Anthony Rapp Shares Stories Of His First Broadway Show On WHY I'LL NEVER MAKE IT

In the latest episode of Why I'll Never Make It, a top 25 theater podcast hosted by Patrick Oliver Jones, Anthony Rapp (Rent, If/Then) talks about what would've been his Broadway debut back in 1982, but The Little Prince and the Aviator closed after 20 preview performances and never officially opened.

Listen below!

Rapp shares his family's journey of moving to New York for the show and recounts some of the troubles faced during production. The director changed three times, the choreographer was also replaced, and previews had to be delayed. All for a show that had no out-of-town tryouts and little more than a month of rehearsals.

But Rapp was only 10 years old at the time and was likely shielded from most of these issues. Overall he enjoyed working on the show and performing with film star Michael York, who played the part of the Aviator. He still fondly remembers the score by John Barry and getting to fly around onstage. So it was quite devastating for him when the show closed during previews, and it left him and his mother with no income and uncertain of what to do next. "There was a point at which I almost sang on the Staten Island Ferry to make a little money."

Fortunately, Rapp did continue performing and years later would take on the role that has come to define his career, Mark in Jonathan Larsen's iconic musical Rent. He and Jones talk about the specialness of that production and how in many ways it helped him process the grief of losing his mother to cancer just a year after the show opened. Rapp wrote a memoir about that difficult time in his life called Without You, and it spawned a one-man show of the same name.

This wide-ranging interview also covers Rapp's one semester at NYU film school, his foray into directing, the importance of collaboration on his current television show Star Trek: Discovery, and the three times in his film career when directors had to push for him because the producers didn't want to cast him.

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Anthony Rapp has been acting and singing professionally since he was nine years old. With an extensive list of achievements, Rapp is best known for originating the role of 'Mark Cohen' in Jonathan Larson's Tony Award-winning rock opera, Rent, for which he shared an OBIE Award with the rest of the cast. He reprised his role in Chris Columbus's film adaptation opposite other members of the original cast. Rapp can currently be seen on the Paramount Plus series Star Trek: Discovery playing Commander Paul Stamets. He's also an author, director, and avid Dungeons & Dragons player. He lives in NYC with his fiancé Ken and their 3 cats and 1 dog.

WHY I'LL NEVER MAKE IT (WINMI) is one of Feedspot's Top 25 Theater Podcasts and is hosted by actor and singer Patrick Oliver Jones (The Addams Family, First Wives Club). This weekly podcast features fellow creatives sharing the realities of a career in the performing arts, all while challenging the notion of what it really means to "make it" in this business. Past guests include Will Swenson (Hair, Priscilla Queen of the Desert), Andrew Lippa (Wild Party, The Addams Family), Caitlin Kinnunen (The Prom), and Justin Guarini (American Idol, In Transit).