Exit
kick broadcasts as clearly as a series of pirouettes. But excepting
a stint with a touring clog troupe
as a child, Chaplin never formally
trained his body. His expertise
came mostly by way of auto-didacticism.
It’s fitting then, that Rob McClure, star of the Broadway musical Chaplin, opening September
10, is a leading man transformed
by crash courses. “I put myself
in the ‘move well’ category,” the
30-year-old New Jersey native
told Huffington, a reference to
industry parlance for agile actors
or actresses who aren’t dancers.
“Move well” types are commonly
pushed to tap on beat, or slide
across a stage.
THEATER
It’s rare they find themselves
roller skating backwards while
tipping a hat, however, as McClure does in a particularly memorable Chaplin number.
To ready himself for a season of
roller skating, tightrope walking,
and circumnavigating a spinning
table on the Barrymore Theater’s
stage, McClure became the willing student of what he and director Warren Carlyle call a “Chaplin
bootcamp.”
“The first day they had me running on that table, I was terrified,”
McClure said in a phone interview. “It’s a spinning table that’s
a foot and a half away from the
edge of the stage. All I was thinking was, ‘Really, how do I do this
without killing myself? And how
do I make it look easy?’”
McClure and his two under-
HUFFINGTON
09.09.12
McClure
brings
Chaplin back
to life, iconic
hat and cane
included,
in this
Broadway
musical.