The fantastic new musical comedy Honeymoon in Vegas hit the jackpot of Broadway leading men with Tony nominee Rob McClure. With impeccable comedic timing and soaring vocals, McClure makes Jack Singer so lovable you can totally forgive him for dating a woman for five years and not marrying her, losing her in a Vegas poker game to Tony Danza and then going crazy in Hawaii trying to win her back. BroadwayBox caught up with the Avenue Q and Chaplin vet to talk about rooming with The Boss, an E.T.-style proposal and his video game oasis.
1. If you were going to pitch a TV show about being housemates with Tony Danza during the musical's Paper Mill run—a la Perfect Strangers or The Odd Couple—what would the name be and what's the pilot premise?
I think it would be called Bromance, and we would definitely have The Odd Couple thing covered. A lot of the show would be about this 63-year-old man teaching a 32-year-old-man how to be in shape because Tony is far more in shape than I will probably ever be. He teaches ya how to work out, how eat right, how treat people – he’s got his act together.
2. In Honeymoon, Jack Singer jumps out a plane dressed as Elvis for Betsy; what’s the most romantic thing you’ve done for your wife Maggie?
Our proposal story: Maggie is a huge E.T. fan, to the point where she can’t watch the movie without crying. (It’s her favorite movie that she can’t watch.) We were doing Avenue Q at the Forrest Theatre in Philadelphia, and we had 85 friends and family at the show that night who all went to a party she didn't know about. The show as over; everyone had gone home; and I left a trail of reese's pieces from her dressing room to the stage a la E.T, and I had her 1982 E.T. doll from her childhood sitting in the middle of the stage holding the ring box. Then the sound designer hit the John Williams flight music from the movie and she lost it. And that’s how I proposed. I knew we were the right people for each other when that nerdy of a proposal was the right way to go for both of us.
3. Ok Philly guy, are you team Pat’s or Geno’s? Where does Rob McClure get his cheesesteak? Wiz? No Wiz? Wit-Wit Out?
I am team Pat’s all the way. They are the original. They invented it; how can you get more authentic Philly cheesesteak than that?! There’s a whole ordering a cheesesteak culture there and if you don’t know, they’ll send you to the back of the line. My favorite is a cheese wiz with onions, which would be wiz wit (not with, don’t put an h on it).
4. What’s something you love to do when you’re alone?
I’m a video game hound. I have a shrine in my house to all game systems. I wanted to play my old original Nintendo and old Atari but the pain in the butt is having to hook them all up, and I realized I’m not playing them because you have to unplug and plug back in. So I went online and found this gigantic system selector, which basically allows you to plug them all into the back of this one thing, and there’s a button for each system. So now we have this big entertainment center in Philly with everything from Nintendo to Xbox and everything in between (Atari, Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega, Sega Genesis, Sega CD, Sega Saturn, Xbox, Xbox 360, PlayStation 1,2 & 3, Wii, Nintendo 64). And Maggie teases me that I’m such a nice guy until I play video games and that's where I take out all my aggression [Laughs].
5. If you could have recorded any scene from Chaplin for future theatre fans to watch Jennifer-Holliday-I’m-Not-Going-style, which would you pick?
I would think it would be what we called “Tramp Discovery,” the moment he becomes The Little Tramp character for the first time. I was really proud of the way all the departments, from the writers to lighting design to costume design to choreography, came together in that moment to show a man reaching his destiny. And it was one of those moments where the lights would change and I would inhabit the physical life of the character and the audience would applaud. It was strange to feel all of this affection for a third party character on their behalf because we had recalled that for [the audience] in such a real way. The culmination of all those ingredients happening at the same time is something I’ll be proud of for a really long time.
Head over to the Nederlander Theatre to see Rob McClure shine in ‘Honeymoon in Vegas.’
