Interview: This Bottom's On Top! - Rob McClure Talks Joining the Cast of SOMETHING ROTTEN

Earlier this month, Broadway's ten-time Tony Award-nominated smash hit musical comedy Something Rotten! welcomed Tony-nominated Broadway favorite Rob McClure (Chaplin, Honeymoon in Vegas, Noises Off) as its newest "Nick Bottom." Today, McClure chats exclusively with BWW about joining this hilarious production and explains why he is literally reminded everyday that he has some big shoes to fill!

I'm sure you are all working your tail off on that stage every night, but it just seems like you are also having a blast.

Yes, it really truly is a party! It's hard work, like you said, but it's really such a blast to do and the audiences are just infectious. It's hard not to have a good time when the audience is that enthusiastic.

What is it like to receive a standing ovation and rousing applause from the audience in the middle of a show?

It's wild, it really is. The number 'A Musical' in particular in Act One, and then 'Omelette' in the second act are such loving tributes to what we all love about musical theater, that it's a chance to not only celebrate a brilliantly crafted number, but also it's a chance for the audience to share their gratitude for the art form on the whole. I mean it's somebody blatantly sort of expressing the pinnacle of what it is we love about it, and then anyone who agrees, shows it and they leap to their feet. So it's a mutual admiration of us to do it and then for us to see that response.

And the interesting thing is that even those who might not get all the musical references in those numbers still seem to express that same level of appreciation.

Yes, well, what's so smart about the number is that through the character of Nostradamus, it

still works in the convention of the story of the show. So even if you don't get a single reference, the idea that this guy Nick Bottom has reached the end of his rope, and goes to a soothsayer and the soothsayer looks into the future and sees all these wild visions of musicals, everything from "Rent" to "The Sound of Music", and is sharing those visions, it still works for the linear plot. So it's not just reference for reference sake, it very much works within the rules of the show, that this psychic is seeing all these wild things. So I think that's what you're seeing, people who don't get the references, it's still a fantastic number within the rules and plot of our musical, references aside.

Can you explain the process of coming into a well established show, how much rehearsal time you had before your first performance and so forth?

Yeah, it's actually pretty crazy. I had just under two weeks of rehearsal and it was in a rehearsal room. It was me, the stage manager, the associate director and the dance captain and we got together in a rehearsal room. And they have their scripts with all the blocking information, and they say, 'ok, on this line you cross here, on this line you cross over to here, and then someone hands you a pan and you do this.' And the poor dance captain, he's just a brilliant performer named Eric Giancola who is also in the ensemble of SOMETHING ROTTEN, he basically played every part in the rehearsal. So I do scenes that have twelve people in them and he does all twelve roles. And I basically learned the show just playing with him. And then on the day that I went into the show, which was last Thursday, [June 2] I had what's called a put-in rehearsal where everyone in the cast shows up to the theater early, around 2:00 pm, and I shake everyone's hand and meet a lot of them for the very first time, and we run through the show with just a piano. And I'm the only one with a microphone and costumes on because I'm rehearsing my changes for the first time while everyone else is just in jeans and T-shirts, because they're all doing it for like their 500th time! And we basically run through the show. And then I have some dinner and then go into the show for the first time that night. It's a strange thing to meet people who will play my wife and my brother and these very intimate relationships and I maybe spend a total of four or five hours with them and then you dive in in front of a big 'ol audience!

Oh my goodness!

Yeah, it's a little crazy. But my first night felt like the scariest and safest place at the same time, because I was so nervous, but I was looking around on the stage thinking, you know I'm playing opposite Brad Oscar right now. Nothing can go wrong! Even if I completely went off, he would know how to fix it. I mean I was looking at Christian Borle and Heidi Blickenstaff, John Cariani. If anything happened, if I forget a line, if I completely go up, they've done this show so many times they will find a way out. So it was so strange to be so scared yet know I was in such good hands.

Well from the point of view of an audience member, it appeared absolutely seamless, like you had been in the show since day one.

Oh, thank you so much, I'm so glad to hear that.

Did you have a chance to speak with [original Nick Bottom] Brian D'Arcy James and did he have any advice for you?

I did! You know I've been such a huge fan of his for such a long time. I think he's one of the greatest leading men alive. So when the opportunity came and he was leaving and I knew I was going to replace him, I was honored, but I was also terrified because he's so wonderful. And he was so incredibly kind, you know we've met each other socially many times and he's always been so kind and I think a lot of people are struck by that in this business. He's one of those guys who has that reputation, and it's true. He was so unbelievably kind and supportive and I asked him for advice and he basically said, 'be you, don't worry about doing what I'm doing. Bring you, that's why they hired you was to bring what you bring.' And I said to him, 'listen, I can never fill your shoes so I'm just going to hang your shoes up in the room and admire them and bring my own shoes.' And then I got to the theater and our dresser, a sweet guy named Jack, had sort of framed Brian's shoes for me and put them in the dressing room because he had heard that I had said that. And I thought it was so sweet. So now, right beside my dressing room station I've got the reminder of the shoes that I'm attempting to fill, and it's an honor to try and do so in such a wonderful, funny show.

You are just a master of physical comedy, as we saw in HONEYMOON IN VEGAS, and more recently in NOISES OFF. At what point in the process do you make those decisions about the physical comedy, or does it just happen organically from performance to performance?

It definitely does change and what's so interesting is that I never look at the page and say, 'oh, I know what physical take I'll do there.' It really just comes out of just doing it, it comes out of getting up on my feet and responding in the honest ways I would respond to such extraordinary circumstances. And that warrants a lot of physicality from me, I tend to just be a very physical person. So as I sort of behave naturally in these ridiculous circumstances, my physicality tends to get kind of ridiculous as well.

You know I worked with this brilliant director named Aaron Posner and Aaron gave me something that I've carried with me - it's a technique that he calls 'Actually Actually.' What he's saying is, a lot of times, especially in musical theater, people will say 'the stakes need to feel so high because you break into song and dance, so it needs to be pushed a little, it needs to be larger than life.' And I actually take issue with that. I think that if you were to respond naturally to the absurdity of a situation, you would actually raise the stakes so high honestly, that it would actually feel ridiculous. So in a situation in HONEYMOON IN VEGAS for example, how would I respond if I actually actually was being forced to skydive by a bunch of Elvis impersonators? That would become ridiculous. And the same thing is true in SOMETHING ROTTEN. If I found myself in a place in my life of such desperation that I needed to go to a fortune teller to tell me what to do, and he started to see these crazy visions, what would my response actually actually be? And I think it would take me to a place that seems heightened, where it's not me that's behaving in a heightened way, it's me responding honestly to a heightened situation, which is something I think an audience member can react to. Whereas if I was just making faces to be larger than life because it's 'the theater', I think people wouldn't respond to that in a visceral, honest way.

I noticed at one point during the performance, and I don't know if this was spontaneous or not, but Christian [Borle] put his hand on your shoulder and then just started cleaning off the bottom of his boot, and your reaction was priceless.

Yes, well this is the thing. If you hire Christian Borle, you're going to get something different every single night - that comes with the contract! But what is so interesting about Christian is that he is profoundly alive in his performance. He will never get static, he's always living. So it does change night to night, but as I say that to you, it is also one of the most consistent performances I've ever seen in how he lands dramatic or comic beats. So the moment to moment performance is actually very consistent in audience response, in plot delivery, in sort of emotional landmarks that his character needs to have and provide for other characters. That is all wildly consistent. But in that consistency, he kind of can do no wrong, he's just so brilliant at improvisation. He will roll with things in a way that is endlessly surprising for both us and the audience.

Does that ever throw you off or do you come to expect it?

No, no it doesn't. And that's also a testament to how and what he does differently. He'll never

do something that will take you out of the world of the play, he basically just gives you new things to respond to. For instance he came up to me during last night's performance when he's in disguise as Toby Belch in the second act, and he sort of tells me that my idea for 'Omelette the Musical' is just brilliant, and he does this sort of 'whoa, you just blew my mind' thing and it kind of awkwardly made me giggle, which made him awkwardly kind of giggle, and then the audience watched us have an awkward giggle-off for about a minute. So it really allows our characters to respond to each other in ways that don't take us out of the world, but really enhance the world of the play.

And then of course the two of you have that amazing 'tap off' in the Act One closing number.

Yes, oh my God, what a gift that is as a performer!

Did you have tap dancing experience prior to this show?

What's funny is I've always been a mover. I seem to get hired for jobs that do require dance. I did 'Where's Charley' which is basically a part that was originated by Ray Bolger who was the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz movie, and then I played Bert in Mary Poppins, of course made famous by Dick Van Dyke. Those are the kind of guys who I sort of emulate in my dance. They're less of the technique-oriented perfect dancers and more of sort of brilliant joy-filled dancers. And in being hired to play those sorts of parts and after over fifteen years of doing this professionally now, you begin to pick up the technique. You slowly but surely go, 'it's step, hop, shuffle ball change, okay, I know what that means,' and not because I was trained in it but because through doing, you pick up the vocabulary. You're forced to do this step in this show and that step in that show and sooner or later you have a mental rolodex of dance. And it was really fun to come into this show with that because while I do get to tap on occasion, rarely do I get to tap in amazing Renaissance tap boots in this sort of epic tap battle that also happens to be in iambic pentameter!

Well I always say that the Tonys should add a Best Replacement category for actors who brilliantly take over a role, and this year you would get my vote one hundred percent.

Oh thank you so much, my gosh, that's so sweet of you. It's really an honor to jump into this family, and they really are a family. A lot of them have been there from the beginning, approaching five hundred performances of the show, and for them to have embraced me with open arms and such kindness has made the transition really seamless. I really do feel like a new member of a really kind and supportive family. And that makes it a joy to go work everyday!

Photo Credit: Walter McBride / WM Photos

Something Rotten photo credit: Joan Marcus

Honeymoon In Vegas photo credit: T. Charles Erickson