[1:46] Anthony Rapp: Um, so to be blocks away from the Nederlander was it's very, very special and you know, an opening night for my friends from the show to be able to come and be there was really kind of uh out of body at moments from myself in ways that I didn't even anticipate.

[2:06] Anthony Rapp: Um and and to have the response the way it's been, I mean, yeah, I have done the show over the years, but we've done a lot of work on it, especially recently, to kind of um you know try to refine it and make it the strongest it's ever been, I think.

[2:20] Anthony Rapp: And and the response is reflecting that. So it's just uh if it feels like a nice full circle moment.

[2:26] Anthony Rapp: And you know, there's stuff that is said in the show by Cy O'Neil, my friend who um, you know, has been a friend and mentor to me over the many years, and she was an enormous source of support during the um time when my mom was dying and after she passed away.

[2:43] Anthony Rapp: And um, but she talks about you know, everything happens the way that it can only happen the way that it's supposed to happen, you know.

[2:51] Anthony Rapp: And um I know that that might seem like maybe I don't know, obvious to some people, but if you really think about it so often we're like, oh, this shouldn't happen, or we things should happen sooner or faster.

[3:03] Anthony Rapp: And sometimes things have they they can only happen the way that they happen. Um, and it took the time it took, and uh, it's it's turned out to be kind of like the perfect and what's it like for you to revisit that time in your life.

[3:16] Anthony Rapp: Um, it's very uh rejuvenating in a lot of ways. I also feel that more time has passed now that I'm doing now that now that I'm doing it since more time has passed, I feel like the distance is in some ways pulling it closer to me.

[3:31] Anthony Rapp: I don't know if that seems like um counterintuitive, but it's because it's farther away, I can in some ways dive in that much deeper into it in the moment.

[3:44] Anthony Rapp: And you know, a memoir, it is from memory. So, you know, I wasn't, I'm not a documentary filmmaker, I'm not a reporter. I'm I I set out to share my experience to the best of my recollection.

[3:57] Anthony Rapp: And now, with all this time passing, it's like the echoes of it are in some way stronger than ever, if that makes any sense. So yeah, I feel very grateful for the chance to spend time in that incredibly exciting, also very sad, very alive time of my life.

[4:17] Gordon Cox: And what prompted the return now to the show?

[4:22] Anthony Rapp: Well, really, I mean, so part of what had happened is uh a number of years ago, we were trying to get a New York production going, and simultaneously, If Then was a project that I'd been working on in workshops, and that materialized.

[4:36] Anthony Rapp: So then we had to kind of put Without You on the back burner because I was very committed to doing If Then. And then right after If Then ended, I got cast in Star Trek Discovery, which was another life-changing experience.

[4:47] Anthony Rapp: And the nature of streaming schedules is such that we you don't necessarily know from year to year when you're going back to work. And so the idea of trying to get something off the ground with this big mystery until we got them into now that we've had a few seasons under our belt, they have a much better idea of how much time between seasons.

[5:07] Anthony Rapp: So my um friend Chris Henry, who's a producer and director friend of mine who had helped me do the show at the New York Musical Theater Festival years ago, she reached out and she's like, Do you think you have another window available between seasons? And I was like, Yeah.

[5:22] Anthony Rapp: And then she's now worked, she brought in her producing partner, Lisa Dozier, and then they started putting the word out, and it just worked out that the timing just yeah, that the theater was available. I was between seasons, and you know, just sort of like kind of perfectly lined up.

[5:37] Gordon Cox: Yeah, yeah. I wonder if you could wind it back a little bit and tell us first about the impulse to write the memoir that you mentioned, the memoir that the show is based on. What uh what prompted that?

[5:48] Anthony Rapp: So um there's a gentleman named Rob Weisbach who had his own imprint at William Morrow a number of years ago, and he worked on the I don't know if you're familiar with there's this beautiful Rent coffee table book. That's that's what we refer to, the sort of people call it like the Red Bible.

[6:04] Anthony Rapp: Um, and he was working on that book, and so all of us in the original cast were very involved in that process. We were interviewed for it. I shared photos for it.

[6:10] Anthony Rapp: Um, and he and I became friendly during that process, and then he one of the things he used to do as a publisher was sort of like talk to people he thought might have a book in them. He'd be like, What do you think? Do you think you have a book in you?

[6:21] Anthony Rapp: And I had been, you know, I'd written since I was a little kid, but I didn't really have a book per se in mind or anything like that. But as we started talking, he had lost his father in his 20s.

[6:33] Anthony Rapp: And my mom, when we first started talking, she had like she was very near the end of her life. I can't remember the exact timing, it was like right around the time she died.

[6:42] Anthony Rapp: And he said, you know, in this mayor, I don't know if this is still the case, but at the time there was almost nothing out there that was for really by and for young people dealing with that kind of loss.

[6:55] Anthony Rapp: There was certainly stuff, you know, for people in their middle age, right? You know, talking about grief, but he thought it would be kind of a meaningful subject to explore, and I agreed with him, and I just started like kind of I wasn't sure exactly how I was gonna approach it, and then I started like writing some things and sharing them with him.

[7:15] Anthony Rapp: He's like, Yeah, I want you to try thinking of it this way or that way, and then it was a kind of a breakthrough moment, and where I finally I like wrote a couple chapters with that with and found a voice and found a way to approach it that he was like, Yes, this is the way, and then made an outline and um put it together, and it took a very long time to write.

[7:35] Anthony Rapp: I it took far too long in the sense of like I kept bumping up against the pain of reliving it to write about it, and and that was proc the proximity was very very close to the time that it had happened.

[7:50] Anthony Rapp: Um, I think sometimes maybe memoir could be if you take a little more time away from something, maybe it could be a little easier in that sense. Uh so it took a number of years to finish, and then I finally finished, and um, yeah, and then the thankfully the publisher still wanted it, even though it was like so late, right?

[8:08] Anthony Rapp: Yeah, well, actually, it wound up being in it, it wound up at Simon and Schuster over the course of like there was a lot of ups and downs with the process of because I took so damn long, right?

[8:16] Gordon Cox: Right. And so, at what point did you decide I want to make a show of this and do the show?

[8:23] Anthony Rapp: Um, that was also kind of like at the invitation or suggestion of someone that I wasn't even particularly that close with. It was a presenter that I was working with on a concert.

[8:33] Anthony Rapp: We had a long drive out to Fire Island to the Ferry to Fire Island, and on the way, he's like, Have you thought about adapting your memoir into a show? And not for him to pursue produce or present, but just like just talking.

[8:46] Anthony Rapp: And I was like, No. Um, but then I started to think about it, and I thought maybe maybe there was something possible. There's so much in the book, there's so many lyrics that are quoted that you know, music is so much a part of the way I approach trying to tell the story.

[9:03] Anthony Rapp: And so I thought that that could be a way to try to do it on stage. Um, and I'd done Hedwig in the Angry Inch, and I'm not saying my show is like Hedwig in many respects, except that it's a person telling their story on stage through monologues and songs, and then also sometimes playing other characters a little bit.

[9:24] Anthony Rapp: Um so that was kind of helpful in imagining what it could be like. Um then my friend Steve Mailer, who's been my director for all these years, we had worked together in 2002 on a production of Henry Five in Boston, where he has his theater company, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, and we'd been looking for a project to do together, and we weren't, you know, just weren't hadn't come up with anything particularly like yes, this is the one.

[9:50] Anthony Rapp: And so when I I thought about asking him also because he doesn't he didn't have that much history with Rent, he didn't really know it that well, so I thought it would be really good for someone with that kind of real objectivity and lack of attachment to that material to have eyes and ears open for what would work and what wouldn't work.

[10:10] Anthony Rapp: Um, and so we just he he helped me kind of like find a path of taking the book, which is 300 pages and carving it into a you know a 90 minute show. It's a totally different beast in so many ways.

[10:23] Anthony Rapp: So that first step that he took to kind of like pare it down into the like the strands of the narrative was enormously helpful, and then we started writing, I started writing some new songs for it.

[10:35] Gordon Cox: When did that impulse come and why?

[10:39] Anthony Rapp: That that came around the same time? This was all like late 2015, or I'm sorry, 2007, 15 years ago, 2007.

[10:47] Anthony Rapp: Um yeah, I mean, I thought, like, well, if there, you know, I knew that there would be Rent music that would be a part of it. I thought Losing My Religion would be a part of it because that was the song I sang for my initial audition.

[10:58] Anthony Rapp: But I also thought, well, you know, for this for the story related stuff about my mom, I think it should be music that comes from me. I had already written a song with a friend about going home to see her while while I was working called Visits to You.

[11:13] Anthony Rapp: And that had been on my debut album, you know, this really small independent record that I'd done. And so I thought that song could that made a lot of sense. And then I then I started thinking about, well, maybe there are other ways that new music could help tell her story.

[11:27] Anthony Rapp: Um so we we put together a reading with that new material and we put it in front of people, really not knowing if it was even gonna work at all. And everyone that who came said yes, keep going, you know, and people that I trusted and knew would say, you know what, it's better as a book. Um so we had we had that kind of encourag, you know, that current encouraging um wind behind our backs from the from the get-go.

[11:55] Anthony Rapp: And what does performing it give you that the process of writing it as a book does not? Well, I get to—I didn't anticipate this, I didn't know what it would be like. But I really—I'm spending time with my mom. I'm spending time with Jonathan. I'm spending time hearing their words that have always given me a sense of strength or love, a sense of love, support. Like even when it's not necessarily the words that say those things, just being in there and being in relationship with them, it just feels activated and present in a way that I don't necessarily get to feel on a daily basis. So that was a benefit that I never anticipated that I absolutely feel.

[12:44] Gordon Cox: Yeah, yeah. And you talked a little bit about Hedwig and playing multiple roles; you play multiple roles in the show. How did you think about kind of—because they're varying strategies of how it's just you? You're up there with a band, but it's just you. How did you think about how you were gonna do that? And then finding people's voices as they show up in the story.

[13:05] Anthony Rapp: Well, another show that I saw, I've seen a number of one-person shows over the years, and people do approach playing different characters in widely different ways. Lisa Crohn, a wonderful actress, had a show that I loved called 2.5 Minute Ride. And there was a way that I felt she approached playing her father that it was like something in her shifted physically and something in her shifted vocally, but she wasn't like putting on a full mask. It was like letting him out through her, which is distinct from like when Anna Deavere Smith does her one-woman shows, she really goes full on and does a huge change character-wise. So it was like I felt like it made more sense to lean in the Lisa Crohn direction for this piece than in the Anna Deavere Smith direction for this piece.

You know, each piece sort of requires—because it's my story that I'm telling. It was her story she was telling; it was a very personal relationship she had with her father. So it was like his voice came through her. And so that was the way that I talked to Steve about it. And then he agreed. And then we just started playing. And so, you know, subtle, I guess there's—you could call it subtle ways of like when I'm embodying Jonathan. I'm not trying to imitate him. I'm trying to—I feel like some of his rhythms or what I feel like his cadence was sort of as much as anything when I'm, you know, and a little bit of physicality, just sort of his rhythm, his inner vibe, I guess, is what I try to embody rather than like full on doing like an Inspector Clouseau, like, you know, putting on a mustache.

[14:49] Gordon Cox: Yeah, kind of. You're not trying to do the full Daphne Rubin-Vega voice, right?

[14:53] Anthony Rapp: For instance. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. And you know, I guess people could make an argument either way, but that was just the way that we—that made sense when we were trying to put it together. Were, as you were creating this from your memories, were there voices that were particularly difficult to find?

[15:14] Anthony Rapp: I wouldn't say difficult, but like differentiating, for instance, I mean, she's only in it for a very small conversation, but it's a very important conversation. But my Aunt Roberta, you know, I wouldn't say that she has like a particularly kind of distinctive accent or distinctive voice. So just trying to find a way to embody her, and again, her energy, I guess is what I really tried to do. To me, my mom had a very strong Midwestern accent, so—and a kind of cadence that was, I mean, her voice was so present in my memory. That was not a reach at all. But you know, something like that was a little more—a little more of a just trying to make feel like it feels distinctive, I guess, in that moment.

[15:56] Gordon Cox: And who's coming to the show these days? Who do you find are coming? Are they Rent heads? Are they ‘Star Trek’ fans? Are they a mixture? What's the makeup?

[16:04] Anthony Rapp: I would imagine a good number of them are Rent fans mostly. There is a bit of a—in my experience at like conventions, there's a bit of a crossover, quite seemingly significant crossover of people who are fans of both, which makes a lot of sense to me because they're both pieces that speak to hope. They're both pieces that are about community. They're both, you know, they're these, you know, they're idealistic, they're anti-cynical, you know. They're not, you know, they can be—they're dark; there are dark moments in them, but they're, you know, really, I think the fandoms are drawn to them because they have so much life and light in them and hope and sense of what's possible. So I think there's a—you know, sometimes when it—at like a convention table, I have like my ‘Star Trek’ pictures and my Rent pictures, and there's people who literally go like, "Which one do I want?

Which one do I, you know?" And then some people are like very clear which one they want. So if that's any indication, there's a little bit of both. But I use—I don't—I honestly don't know exactly who's in the audience yet. I'm also not getting to do the kind of post-show interaction that I normally would because of our son. I'm coming home very soon after this.

[17:15] Gordon Cox: Congratulations! You had a baby recently, you and your husband, partner, husband.

[17:17] Anthony Rapp: Thank you. Yeah, yeah, thank you. And so I'm—you know, I want to come home and be, you know, do my dad duty. Ordinarily, and you know, historically, I say after, especially with this show, you know, people often would share when I've done it elsewhere, people would share their experiences of loss with me, and it's very meaningful. But um, so it's a little bit unusual for me not to get a better sense of like who's out there, if that makes any sense.

[17:46] Gordon Cox: Right. What do you feel like this time around people are really responding to? Like how is it landing? How is the story landing in 2022 differently than it did the last time you did it?

[17:57] Anthony Rapp: I mean, I think in general, the conversations that we've had collectively as a society and world about grief and loss, I think is a little more—it's a little less—not that it was taboo before, but I think people are a little more afraid of it or wanted to kind of look the other way. And I think with COVID and, you know, living through a pandemic, I think that people are just a little more willing—not from—I think there was a time when there was too much fatigue from it, but now there's space around it is enough that I think people are willing, ready and open to engaging with it in a way that maybe they wouldn't have before. Um, yeah, the idea of celebrating and talking about loss, celebrating the people you've lost and talking about losing them, I think is—it's just a little more—people are maybe a little more ready to do that.

Um, I think possibly because of the pandemic. Um, not to say that they weren't before, but yeah, I just—I get the sense it's just a little more—there's that much more openness and mental health in general is just a subject that people have been willing to have, you know, more open conversations with about. There's so many public figures who've been that much more willing to share their experiences, and then whenever you see that happen, I just see tons on—like if social media is any indication, the way that people then share and share and share that I don't think that happened before the pandemic as much.

[19:30] Gordon Cox: I'll have more with Anthony right after the break.

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[20:08] Gordon Cox: And now here's more with the actor Anthony Rapp. As we've mentioned, a few years back, you joined the ‘Star Trek’ franchise, and you mentioned earlier in our conversation that it was a life-changing experience, another life-changing experience. Tell us a little more about that. What has been really gratifying to you about that—your involvement in that story and your role in it?

[20:33] Anthony Rapp: Well, I mean, I've been a super nerd since I was a little kid, but I never truly—never imagined myself being—all the things that I was a nerd about, I always thought of myself as just a fan of. I wasn't—I truly never projected myself into them. I projected myself into like shows, maybe like theater pieces, but like if I—I love Star Wars, I love ‘Star Trek’, I love DC comics, you know, but I didn't—I didn't think I'm gonna be in that one day. So when it happened, it was just like to be a part of something that I revered was—that in alone was mind-boggling and life-changing. But then to be a part of a family, an international family of people who have loved—it's not just that they love this world of ‘Star Trek’; it shapes their lives, many of them.

They talk about this so openly, which is again a way that's similar to Rent, that they take these themes and ideas and characters into their hearts. And I've talked to so many people who became scientists because of it, became, you know, physicists, whatever, you know, got involved in engineering. It changed the way that they talked to their parents. They had the people at conventions share, like they had a friend who was suicidal. They sat with them and watched an episode of ‘Star Trek’, and they had a conversation, and that person got brought back from the brink. I mean, these are the kinds of things that people share. So to be a part of something that means so much to so many people after already having been a part of something that meant so much to so many, this—it just—it's just like a bonus round experience.

And then to combine that with an incredible group of people that I get to, you know, doing a TV show is not easy. It's a lot of hours, it's hard work to do—to get to do that alongside these incredible human beings, Sonequa Martin-Green and Wilson Cruz and Blu del Barrio and Mary Wiseman and Tig Notaro and Doug Jones, like these are exemplary human beings, all of them. And so it's just a pleasure to be at work, and the crew is fantastic. Like I've had friends who've been a part of TV shows where that is not the case, and that can be the opposite kind of experience can be so devastating. So again, I just feel like the bonus round that all the gods are smiling down on you. And you get to be one of the—in a show that is like famous for kind of these moments of landmark representation throughout the years; you get to be a landmark in that franchise as one of the first openly gay characters in the series. I imagine that's quite gratifying.

[22:55] Anthony Rapp: That's very gratifying, and um, yeah, I mean, it's—you know, like I did get to meet Nichelle Nichols; she was so lovely. And to, you know, I know I—in meeting her, I felt this beautiful sense like she absolutely appreciated and understood the iconic status that had been granted her, and she had enormous pride in it. And at the same time, she was a human being who was living her life and doing her best work, and she embraced every aspect of it. But the truth is, yeah, it's people—you have to just—you show up, you be your authentic self, and if you're rewarded with this kind of recognition for that, and if you help to break down barriers because of it, that's an incredible honor.

[23:58] Anthony Rapp: And so I follow in her footsteps and to do so alongside Wilson, who's such a pioneer and activist himself, it's, you know, it is total pinch me dream come true.

[24:13] Gordon Cox: Right.

[24:14] Anthony Rapp: Yeah. And you talked a little bit about the similarities between ‘Star Trek’ fans and Rent fans, but that was actually one of my questions. More broadly, are you finding that theater fans and sci-fi fans overlap? Because as someone who is a fan of both sci-fi and theater, sometimes I feel like I'm the only one.

[24:31] Anthony Rapp: With you, I guess, apparently. Um, yeah, no, I understand. I do feel like there's a bit of an overlap, especially certainly with these pieces. I'm sure that's true of others as well. It seems like I've met a fair number of theater fans who are also like Doctor Who fans.

[24:49] Gordon Cox: Yeah.

[24:49] Anthony Rapp: You know. Um, so yeah, it's like stories that are about, I don't know, that expand your mind and expand your sense of what's possible. And there's a heightened sense of reality that people who are fans of musicals obviously are willing to take a ride when, you know, people burst into song. And it's not that different if you have people in rubber masks talking to each other as aliens, you know. Um, so I think that that's part of what the bridge between these fandoms is. And I think it's also on the other side of it, I think it's no accident. ‘Star Trek’ in particular has had so many theater actors who've done very well in it because being a part of ‘Star Trek’ requires a kind of willingness to lean into heightened language, heightened ideas, in a way that I think if you've been trained in classical theater, it kind of, you know, but I think it's no accident that Patrick Stewart excelled in ‘Star Trek’, you know, coming from Shakespeare.

You know, I'm not saying it's exactly on that level, but there are aspects of it that require you to kind of like step into shoes that are not your own in a way that's not quite the same thing as when you're playing like the next door neighbor in a regular old show.

[26:06] Gordon Cox: Yeah.

[26:07] Anthony Rapp: And in addition to all these things going on in your life, you were also one of the first people to step forward with sexual harassment and assault allegations against Kevin Spacey. Why was it important to you to speak out on that?

[26:22] Anthony Rapp: Um, I knew that I was not the only one. And I was hopeful that other people would join me in that first stepping forward. And then it took a few days, but then they did. And so I'm, you know, I applaud them. It's not easy. There's so many other stories that I continue to hear to this day of people who have not come forward publicly and they may never come forward publicly, of either things that happened to themselves or that they witnessed. Um, you know, I'm sending all strength to these courageous men over in the UK who are going through the ordeal of the trial over there. The, uh, I have to believe that the crime protective services wouldn't be moving forward in the way they are if they didn't feel they had, you know, a very strong case. Um, so I, you know, I just send them a lot of strength because it is an ordeal.

[27:15] Gordon Cox: Yeah, has that ordeal been worth it to you?

[27:21] Anthony Rapp: Um, it's hard to, on balance. I mean, I, it's worth it in the sense that I feel like my coming forward, which then, you know, helped pave the way for others to come forward, has helped protect people, protect others. And, you know, there's a part of my 14-year-old self that got to come full circle in a way that I also didn't know was possible. And part of the whole thing of, you know, I think many of the women who came forward about Harvey Weinstein and others would say, and you know, there's so many things that I've read people talk about that are so resonant. But, you know, for so long you talk about these things as they happen to you, but you talk like I and many of us talked about it about the other person and what they did, and it was about them.

And it was only really, I think, in the last few years that so many of us started to talk about ourselves and how it affected us and started to really kind of start to try to square that circle and patch wounds that we didn't even recognize as wounds. Um, so that 14-year-old self who didn't even know that he needed to come through that healing process in a way, the whole thing started a process that has, you know, I don't, it's not like it's all sewn up forever, you know, but it was incredibly meaningful to be able for have his voice fully heard.

[28:50] Gordon Cox: Yeah, yeah. And you're going to be appearing in an upcoming documentary series called Surviving Hollywood. Can you tell us about that?

[28:59] Anthony Rapp: Well, I can tell you that we're, you know, I was approached by these wonderful women who are working at Cineflex who are deeply committed to trying to elevate the stories of survivors, um, of all kinds of mischief and abuse that have been endured in our business. And it's not just about sexual assault by any means. You know, in the early days, that's still all of this goes on to some degree, but the misogyny that was rampant in the early days of Hollywood, the racism. Um, and so we're gonna do our best to really shine a light on these things and to elevate the stories of the people and talk and as a way to continue to try to pave forward the progress to that much more safety for all of us in this industry and the way that this industry impacts the world, inevitably, if this industry has more safety, hopefully that will ripple out to mean more people everywhere have more safety.

[29:58] Gordon Cox: Yeah, it seems as if you are committed to advocacy on this for over the long haul, it seems like.

[30:04] Anthony Rapp: Yes.

[30:05] Gordon Cox: Yes. Without You was currently scheduled to run into April. Is that due to a filming schedule? Will you be hopping back onto the ship after that?

[30:21] Anthony Rapp: Um, we don't know exactly when. Hopefully we're going to be doing season six. So, uh, I believe there's a chance we can go longer. We're still, we're like trying to figure out how long we can go. Um, but I would love to do it as long as possible. Uh, selfishly, it's great to be home in New York working while with my family right here, you know. Like we can all move up to Toronto too. We will do that, but it's just nice to be home at the same time.

[30:44] Gordon Cox: And you have finished shooting season five, which will come out later this year. Is that where you are in that whole process?

[30:50] Anthony Rapp: Okay. Yes, right. Yes, yeah. Yes.

[30:52] Gordon Cox: Um, have you ever wanted to write something again, either a book or like the memoir you wrote or a show?

[31:00] Anthony Rapp: Um, possibly. You know, I was, uh, I actually was talking to an at an interview earlier today. You know, part of the memoir, the reason for writing the memoir started with that conversation with Rob about like I feel like I had something to say about being a young person and loss. And, you know, if as I'm entering this phase of fatherhood, maybe I feel like I'll have something to say about it. There's a bit a lot of people who have said a lot of things about fatherhood. So I don't know. I'll have to sort of see. Um, I'd certainly have been enjoying writing music. Um, wrote it, you know, the music I wrote for the show. So I think I'll continue doing that. I like collaborating a lot. Writing a book I found very lonely. Um, so maybe I will, but I think, you know, the idea of working with other writers too is really exciting to find a good partnership and to really be able to bounce off ideas. So yeah, I don't know.

[31:38] Anthony Rapp: I mean, I do concerts as regularly as possible, but yeah, in a show was If/Then, which we did the tour in 2016. So that went from about sometime in 2013 with an out of town tryout that we went open on Broadway in 2014 and then did the tour for like nine months starting at the end of 2015 into 2016.

[32:16] Gordon Cox: And how do you think about you're back on stage? When was the last time you were on stage before this run in Without You?

[32:16] Gordon Cox: Right, yeah. So it's been a while. And how do you think moving forward of theater kind of fitting into your career and all your activities as you, you know, continue to do film and TV stuff?

[32:31] Anthony Rapp: I mean, it's my favorite thing to do. The rhythms, the rhythms of doing eight shows a week, knowing what the, you know, the time frame, I just really like that. Uh, I love doing film and television too, especially good projects and the sort of chaos nature of it I enjoy, but I like a little more routine, especially with a family. It just makes it feel a little more manageable. Um, but you know, I'm certainly gonna not say no to projects, but yeah, I would love if I could do like a nice long run in New York of a show, that's kind of the dreamiest dream.

[32:57] Gordon Cox: Have you thought about what that show would be or what kind of show you would want to be in? Are you a new work kind of guy?

[33:16] Anthony Rapp: I like new work, yeah, but I also love classical. I mean, I love doing Henry V. Um, you know, there's a, I, there's one Shakespeare role. There's quite a few, I would say yes, of many Shakespeare roles, but the one that I would really love to try to get a hand at at some point is Iago. I like playing, I like playing villains, I like playing dark, twisted people. Um, I don't know. You know, I just always have enjoyed. I think that's part of the job of an actor can be to shine a light and hold a mirror up to the human experience, which includes playing monsters sometimes. Um, like Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List was one of the great performances of all time to me. And, you know, Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs.

These are the kinds of performances that just like that are seared themselves into my memory forever. And so that kind of thing. Um, but at the same time, if you told me years and years ago, oh, you're gonna be playing a documentary filmmaker in a rock opera based on La Bohème, and it's gonna change your life, I'd be like, okay. But, you know, so I, you know, the new works are also really, really exciting.

[34:19] Gordon Cox: Yeah. Well, we look forward to seeing whatever brings you back on stage, and we will look forward to season five of ‘Star Trek’ when it comes out. Um, thanks so much, Anthony.

[34:30] Anthony Rapp: Thanks for chatting with me.

[34:32] Gordon Cox: My pleasure. Thank you.

[34:33] Anthony Rapp: Take care.

[34:36] Gordon Cox: That was Anthony Rapp, now starring in Without You at New World Stages. If you like what you're hearing on this and other episodes of Stagecraft, I'd really appreciate it if you took the time to rate and review us wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps. Or tell a friend about Stagecraft. Find past episodes and subscribe at all the pod purveyors, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and on the Broadway Podcast Network, which is a great place to find more theater for your ears. Until next episode, find me on Twitter at G Cox Variety. Thanks for listening and see you at the theater.