the arts
“I BASICALLY OWE MY
CAREER TO PAPER
MILL PLAYHOUSE.”
ROB McCLURE
Rob McClure (left) and Tony Danza in
Honeymoon in Vegas at Paper Mill Playhouse.
“ I
basically owe my career to Paper
Mill Playhouse,” New Milford
native and Tony Award nominee
Rob McClure says, “and I’m
happy to say that.”
McClure earned a Rising Star
Award nomination from the
Playhouse as a New Milford High
School sophomore for his perform-
ance in Hello, Dolly! Two years later,
he won one for Where’s Charley?
and received a scholarship in
the Playhouse’s summer theater
conservatory.
“That was my first formal training
in theater or acting,” McClure says.
“It was life-changing. The staff, the
teachers, Susan Speidel and Mickey
McNany, who founded the program
with Lisa Cooney, they are life-chang-
ers. All your relatives say, ‘Oh, you’re
better than Broadway,’ but you don’t
take it seriously until it’s coming from
people who do this for a living. Then,
I started seeing shows there, and the
credibility it lends to their opinions,
40
FALL 2017 MILLBURN & SHORT HILLS MAGAZINE
to see the work they were doing,
be in Honeymoon in Vegas, he’d have
my gosh.
thought you were crazy. But I trace it
“They had me audition for
all back to the Rising Star Award.
Carousel, and that
That was the
was my first profes-
first moment
sional job, in the
somebody gave
summer of 2001.”
me a nudge and
The Honeymooners said, ‘Hey this
McClure didn’t
want to leave after
isn’t just fun.
(Sept. 28 through Oct. 29)
that. He took a job
This is what
in the Playhouse’s
you should do
(Nov. 22 through Dec. 31)
box office. Later, he
for your life.’
understudied a role
Then, they
in a Playhouse pro-
backed it up
duction of I’m Not Rappaport, which
with teachers and opportunities.
soon moved to Broadway. The rest is
“Their productions are unmatched,
history. McClure went on to appear
but more than that, their education
in Avenue Q and to star in Chaplin,
and outreach programs are creating
both on Broadway. Then, in 2013,
future artists and audiences. They’re
he returned to the Playhouse to star
largely responsible for the future of
with Tony Danza (TURN TO PAGE 36) in
this art form.”
Honeymoon in Vegas, which subse-
And, chances are, Paper Mill
quently transferred to Broadway.
Playhouse hasn’t seen the last of
“To go back there originating a
McClure.
new role in a Jason Robert Brown
“If they will have me,” he says,
musical?” McClure marvels. “If you
“I’m 100 percent positive that I
told the kid in the box office that the
will jump at the opportunity to be
next time he visited Paper Mill, he’d
back.” ■
UPCOMING PRODUCTIONS
Annie
Rob McClure