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[0:01] Anna Altide: You're listening to The Ensemblist, the only podcast that shows you Broadway from the inside out. Welcome, I'm Anna Altide. Actor and playwright Rodney Hicks' RENT journey began 25 years ago at New York Theatre Workshop, when he was just 21 years old. In 2007, Rodney would return to the Nederlander and take on the role of Benny, a part he once understudied a decade prior. Rodney can be seen as Benny in 2008's RENT: Filmed Live on Broadway, a pro-shot of RENT's final performance of the original Broadway production. Please enjoy our one-on-one with Rodney Hicks as he memorializes his early memories in the show, his personal journey of self-growth and discovery, and what RENT means to him.

[1:03] Anna Altide: Hi, would you introduce yourself and tell us where you're calling from today?

[1:19] Rodney Hicks: Yes, thank you for having me on the show, Mo. I'm Rodney Hicks, and I'm calling from Denver, Colorado.

[1:25] Anna Altide: And you have a long and deep journey with RENT.

[1:30] Rodney Hicks: Yes, 25 years.

[1:32] Anna Altide: Would you tell us about the times that RENT has come into your life?

[1:35] Rodney Hicks: The first time was when I was 21 years old, and I actually technically should have still been a senior in college. I had left college in '94, so this would have been my senior year. I was brought into this audition. The breakdown had said mid to late 20s, and I'm 21, and I was just like, oh, okay. So I painted on, actually, a goatee.

[1:56] Anna Altide: With what?

[1:57] Rodney Hicks: Mascara pen. Again, I was 21. I didn't know my elbow from my finger. I was that green. But it's interesting. That's when I met Jesse Martin at the audition. To this day, as Jesse, he just smiled and just gave me so much love. He embraced my uniqueness, I guess. I went to the audition, to make a long story short, I sang A, the wrong song. You wouldn't have known that then. I sang "This is the Moment," but I guess it was. Tim Weil had asked, do you have anything more soulful, pop rock? Mind you, I had worked with Jonathan the year prior. So luckily, I had a familiar face behind the table, along with Bernie Telsey. I sang, and then I wind up dancing. Tim started pounding out this rhythm on the piano. I was into breakdancing at the time. I took off my cardigan, started dancing backflip splits. I sweated it off.

[2:48] Rodney Hicks: I did not know yet.

[2:49] Anna Altide: The goatee.

[2:50] Rodney Hicks: Oh, yes. Until after the audition, and Bernie said, they were like, good job, great. And he said, Rod, before you go, make sure you go to the bathroom and look in the mirror. I go to the bathroom, look in the mirror, and just smudged all over my face. I was a little mortified. And I thought, well, there goes that job. On to the next. Two hours later, I found that I got the job.

[3:11] Anna Altide: Oh, my gosh, two hours.

[3:13] Rodney Hicks: Two hours later.

[3:14] Anna Altide: And was this for a workshop? Was this for the-

[3:16] Rodney Hicks: This was for the Off-Broadway. They were putting together the Off-Broadway New York Theatre Workshop cast. I came in toward the last rounds of auditions in the latter part of December. Also, mind you, you know, I'm gay. I'm out. But that took so much time for me and my personal journey. And at that time, I had a fiancée who was a woman and she had a two-year-old. Not mine biologically, but I was ready to just live that life. Then RENT came into the picture and said, oh, no, honey, no, we're about to take you on another journey.

[3:48] Anna Altide: What a journey. You were a member of the New York Theatre Workshop cast, the original Broadway cast. And how long did you stay in the show originally?

[3:57] Rodney Hicks: I was there until 1997. I turned 22 when we opened on Broadway. And mind you, like I said, I didn't know my elbow from my finger. I only had like a year of professional work. So all I knew was college theatre. You do it on the weekends, right? And then you move forward. And also our friend died. And I just didn't know how to handle that. Looking back 25 years, if I could say anything to that young man at that time was, honey, breathe. I was kind of a hot mess inside and out. I just thought, OK, what's the next show? And looking back, I believe it's because I just didn't know what to do with grief. I didn't know the juxtaposition of, OK, we're grieving, but we're also in this hit Broadway show celebrating.

Can I get off the roller coaster now? It took me to the following year. Then I sprained my ankle in the show and I did not give my notice. And I just left. Thankfully, the producers understood. Ten years later, after 10 years of work and life experience, I heard that there was an opening for Benny because I was an understudy to Benny. And originally I thought, oh my God, no one's going to believe that I'm like the landlord of anything. But I emailed Michael Greif and this was in 2007. I was just coming off of doing King Lear. I said, Michael, if there's any opportunity, I would love to come in and audition for this role. And because I knew I didn't leave properly and I knew I didn't have a last show, but that was no one's fault but my own.

It was very much a very humbling experience to send an email and I didn't know if I was going to get an answer back. But through those 10 years, I actually saw the show. Oh my gosh. At least once a month. Oh my gosh. Oh yeah. I sat in the back next to our sound designer, Brian Ronan, or Cooper, our sound engineer, and I would just watch the show. And so I watched 10 years' worth of casts come in and out. That helped me to heal my grieving. Also, more importantly, it set me on a journey of really, who are you? And who do you want to be in this world? When I auditioned, again, it was Jeffrey Seller, Michael and Bertie and Tim Weil. And now I'm 33 years old, more polished as an artist, but I still was going through my stuff mental health wise.

But that was now all internal. I got the job. The difference was I knew the responsibility of what it meant to be in a Broadway show, the responsibility of doing eight shows a week and all of that and connecting with the cast. They welcomed me with open arms and became another family. And as you know, RENT, family so huge, you know, it's all over the world. And they embraced me. I was lucky enough to be asked to stay on to close the show. I didn't see that coming. I can only stay in gratitude. So that's my RENT journey.

[6:51] Anna Altide: What surprised you about coming back into the show? You'd been watching it from the soundboard for 10 years? Like, how did it feel different with 10 years more experience both as an actor and then just as a human?

[7:03] Rodney Hicks: Yes. Well, you know, the evolution of the show from an actor's perspective was I started understanding the importance of showing up not just as a performer, but as a human being. Really, I was on my way to not taking life for granted and starting to understand it while I was actually in my first long-term relationship. The man that I was with, partners with, he was closeted. That was really interesting. You know, I'm in this very out show, and I couldn't really celebrate my personal life in a way. It really wasn't until I left New York City in 2011 and charted a different life and started going.

[8:18] Rodney Hicks: What lessons from Rent have you kind of hoped to put onto the page when you are creating work as a playwright? Thank you for asking. Rent has been a huge influence. Jonathan Larson, his writing style, everything has been a huge influence on me as a playwright. I had always been writing for a long time, but never having any kind of breakthrough in it. It was interesting. I was doing a lot of writing from other people's source materials. I would literally take Jason Robert Brown's Songs from a New World and go, I'm going to write a book to this. What Rent influenced in my work is writing about the human condition and the importance of that. As humans, we are all-encompassing and we're always on a constant evolution of change and continuing and nothing is permanent.

Just Press Save is, I call it my young people play, that I was fortunate to work with Michael Greif again last year via Pride Plays. And my other play, The Flawed Play, I call that my race and culture play. My latest play, Miss Pearl's Cabaret, that is my play on overcoming trauma and surviving. They're all about the human condition, but they're all shouting with a different kind of love. You know, you're looking at people who are on the fringes, because I lived on the fringe. When I look back on my 25 years and it's like starting a show where I literally, before Rent, I was writing to my then fiancé saying, I think I'm going to leave the industry and probably going to just be an active in the church.

I'm going to be that guy. I'm so glad that that didn't happen. I have come through these 25 years to be here now. I don't know where I'd be had it not been for Rent. All of the people that I've met through Rent, not just on stage, but also the Rent heads. It played an enormous part in my life of me really finally understanding and realizing that, A, it's OK not to be OK. And B, it's OK to be OK.

[10:17] Anna Altide: You had mentioned working again with Michael Greif on your show, Just Press Save. I'm intrigued what it felt like to be sort of on the other side of the table with that creative energy.

[10:27] Rodney Hicks: Oh, my gosh. It was a dream come true. Honestly, when I was in Rent originally, I would sit backstage and just watch the show when I wasn't on stage because I knew ultimately I wanted to be on this other side of the table. When Michael said yes, I just kind of lost my mind in the best way possible. I thought, am I being punked? Is this like really happening? When is the shoe going to drop? It was two months before the actual week of rehearsal. He said, hey, do you have time to be on the phone? And I said, sure. He goes, how about now? And that's when I knew, OK, this is on. He said, I really like your play. How would you like to reinvent the wheel on it? So we worked for about a month and a half, two months before that one week of rehearsal.

It was a masterclass. I didn't give any pushback because I just knew this is an opportunity of a lifetime for me in that moment. And I know how smart he is. I just thought, wow, this is a big opportunity for me to be working with him on this level. Gosh, am I a hack? Imposter syndrome kind of snuck in until it did it. And Michael said, you are a great playwright. Give yourself that credit. I never questioned it after that with humility. I rewrote that play every day that we had rehearsal because that's Michael. I would stay up till like three in the morning, two in the morning and get back up at like six. We'd have the Zoom call. He's like, Rodney, why do you look like you've rested? I said, because this is all I've ever wanted to do.

I've waited so many years to be here right now. All you're going to get is joy here. It took this long to be in this position. It was supposed to take this long. It was extraordinary working with Michael. And I can't say enough good things about that. And he's a dear friend. So it was just amazing.

[12:17] Rodney Hicks: Coming back to Rent, this measured in love virtual event. There's so many artists who are coming to do it. It just feels like people really want to be involved with it. Like what about Rent lives in all of us as theater people that we want to be a part of that? I'm so looking forward to this event. I'm so looking forward to just having my popcorn and watching it, you know, getting all the feels, knowing that there's going to be so many people across the world watching this one event that not just changed people's lives, but saved people's lives. I remember so many people saying this show saved my life. I was on the brink of suicide or my parents kicked me out, all these things to know that it transformed people.

In my 47 years of living, there's no greater feeling to me now in my life than that, knowing that the young man that I was all the way back then and that journey to go, wow, think about all the millions of people who had their own journey because of that show. And because, oh, maybe they saw me up there on that stage and thought, wow, your character changed my life. I love that it celebrates the imperfect human being. We're all imperfectly perfect. And we're all flawed. Wearing your scars out loud as beauty marks. On the anniversary of Jonathan's passing, I watched the B-roll of the Off-Broadway and I just sat all up in my feelings, proud and tears, happy, excited. I wanted to be with Jonathan and my friends on that day.

Then on the opening, that's when I watched the movie. It's an honoring for me. I think about three times a year I will listen to the entire soundtrack and listen to the words. It just moves me. Even to this day, 25 years later, there's always something different that is impactful and brimming with joy. When you look back at a life live, you realize just how far you've come. And I think that's what Rent celebrates. No day but today and living each moment as if it were your last. And thankfully, at 46 turning 47, I now really understand that, especially with so many people dying all around us. I wake up. I say thank you. I go to bed. I say thank you. And I just try to live my life to be the best version of myself possible. I'm not perfect, but I'm living my best life for the first time in my life. And I am so grateful.