Interview: Randy Harrison of CABARET at Winspear Opera House

On Monday, I had the pleasure of speaking with actor Randy Harrison, who's currently on tour as the Master of Ceremonies in CABARET. Randy talked candidly about working in the entertainment industry as an out member of the LGBT community, crazy touring audience interactions, and why he's happy to bounce around the country in various regional theatre gigs. Check out our conversation below:

Name: Randy Harrison

Hometown: "I was born in Nashua, New Hampshire, and I went to high school in Georgia. I've been in New York since 2000, so I'm pretty much a New Yorker now!"

Current Role: Emcee in the national tour of CABARET

Kyle Christopher West: Growing up, what first inspired you to start performing?

Randy Harrison: I was a theatergoer from a very young age. My mother brought me into Boston, when Boston had a lot of pre-Broadway tryouts. I think I saw my first show when I was five, and I wanted to be on the other side of the proscenium immediately. I started doing community theatre in New Hampshire pretty much right after that!

Kyle: Was acting something you'd always planned to do as your career?

Randy: I think it was always what I wanted to do all of the time, so it never occurred to me that I wouldn't do that as my career. Sometimes I wonder if I missed out at being a slightly more well-rounded person, especially in the educational department [laughs], but I always knew it was what I wanted. I was hyper-focused on acting by my early teens.

Kyle: It seems like you booked "Queer As Folk" pretty soon after getting your BFA in musical theatre from CCM (University of Cincinnati's Conservatory of Music). Has it ever been a challenge to transition back and forth between acting in front of a camera verses a live audience?

Randy: No. Acting is always a challenge in different ways, but I do find that what is most challenging is when I do one for a long time, I feel like I get frustrated. Near the end of Queer As Folk, I needed to get back onstage; I felt like I was trapped in a box. I think the same is true when I do exclusively theatre. I love switching back and forth; I think it aids each medium.

Kyle: When the show first aired 16 years ago, "Will and Grace" was really the only LGBT-themed show on a major network, and Hollywood seemed to keep most gay men in the closet. At the time, did you have any concerns about your sexuality limiting your career?

Randy: No, not at all. I mean, I wanted a theatre career. Being on television, at the time, was sort of a fluke for me. I didn't have career ambitions to be some hetero-normative movie star. No, it was something that was really exciting for me; at the time, I admired actors who were out [of the closet] and I had no interest in being in the closet. I guess I knew that it would pigeonhole me in some capacity, but I sort of knew that when the show was over I was going to focus on theatre. I didn't think it would hold me back in theatre, and I don't think it has, really. I think I was willing to do whatever it took to be a part of a show that increased visibility and to be a part of something I thought was groundbreaking.

Kyle: It seems like the stage warmly welcomed you back after five years of TV. You've since had a stint on Broadway [as Boq in WICKED], a handful of great roles with the Berkshire Theatre Festival, and worked in regional theatres across the country. Tell me how you go about choosing your projects.

Randy: The main thing is usually the playwright, and the actual piece of work. You know, if I do a lot of contemporary stuff, then I want something that's more of a language challenge, and then I get excited about doing some Shakespeare. One year, I did two classical shows in a row, and I was like, "I just need to do a kitchen sink drama, or something meaty, hyper-naturalistic." It's really about the quality of the material. I've worked all over the place to be able to do Beckett or Ibsen; I'll go wherever I need to to be able to develop myself.

Kyle: Jumping ahead to your current work, Joel Gray and Alan Cumming both created iconic interpretations of the Emcee, with Neil Patrick Harris, Michael C. Hall and John Stamos following in their famous footsteps. Has it been a challenge to put your own spin on the role?

Randy: Honestly, it's not something I take into consideration at all. I just feel like, if I consciously try to put a different spin on it, it's just silly. The role is the role...it's very freeing and very liberating. Alan and the creative team created the role in this current production, but it is in so many ways a vessel. There's a solid structure, but what I fill it with is personal. It's going to be, you know, my take on it: my humor, my sensibility, my sexuality, my playfulness, my anchor, and so on. I feel like a good actor would hopefully [laughs] fill it with their own life. So many incredible people have played [the role] so well, I feel like I'm sort of a family of people who have played it. I've watched as many people do it on YouTube as I could. The more different people I watched, the more expansive it became in my mind. It was very exciting.

Kyle: As the Master of Ceremonies, I imagine you have some freedom to connect with the audience during the show. Have there been any interactions with crazy fans, or over-the-top theatregoers on tour?

Randy: I can improvise a fair amount in the show, and when we played North Carolina, it was right after HB2 had passed, which is an anti-anti-discrimination law. It's "The Bathroom Law" which states trans people have to use the bathroom that coincides with their birth certificate. It's terrible. We all felt like it needed to be addressed in a direct way. I have this bit in the second act when I ask if everyone had a drink, and if they went to the bathroom - and then I made a joke about how I tried to go, but they wouldn't let me in. It was sort of terrifying at first, because I really didn't know what kind of response I was going to get. But it was an amazing moment; it stopped the show in every performance in North Carolina, with so much support. I felt that North Carolinians (at least at the theatre) were humiliated by what was happening, and felt that this elephant in the room had been addressed. I felt the solidarity. It was an amazing opportunity, specifically with a show that's so directly political, and it was probably a highlight of my career to be able to do that.

There have been crazy moments, too. Every time we get to a new city, I have to figure out where I can bring people up on the stage. Sometime I'll choose someone who looks very excited, because I don't want to be rejected, and then they're impossible to get off the stage. Every once in a while, I'll pick someone and they're too drunk to stand. It's always terrifying, but it's usually one of the best moments in the show for the audience; they eat it up.

Kyle: After five months on tour, how do you keep yourself engaged in the role?

Randy: Well, my scene partner is basically the audience, and the audience is always different. I just need to make sure that I'm connecting with the audience and reacting to them. Every city is different! I'm just starting to get to a place when I'm focusing on different moments I want to emphasize, or have a different focused to make sure I'm as present as possible. Thank god, ninety-nine percent of the time the audience is going to keep me on my toes.

Kyle: How long are you connected to the tour, and where might we find you next?

Randy: I'm definitely going though LA, the first week of August, but I'm hoping to keep on through Toronto. There's a two-month layoff in the middle, so it's doable. I want to play Boston and Toronto, because I grew up outside of Boston and I shot Queer As Folk in Toronto.

What was the other part of the question? Oh, I directed a web series right before I left [for CABARET] called New York Is Dead. I directed and produced it; my friends Matt Wilkas and Jenn Harris wrote it. It has this incredible cast: Ana Gasteyer's in it, and Bebe Newirth, John Early, Jemima Kirk. We're just finishing post-production on it; we're just about to lock picture and begin sound post-production. We're hoping to sell it, and if we don't sell it, we'll get some means of distributing it. That was a great experience. I'm excited to be making the kind of material that I want happen. It was really an exciting prospect. Once you've done it once - once your cherry's popped - the learning curve is done. I'm hoping to continue doing that when I'm off tour.

Kyle: You've been so easy to talk to, thank you for making my job so easy!

Randy: No problem! That was easy! I'm excited to come to Dallas next week. I hear the [Winspear] theatre is beautiful!

CABARET opens at AT&T Performing Arts Center's Winspear Opera House on May 25 and runs through June 5th. For tickets and more information, visit www.ATTPAC.org.

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