THE FOLLOWING IS THE RAGE MONTHLY’S CHAT WITH RAPP ABOUT GROWING UP IN THAT WORLD, MANAGING ITS PITFALLS, HIS MANY SUCCESSES SINCE AND WHAT’S ON THE ACTOR’S HORIZON.


You seemed to have managed the transi- tion to adulthood and have continued on with a successful career, which isn’t always the case. Thank you. I do think part of it was


Anthony Rapp


SEASONS OF... LIFE by joel martens


that I really was never “famous” as a kid. Adventures in Babysitting was a somewhat popular film when it was released, but it became way more popular over the years, then it was when it was first released. It wasn’t anything like the kids on TV who were household names. I would go off and do shows and have these experiences and then I’d come back to Jolliet and returned to public school. My mom was a single mother and a nurse, so our life was never really fancy and she was such a grounded person. I stayed in hotels and things like that, but none of it was about fame and fortune. I was especially lucky because of the mom that I had, there was nothing about her that was a stage mother—in any way at all. What was your first Broadway production? Little Prince when I was ten. We previewed for two weeks and never opened. It was my first Broadway show and it was my first flop. (Laughs) I was cast in The King and I very soon after that and went on the road for a year with that. You have been involved in so many Broadway productions since. What are the standout events for you? Precious Sons, when I was fourteen, was


a pivotal moment in my life. It didn’t run very long, I think we opened in February or March and closed in May, but it was very meaningful. There were amazing things happening in New York theatre at the time, which just blew my mind. Lily Tomlin’s one woman show (The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe) and a brilliant, acclaimed production of John Guare’s House of Blue Leaves. I feel like it was a year about artistic awakening and I started to see what was really possible. The most pivotal theatre moment of course was RENT, for all sorts of reasons. There were so many intense topics that


were covered in RENT, in particular the HIV/AIDS crisis. Did you have a sense of how powerful it was in the moment? I’d been around New York for Angels In America, so it felt like a continuation of that conversation. It took AIDS to mainstream audiences in a way that was very accessible and very powerful. Angels In America was maybe a little more overtly political. RENT is not as overtly political, except for a couple moments in “La Vie Boheme.” Michael Greif (director) has told me that John [Playwright Jonathan Larson] was very mindful of the thread that bound the two pieces. They are very different in their approach and the human scale they tackle. Angels In America was so much more about the moral and political, RENT was so much more about being human. Yes. I also think it has a lot to do with


the source material for RENT, La Bohème and the stories of Henri Murger (French novelist and poet). That is part of what differentiates them, the kind of story that they’re telling. I do think that they stand together in a very strong way. I had a sense that RENT would have an impact, but you have to remember that we started off-Broadway. It was still kind of a mess at that point and needed a great deal of help, so Jonathan went to work rewriting it. We came back together for rehearsals for the off Broadway production and opened December 19, 1996, actually 19 years ago. I told people then, “I think this is going to make a big splash.” Though I never thought Broadway mainstream, or the cover of Newsweek or anything like that. RENT did a great deal to humanize the HIV/AIDS crisis, by helping people to see and understand that those suffering and dying, were their brothers, uncles, sisters and aunts, neighbors and coworkers. Yes. RENT premiered too, just before protease inhibitors, so it’s also very much a time capsule for a very specific moment, which of course, has shifted tremendously. It was nothing I could have predicted, I’ve always said that it’s about physics. There


JANUARY 2016 | RAGE monthly 21


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