Andy Mientus, best known to theater fans for being on the TV version of SMASH, is back on the New York stage in The Jonathan Larson Project at the Orpheum Theatre Off-Broadway.
Check out other exciting Off-Broadway shows happening this spring.
Conceived by Jennifer Ashley Tepper and directed by John Simpkins, the 90-minute musical features more than 20 undiscovered songs by the Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning writer. It celebrates the dozens of unheard songs, unfinished and unproduced musicals, and pop songs found in files and boxes when the visionary writer of RENT died suddenly at the age of 35 in 1996.
Ahead of the show’s official opening, Mientus caught up with Broadway Direct to chat about the impact RENT had on him, remembering Gavin Creel, and his favorite NYC spot.
1. What inspired you to become an actor?
I swear I’m not doing PR when I say it was seeing RENT. When I was about 11 or 12 years old (you’ll be shocked to learn that was a long time ago, so the exact details are fuzzy), I was playing little league baseball, not very successfully.
One weekend, my best friend and teammate invited me to come build and paint sets for his sister’s production of Peter Pan at a local theater school. I totally loved it and ended up quitting the team to join the theater school in the fall. My parents were not theater people exactly, but they were cultural; my mom was a New Yorker and my dad was a big rock music buff. Wanting to support my new interest, they bought tickets to the tour of that musical they’d seen on the cover of Time for its stop in my hometown of Pittsburgh, PA. I was probably a little too young for it – a lot of references totally flew over my head – but it was my “ring of keys” moment (to borrow from another show).
Not only did I see a new dimension to what musicals could be, but I saw a place for myself in them. This was a show where I could sing the way I’d sing with my dad in the car. It was a show that had people like me – that is to say, queer people – even though I wouldn’t really know that for another ten years. I ended up making my professional debut playing a queer character in another rock show [Spring Awakening], but that show wouldn’t have existed – and I certainly would never have auditioned for it – without RENT.
2. Who in your field inspires you?
Speaking of that other rock musical in which I debuted, I was so fortunate to do Spring Awakening with the great Henry Stram as my “Adult Men.” Among a great many things he’s done, he was in one of the first Julliard groups, the original New York cast of Tony Kushner’s first play, and the original cast of Titanic. He is the winner of an Obie for sustained excellence. He’s also the kindest and wisest person I’ve ever met. To do my very first job as a 21-year-old kid with an actor like Henry was profoundly influential. He was then and is now the blueprint for how to quietly build a life in the theater marked by sustained excellence rather than flash and celebrity and how to do it in a way where everyone adores him.
And on the subject of excellent actors everyone adores, I’ve been thinking so much about my friend Gavin Creel on this show. Like Jonathan Larson, Gavin was an absolute luminary in our field taken from us far too soon. Like Gavin, I attended the University of Michigan where absolutely every boy wanted to grow up to be him. I still do. I miss him terribly.
3. What should audiences be most excited about seeing in The Jonathan Larson Project?
The show is unique in that it’s just as much an art restoration/preservation project as it is an engaging 90 minutes of musical theater. It’s wild to think that some of these songs were waiting quietly at the bottom of a box in the Library of Congress for decades and could have so easily been lost but are now brought to such full-scale, thrilling theatrical life every night. Each song is its own little art piece, some charming early sketches, some shocking divergences from the artist’s previously known canon, some hidden masterpieces, but all, I think, fascinating, worthy of being heard, and presented with passion, care, and skill across all departments. It’s a gallery show of miraculously new work from one of the great American masters of our field.
4. If you didn’t need to sleep at night, what would you spend your time doing?
Probably going out to bars/clubs and meeting new people. I’m incredibly social and always seeking adventure and connection in our city’s nightlife, though that’s tough to engage in when doing a musical eight times a week. So right now, I’m on my good boy behavior, but the show is filling my social/adventure battery in other ways.
5. What is your favorite NYC spot?
I’d have to say 3 Dollar Bill in East Williamsburg. For the uninitiated, it’s a queer bar/club with an outdoor space (and food!) that hosts events for absolutely everyone, all the time. I’ve danced outside there under the sun as well as inside until dawn. I’ve seen some of the funniest and most twisted drag of my life there. I’ve made scores of new friends there. I’ve lost my credit card many times and have always gotten it back, which is a sign of good community. And speaking of community, it’s one of the more egalitarian queer spaces I’ve found in NYC, which is so refreshing. I feel like it’s a place we’ll talk about in twenty years and say we were THERE, you know?
Catch The Jonathan Larson Project Off-Broadway, now playing at the Orpheum Theatre.