“It was honestly so emotional to be in a rehearsal room with people,” says Randy Harrison. “I had forgotten how much I missed it, and how special it was.” The actor, best known for Showtime’s Queer as Folk, is talking about Studio Theatre’s Cock. Filmed in February at the company’s 14th Street venue, the process of rehearsing and shooting under “very, very, very strict” COVID protocols ended up heightening the whole experience.
“We basically did nothing besides go to rehearsal and go back to our apartments,” Harrison says. “We got our groceries delivered. We rehearsed with masks the vast majority of the time. I remember after a week or two of rehearsals…it felt so risky and dangerous and naughty to be taking our masks off inside [even though we] were more than six feet apart pretty much the whole time. But just to see each other’s faces after rehearsing with masks, it created an even greater intimacy.”
The debut digital production from Studio, Cock also marks the first full-scale show Harrison has done in a year. “I can’t imagine what it’s going to feel like to be on a stage in front of a full house again someday. I just think it’s going to be overwhelming, and hopefully for the audiences, too.
And yet, Harrison isn’t resting on his laurels, or even betting his career on a live arts renaissance.
“I’ve actually gone back to school,” he says. “I’m getting a second bachelor’s degree. I already have one in theater, but I’m getting one in psychology and potentially getting a Master’s or a PhD in the future [to] become a counselor. We’ll see.”
Still, Harrison is hesitant to make a drastic career shift. “I love acting and have made a great life for myself for 25 years doing it. So it’s going to depend on how things open up this year: the kind of work opportunities that become available or don’t become available. And my passion for school, and the kind of grad programs I get into or don’t get into. And where I end up living. Everything’s up in the air.”
Since Queer as Folk ended, Harrison has worked pretty exclusively in the theater, both on Broadway and at the regional level. “We can theorize reasons why, but the opportunities weren’t that interesting as a young gay guy who’d been on television in that show,” Harrison says of his first few years after Queer as Folk concluded its run in 2005. “It was often offensive auditions or things that I just thought, ‘This is not something I want to be doing,’ ‘This is not the kind of image I want to be creating,’ or ‘I don’t want to be performing straight people’s idea of gay people.'” By contrast, “the kind of writing that was available to me in theater was just astoundingly better. And the opportunities were better.”
The 43-year-old says his “capital in the film and television world is certainly of another generation at this point.”
Prior to the pandemic, Harrison had a gig lined up Off-Broadway that was punted to the fall of 2021, and is eagerly waiting to see whether that actually comes to fruition. In the meantime, he’s still relishing his experience with a show he’s wanted to do since it first made waves on London’s West End in 2009. Harrison plays John in Mike Bartlett’s Cock, a gay man stuck in a zero-sum “situation” of being torn between lovers — one of whom is “the only woman he’s ever been with.”
A high-stakes drama that’s also extremely funny, Harrison calls Cock “extraordinarily relevant” and “an interesting discussion-starter about the way we’ve already changed how we talk about identity and sexuality and gender.” In Harrison’s hands, John is about as likeable and understandable as the character gets, yet even so, one’s feelings about him and his handling of the situation are deliberately complicated.
“There’s something attractive and charming about him, and there’s something enraging about him. But most people are like that, once you get to know them. Especially the people you love.”
Cock streams on-demand through April 18. Tickets are $37. Visit www.studiotheatre.org.
"Depending on the cities that we're in, people have more or less familiarity with the piece, and with the song specifically," says Matt Rodin of the Stephen Sondheim classic "Getting Married Today."
The showstopper is a highlight of the composer's Tony Award-winning musical Company, and Rodin, who performs it in the production now at the Kennedy Center, refers to it as a "rollercoaster."
Company debuted on Broadway in 1970 with music and lyrics by Sondheim and a book by George Firth. Director Marianne Elliott conceived of this production before the pandemic as a way to mark the musical's 50th anniversary.
Katy O'Brian has frozen mid-sentence, her warm expression fixed in time. It's the second time during a 45-minute Zoom call that technology has glitched.
"I don't know what's going on with my internet," she apologizes, returning to the call moments later. "It's crazy."
What is especially crazy is how Katy O'Brian's career has blown up over the past few years. From a stint in Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania as take-no-crap rebel Jentorra, to The Mandalorian, as comms officer Elia Kane, to her latest stint as Jackie, an aspiring bodybuilder who falls in love with Kristen Stewart's Lou in the vibrant, thrilling Love Lies Bleeding, O'Brian is leaving no corner of the cinematic cultural landscape unexplored. Later this summer, she'll be seen in the eagerly anticipated Twisters in a role designed for comic relief, she hints.
Michael Shayan isn't himself the first time we meet, right before a performance of his solo show Avaaz at the Olney Theatre Center. Garbed in a gorgeous golden caftan, Shayan is, in that moment, wafting through the audience as Roya, Queen of Gays.
"The pre-show is so fun because I go around in character as my mother," Shayan says when we finally meet for a video chat about the one-person show, in which he portrays his larger-than-life Iranian-Jewish mom, Roya.
For the audience, that portrayal, in all its loving and scrutinizing detail, begins with the pre-show greeting. "I'm her, and I'm welcoming you into my home for this party," Shayan says. "That element has always been part of the show because I want it to feel like you're really being welcomed into a party. I want the play to feel like a party."
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