Actor Anthony Rapp originated the role of Mark Cohen in the 1996 Broadway production of “Rent” and went on to appear in such Broadway shows as “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” (first seen in Skokie in 1998) and “If/Then.”
This weekend, he’s appearing at Lookingglass Theatre in an all-new seasonal cabaret show titled “Home for the Holidays,” which he has put together for the first time. He spoke over Zoom from his new home with his family in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood, where they recently moved from New York. The following has been edited for clarity and length.
Q: So we can now call Anthony Rapp a Chicago actor?
A: With great pride, yes.
Q: Was that a quality-of-life decision to move to our beautiful city?
A: Quality of life and having kids. We were doing OK raising our kids in New York, but we would come visit our friends who lived in Andersonville and we started imagining the difference it could make to be here, and we decided to give it a shot. We’ve found a wonderful Montessori preschool. Living in Chicago has exceeded all of our hopes.
Q: You must travel?
A: I do concerts with Adam Pascal and also some convention work from my role on “Star Trek,” but that has been the bulk of it. I have young kids.
Q: Adam was your “Rent” co-star.
A: We do a lot of those concerts, typically two or three a month; they’ve been going very well. We feature the music we were listening to when we first met 30 years ago, some “Rent” music. And in this day and age, I think it is really important to honor live performance, so we do some songs by people I have seen perform live, like Peter Gabriel and the band The National. We also do a song from “Spring Awakening,” a show I feel followed on directly from “Rent.”
Q: You’re also on board for “Follies” this spring at Porchlight Music Theatre. I know they badly wanted you to be in the cast.
A: It was nice of them to reach out. I’ve sung Sondheim of course but I’ve never appeared in a Sondheim show. Coming back to Chicago, I am deeply aware of the very established and vibrant theater community here and I am grateful that people want to include me, but I also didn’t want to come here and stomp around and say “give me a job.” I want to earn it as much as I could.
Q: But first up is this holiday show at Lookingglass, for which you also have cast some local singers. What kind of show did you want to put together?
A: It was important to me that it be secular because I didn’t want to wade into any territory that could be exclusionary to anyone, or off-putting in any way. I wanted to find someone who could sing a great version of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” because that is my favorite song. But I also hoped we’d have someone come in and do a beautiful version of Joni Mitchell’s “River,” which I think of as a song of the season. Honestly, I didn’t look at anyone’s resumes in the auditions; I just listened to them sing.
Q: You didn’t want to work solo?
A: Just me? That would have been weird. It’s me and six other singers and the set is from my list and from that of my longtime music director Rick Bertone, but also was informed by what the others brought in when they auditioned. It’s a nice eclectic mix of songs, some of which have the joy of the season, some of which a bit of the bittersweetness of the season and some of which are quite silly and goofy. There’s even one I’d never heard before. It’s going to be organic, conversational and informal and with the vibe of coming to somebody’s house party.
Q: No Broadway numbers?
A: There’s going to be a little “Charlie Brown” in there because, for me, Charlie Brown is synonymous with Christmas, or at least he was in my childhood.
“Home for the Holidays” plays through Saturday at Lookingglass Theatre in the Water Tower Water Works, 163 E. Pearson St.; 312-337-0665 and www.lookingglasstheatre.org
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
cjones5@chicagotribune.com
