Rob McClure knows the exact moment when he first understood the transformative power of live theater.
Rob McClure (Photo credit: Brigitte Jouxtel)
He was 15 and watching a community theater production of a show he didn't know called Sweeney Todd put on by the Bergen County Players in Oradell, New Jersey.
The surprise ending did him in. "I remember being so floored. I thought, tomorrow there's going to be another audience who doesn't know that's coming," he recalls. "I have to be there when they find out." So every Friday, Saturday and Sunday for three months he saw every performance. "They got me a cast jacket for a show I wasn't in," says McClure. "That was it. I didn't care in what capacity. I just knew I wanted to be around where there were people and an audience together in the same room telling great stories."
From there, he started doing plays anywhere they would have him in any capacity: at school, church basements, community theaters, in college. "If they needed someone to run lights or sound, move props or design makeup, I didn't care what it was. I just wanted to be around where that was happening," he shares.
After graduating from New Milford High School, he landed his first professional gig doing Carousel at the Paper Mill Playhouse. A year later, he appeared inI'm Not Rappaport there. When the show moved to Broadway, McClure made his Broadway debut opposite Judd Hirsch and Ben Vereen.
His first starring role on Broadway was playing Charlie Chaplin in Chaplin: The Musical. McClure was nominated for a Tony. That iconic role made an indelible mark. "I see him in any comedy I encounter. He shaped plot-based comedy which didn't come from shtick, but came from story, empathy -- your tragic everyman character longing for a better life," says McClure. "He's changed the way I approach comedy which is not starting with the joke, but the man behind the joke."
Last month, McClure, who recently ended a smash run of Noises Off at the Roundabout Theatre Company took over the role of Nick Bottom in Something Rotten!, previously played by Brian d'Arcy James. "The whole world, including me, loves him so it was terrifying," reveals McClure who also just performed a what-got-him-into-Broadway concert of his musical influences at Feinstein's/54 Below. "But luckily, the cast, crew and audience have opened their arms to me and allowed it to be a seamless transition."
Another great source of joy is his wife and fellow performer Maggie Lakis. The couple met in a 2005 New Jersey production of Grease where he was Doody and Lakis played Frenchy. "I take issue with that whole "don't date actors" edict. There are lunatics and narcissists in any field," says McClure, who did the national tour of Avenue Q with Lakis. "It helps to have someone who gets when I'm sitting at the coffee table trying to get off book memorizing lines, making weird faces and asking her to run lines with me." The couple resides in Philadelphia, a simple commute via Amtrak, yet lovingly worlds away. "You get a lot more for your money, it's a great arts town and the Philadelphia theater community has exploded in the last 10 years. My wife and I love working there wherever we can," he says.
Rob McClure in Something Rotten! (Photo: Joan Marcus)