Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal know they’re inextricably linked as Mark Cohen and Roger Davis, the characters they played in the original Broadway cast of “Rent.”
Their status as one of musical theater’s most recognizable duos was part of the inspiration for their latest collaboration, “Adam Pascal & Anthony Rapp: Celebrating Friendship & History,” a 10-night residency that’s running at midtown Manhattan’s 54 Below through Aug. 17.
“Everyone knows us as Roger and Mark. This seemed like a natural progression to our friendship and working relationship,” says Pascal, 53. Rapp, 52, notes that while the two have headline other concerts in the 28 years since “Rent” opened on Broadway, “this is the first time we’re on stage the whole time together.”
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In addition to several songs from “Rent” — “Light My Candle,” “What You Own” and “Seasons of Love” among them — they perform music that inspired them while they were 20somethings in the late Jonathan Larson’s rock opera about young, broke artists struggling to survive in Manhattan’s East Village under the shadow of the HIV/AIDS crisis. “Under Pressure” by Queen, “I-95” by Fountains of Wayne and “Say Hello 2 Heaven” by Temple of the Dog are also on the set list.
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“We didn’t want to do too many songs from ‘Rent,'” says Pascal. “It was almost 30 years ago. We have other things we’d like to perform.”
Rapp and Pascal spoke to Variety after a recent show about reuniting on stage, the ill-fated 2005 “Rent” movie (which starred most of the original cast), as well as their optimism and disillusionment with the state of Broadway.
How did this show come about?
Pascal: I would venture to say there’s no male duo from Broadway more recognizable than he and I — other than Nathan [Lane] and Matthew [Broderick of “The Producers”]. A number of years ago, I approached Anthony and said, “We should do some concerts together. We’ll draw more people if it’s both of us.” We started doing stuff together, and lo and behold, we drew more people.
What do you remember about the first time you met?
Rapp: I will never forget it. I did the “Rent” workshop in 1994, which Adam was not a part of. Jonathan and I kept in touch, and he told me he was so excited about the guy they cast as Roger. When I say he was so excited, he was, like, jumping out of his skin. Jonathan hosted this little dinner at his apartment the night before our first day of rehearsal. He brought me over to Adam, who was wearing overalls —
Pascal: I wore overalls every day. It was my thing back then.
Rapp: — and, like, a Robin Hood’s merry men lace-up shirt with bleach blonde hair. I was like, “This guy is Roger?” And then, of course, the next day when he opened his mouth and started singing, the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
Pascal: I remember meeting Anthony and thinking he’s so familiar. How do I know this guy? I’ve seen all his movies, but I just didn’t connect it.
Do you remember the first time you sang “What You Own” together?
Rapp: I do.
Pascal: Do you? I actually don’t.
Rapp: It was new to that production. I remember standing around the piano, and Tim, our music director, was teaching it to us with Jonathan in the room. Just feeling the vibe, the groove of it, and the harmonies… it’s a big song. It’s not easy to sing. I remember going, “Wow, we’re being given a gift to do this together.”
Pascal: It’s definitely the most rock song in the show, other than maybe “Rent.” I was looking for that. I grew up playing in rock bands, and “Rent” was sold to me as a rock musical. In my mind, rock musicals were “Tommy” and “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” When I heard this music, I was like, “This isn’t what I was expecting.” It took a while. The first thing I ever heard was a demo of “One Song Glory” that Jonathan was singing. Jonathan was not the best singer, and it was just him on his little keyboard. Once I started singing it, it made sense to me. But just upon hearing it, I remember being underwhelmed and literally thinking, “Oh God. What have I got myself into?”
Looking back, what was it like to be caught up in the mania of “Rent”?
Rapp: It was pre social media. So the fact that we had that much hype when there wasn’t social media is remarkable. It was like the “Hamilton” of its time in many ways, but so much of what was driving “Hamilton’s” energy was social media.
Pascal: And Lin [Manuel Miranda]. I imagine if Jonathan had lived, he would have been our Lin, out there promoting it in the same way.
Rapp: It was a tornado, but at the core of all this crazy energy was this connection we had to each other. The fact that Jonathan wasn’t there kept it very grounded and serious. I don’t mean serious as in gloomy, but as in important.
Pascal: Every night we went on stage, we all felt a certain amount of responsibility and pressure to live up to what everybody was expecting from us.
What was it like to see Jonathan’s life dramatized in the “Tick, Tick… Boom” movie?
Pascal: I’m not a fan of the show, but I absolutely loved the movie. It was wonderful on every level. I thought Andrew Garfield did such a good job of playing Jonathan.
Rapp: I’m very moved by “Tick, Tick… Boom” every time I’ve seen it. It’s hard for me to feel objective because it is so personal to Jonathan. In my experience of knowing him, it doesn’t feel sugar coated. Watching that piece and seeing how much self doubt he had and how much despair he was staring down and how he almost gave up is painful. I’m glad it exists and that people are getting to know more of his music other than “Rent.” He was so prolific. He did this thing where he challenged himself for a while to write a song a day, and he would call up his friends in the middle of the night and make them listen to his song on the phone. And sometimes they were terrible. He was so committed and driven and ambitious. Not ambitious to be famous, but ambitious to write something meaningful and make a mark.
Adam, how did your cameo in the film come together? Anthony, why weren’t you a part of it?
Pascal: Lin called and said, “Do you want to do this cameo?” I was on set actually shooting for maybe a half an hour, but I had to quarantine for two weeks. They put me up in this great apartment in Brooklyn.
Rapp: I couldn’t do it because I was in Toronto doing “Star Trek: Discovery,” and we were in lockdown. I couldn’t come back to New York, because I would have had to quarantine for two weeks.
“Rent” is approaching the 30th anniversary of its Broadway debut. Does the cast keep in touch?Will there be a reunion?
Rapp: We keep in touch. We have a text thread where we talk to each other fairly often, at least, to say, “Hello” and “happy birthday” and share pictures of our kids. The group chat is called “Rent Family,” and it actually started after we did the ill-fated Fox live performance. Many of us have kept up over the years, but that was the first time we had all gotten together in person in a while. I don’t know that it’s up to us to do a reunion. It would be great. I feel like we should do something, even if it’s just, like, a panel. It might be hard to get everybody together because Jesse [L. Martin] is doing his TV show and Idina [Menzel] is always touring the world.
Do you think “Rent” will be revived on Broadway?
Pascal: Absolutely, yeah, it will. I mean, everything eventually is… I think the timing has to be right. Maybe the 30 year [anniversary] is the time to do it?
Rapp: It’s a period piece. The face of AIDS and HIV has changed tremendously. So in that sense, it’s a time capsule of those moments before protease inhibitors or PREP. At the same time, we’re still talking about some of these things: inequities, health care…
Pascal: Not being able to pay rent!
Rapp: So, if there is a revival, I don’t think it should just be a carbon copy.
Pascal: I agree. I certainly wouldn’t want to see a carbon copy of what we did, and I don’t think the audience would either. They would want to see something that’s more of today, whatever that means.
How has the Broadway landscape changed since “Rent”?
Rapp: It’s not so dominated by Andrew Lloyd Webber. There’s a more of a multiplicity of voices and people whose stories are being told and the kinds of stories being told. Broadway is always going to be that commercial monster that’s eating artistic ambitions. But there are some beautiful gems that come through. I thought “Illinoise” was extraordinary; one of the best things I’ve ever seen. How likely was that to be a Broadway show? Certainly the time before “Rent” happened, never. And now, it’s not such an outlier.
Pascal: I don’t have the same rosy outlook that my friend Anthony does. Everything is an adaptation of something else, generally a movie. I just hate that. It cheesifies the whole thing. I’m really disillusioned with the lack of creativity. When one of these movies gets made into a musical, 90% of the time, it’s not a single person’s inspired idea. It’s making a musical by committee. Somebody owns the rights, and they cobble together a bunch of talented people who generally churn out crap because there’s no singular inspiration. It’s disgusting. It’s not how you make art. Art should be created by somebody who has an inspiration to create something, and not by a room full of executives who are trying to figure out how to exploit the title.
Rapp: I agree with that.
Pascal: [Turns to Rapp] I know your brother [Adam Rapp] wrote “The Outsiders,” and I’m glad it’s doing well, but it’s just another example of that idea. I wish it would change. I don’t think it’s going to because of the financial realities of mounting a Broadway show. I understand from a producer perspective, you want the show to be able to sell. I’m not saying there’s not a gem every once in a while. Again, people love “The Outsiders.” I’m sure it’s great. I don’t mean to disparage every single one of these shows that’s adapted from a movie. But most of them are bad.
Was there anything from the “Rent” movie that you wish they didn’t change from the stage version?
Pascal: Daphne. I’m kidding — I love Rosario.
[Editor’s note: Daphne Rubin-Vega originated the role of Mimi on Broadway, while Rosario Dawson played the character in the movie.]
Rapp: We filmed “Halloween” but they cut it and a good chuck of “Goodbye Love” in the final edit. Chris [Columbus, the film’s director] called to let us know it happened. The explanation does make a certain kind of sense to me. When a film is two and a half hours, there’s no break. So the emotional highs and lows are different than a show with an intermission. He was saying by the time they got to “Halloween” and “Goodbye Love,” that lack of relief made the film not be able to land as powerfully. One of my favorite parts of the whole show was the sequence from “I’ll Cover You” reprise into “Halloween,” into “Goodbye Love” into “What You Own.” I’m sad it’s not in the film, but it’s on the deleted scenes.
Is there anything you try to avoid now because of its association with “Rent,” like scarves or plaid pants?
Pascal: I don’t think I would bleach my hair again. [Laughs]. At this point in my life, I embrace all of it. I’m so proud of it and grateful for my connection to it.
Rapp: I worked with Kelly Bishop a couple times who was the original Sheila in “A Chorus Line.” The way she spoke of “A Chorus Line” and her relationship to her fellow cast members made a huge impression on me, and that’s what I feel about this too. There’s nothing to run away from or try to put behind us. It transformed our lives, and it was a huge gift. It made everything possible. I know sometimes some artists feel like they have to redefine themselves. We’ve all done plenty of other things, and it will always probably be the No. 1 thing on our tombstone.
Pascal: When something is this huge, everything will pale in comparison. That’s a hard thing to navigate. When the first thing you do becomes the monster that it became, you can only go down in terms of success and what the show did to the audience. Every night, we would come out of the stage door to people weeping and saying, “You changed my life.” “You’ve gotten me through this.” “You’ve saved me.” Things you don’t hear when you do a regular musical. I would go home every night being like, “They can’t really mean that. They’re overreacting.”
This interview has been edited and condensed.
