‘Rent’ star plays PITTSBURGH

The Pitt News: How did you decide to premiere ‘Without You’ in Pittsburgh? Anthony Rapp: I’ve… The Pitt News: How did you decide to premiere ‘Without You’ in Pittsburgh? Anthony Rapp: I’ve known Tracy Brigden, the artistic director here, for years, like since I was 19 or 20. And we’ve had a really nice relationship over those years, and a few years ago I did ‘Hedwig [and the Angry Inch]’ here, and that was an incredible experience. Because of that it became kind of an artistic home away from home for me. I’d written the book never thinking it would be a theater piece, really. I had no intention of doing that, but I was encouraged by a producer friend of mine. We did a reading of it and it went really well, and at that point I thought it would be really meaningful to have the premiere of it here. I feel like it’s a safe place for me artistically, and I really trust Tracy. I know I’m being dealt with in a really honest way. TPN: How do you tackle a project like adapting your memoir into a show? AR: I really didn’t know where to begin. My director, Steve Mailer, and I had been looking for something to do together for a long time. When I got asked to do this, he was the first person I called. I really believe in him as an artist. TPN: What’s it like performing a true story, acting as people you know and reliving events of your own life? AR: It’s more intense than I ever thought it would be. Working on the book was really intense and writing it was really hard, and the audio book was challenging, but it was still reading it, which is different from performing it, from bringing it to life. There are moments in rehearsal where I’m having a conversation that I had with my mom, and ‘hellip;it’s not like I become her, but it’s more like I evoke moments. It is like reliving it again more fully than ever before. TPN: Is that difficult? AR: Yeah, it is difficult. But it’s also really cathartic. It’s both. Part of what I’m trying to say with this, and part of the reason I wrote the book, is there’s this phrase, ‘The only way out is through.’ To go through these things. TPN: The book seems like it’s a real exercise in trying to find closure. AR: The thing with closure, though, is it’s never finished. You’re never done with your life until you’re dead. There’s healing, and I don’t mean to say this in a melodramatic way, but there’s a scar. And a scar is part of the healing process. A scar is how your body heals. It’s not traumatic to do this material, but it’s definitely emotionally challenging. TPN: The book features a lot of intimate personal details about your life. What’s it been like for you to share these moments with a live audience as opposed to writing them down? AR: I never was really worried about putting stuff out there. I just believe in the truth. I think that people should have permission to be human. Part of being human is doing things that maybe you don’t always love about yourself or messing things up in some way. That’s part of what every human being alive experiences. TPN: How do you keep the momentum going when you’re doing a one-man show? AR: The audience is like a scene partner. It’s weird that way. I didn’t expect that, I expected it to feel more lonely than it did. But you feel very connected to other human beings because you’re talking to them. It is up to you to keep it moving, it’s on your shoulders. TPN: What kind of part does music play in the show? AR: It plays a significant part. ‘Hedwig’ was a model for me in showing me that you can weave narrative and song together in a way that, to me, works quite beautifully. That’s what we tried to do, in a certain sense, is have the music interact with the text in a way that helped both. Music communicates on a different level than words alone can. And ‘Rent’ is a perfect example of that. The story ‘Rent’ is telling would be incredibly different if it was words alone, if you didn’t have these incredible songs. TPN: It’s been 10 years since you first left ‘Rent’ on Broadway. You’ve done movies, you’ve done other shows, but ‘Rent’ keeps bringing you back ‘mdash; you’re even coming back here in the spring with Adam [Pascal], doing it again. It seems like this show in particular is a significant part of your life. AR: It is. It’s one of the most important artistic experiences and in many ways one of the most important personal experiences ‘- that and my mom passing are the two, and they’re inseparable. I don’t really know what I believe in terms of fate, but it just feels like something happened that this was meant to be a part of my life. Everything that’s happened around it, because of it, there’s like a through-line that’s undeniable to me. I started performing when I was a little kid. I had been doing it a long time before I got ‘Rent,’ and yet it truly became the culmination and fulfillment of everything I’d ever wanted to do. At a time when I was truly struggling, that this could happen and utterly transform every aspect of my life, and that it would be a piece that I wholeheartedly believe in and tells a story that I think is a deeply important story to tell. And not just on an artistic level, but on a political level, on a personal level ‘- to be a part of something that was revolutionary is the greatest gift that I would wish on every artist. To be a part of something that makes a difference in the world. And I believe that ‘Rent’ has done that ‘- on whatever level it’s done it, it’s done it. It’s just an unbelievable gift. TPN: It seems like there’s a real sense of camaraderie between you and the other original cast members. AR: Yeah, there is. And we grew up together. I was 24 and [Pascal] was 25 when it first started, and he had never dreamed of himself as an actor or a musical theater performer, and he’s gone on to some great success. It was wonderful to come back and be older, wiser, happier people and still get to do the story that we love so much. TPN: At all these stages in your life, you get to revisit the material with a new perspective. AR: I’m fully aware that there might be people out there who are like, ‘Leave it behind, move on.’ But the truth is, it’s like, the show is such a significant part of my life, it would be like if I said to you, ‘Leave your best friends behind. Leave something you love in your life behind, walk away from it.’ Why would you ever wish that on yourself? TPN: Like you said, the show is so closely intertwined with your experiences of that time and growing up. AR: That’s one of the things about going back and doing the show again, is I can sort of go back and see my younger self clearer by being in the story again. It evokes those memories, but I’m in a different place now, so it was a way of interacting with my younger self. Which is sort of what’s happening by doing this as well. TPN: It seems kind of surreal. AR: It is. I do have to think of things in terms of an actor, and performing needs, things you have to fulfill in terms of shaping it. At the same time, there’s no ‘acting’ involved. It’s a strange animal. The thing I feel most attached to is that it’s truthful. The thing about ‘memoir’ is that it’s memory, so it can never be the absolute perfect truth, but it’s as close to the truth as I can manage it through memory. TPN: The book really is almost alarmingly honest, and it’s a little surprising to hear how you weren’t apprehensive about that. AR: When the book was about to come out, the only moment I was like, ‘I wonder what they’ll think,’ is that I’m aware that I have quite a few younger fans. And I’m aware that there’s a complicated portrait of very complicated experiences, and when you’re young it’s sometimes harder to see things in gray. You want to see things in black and white a lot, you think you know stuff. And I think part of growing older is you see more and more gray. My one hope was that sharing this, my own story with its own idiosyncrasies, could help people who have gone through similar things. And among them was telling a story about coming out in a way that was honest and open and that people could really identify with.