Meet the Nominees: Rob McClure
NEW YORK -- Broadway is abuzz after nominations for the 75th Annual Tony Awards were announced.
The trophies will be handed out on June 12 on CBS2, and CBS2's Dave Carlin got the chance to interview some of the nominees in person at the annual "Meet the Nominees" event.
Rob McClure is nominated for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical for "Mrs. Doubtfire," based on the 1993 movie starring Robin Williams. McClure plays Daniel Hillard, an out-of-work actor who loses custody of his kids in a divorce and disguises himself as a Scottish nanny to try to stay in their lives.
"What you do up there is a magic act every day. Tell me about the transformation that happens back and forth throughout this production," Carlin said.
"It's wild. We do, I do 248 quick changes a week, 31 a show, and it takes a team," McClure said. "They are my Indianapolis 500 pit crew who make that happen, and it's a really cool thing, and something that we have on the movie is that in the movie, when Robin Williams runs in the other room and comes back 18 seconds later as Mrs. Doubtfire, everybody knows that somebody yelled 'cut' and he went into a trailer for four hours. In the show, if I have 18 seconds, I have 18 seconds, and the audience knows I have 18 seconds. So they get to enjoy that insanity with me and sweat with me, so the stakes feel so high, and what's so great about a story like this and a show like this is that the comedy, it's subversive in its heart. You go expecting to laugh what you do, but the story really has a profound message."
"It wouldn't work if we didn't think that you are a dad who loves his kids so very very much and that propels the show so importantly," Carlin said.
"When I started playing Mrs. Doubtfire three years ago for the first workshop, I didn't have a kid, and now I have a 3-year-old daughter. And the lengths to which I would go for her know no bounds," McClure said. "Our show is all about family and how far would you go for your family? So we really do I mean, you know, theater people like to throw around the term 'family' and 'we're family, we're family,' but something about this show and what the show is about encourages that atmosphere."
"Mrs. Doubtfire" is running at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre through May 29. Producers plan to launch a national tour of the show in 2023 and bring the musical to England later this year.
