Rapp, Anthony 1971-

views updated

Rapp, Anthony 1971-
(Anthony Deane Rapp)

PERSONAL:

Born October 26, 1971, in Chicago, IL; son of Douglas and Mary Rapp.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY. Agent—David Buchalter, Greater Talent Network, Inc., 437 5th Ave.,New York, NY 10016.

CAREER:

Actor and singer, appearing in the Broadway production of the musical Rent and inYou're a Good Man, Charlie Brown; John Guare's Six Degrees of Separation; and Precious Sons. Actor in films, including Danny Roane: First Time Director, Adventures in Babysitting, School Ties, Dazed and Confused, Six Degrees of Separation, Man of the Century, David Searching, Road Trip, A Beautiful Mind, and Rent. Actor in television programs, includingThe Lazarus Man, The X-Files, The Beach Boys: An American Family, Law and Order: SVU, andKidnapped. Singer with band Albinokid, and on solo album Look Around, Pai Gow Productions, 2000. Sometimes credited as Anthony Deane Rapp.

AWARDS, HONORS:

OBIE Award for performance inRent.

WRITINGS:

(With brother, Adam Rapp) Ursula's Permanent(play), produced in New York, NY, at Kraine Theater, 1993.

Without You: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and the Musical "Rent" (autobiography), Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Anthony Rapp has been a professional actor since childhood, but he is best known for portraying the lead character, Mark Cohen, in the award-winning rock opera Rent. Narrated by Cohen,Rent portrays the struggles of the inhabitants of New York's East Village, as they deal with love, art, AIDS, and loss. Rapp also played Mark Cohen in the film adaptation of Rent. In addition to his work in Rent,Rapp has distinguished himself in other plays, on television, and in films. He made his first appearance on Broadway at the age of ten, in a musical adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince.While still a child, he made national tours with the companies of the shows Evita and The King and I. He has also collaborated with his brother, Adam Rapp, in writing and directing the play Ursula's Permanent.Rapp set down his memories of growing up, perform- ing, finding his own identity, and coping with his mother's death in his book Without You: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and the Musical "Rent."

More than any of the other actors in Rent, Rapp became very closely associated with the play, and has often given interviews on the show, its themes, and its development, perhaps because his character was the fictional alter ego of the playwright and composer. People who are great fans of the musical will be most interested in Without You, according to Entertainment Weekly reviewer Melissa Rose Bernardo. She found Rapp's prose style occasionally "overwrought," but praised him for remaining "unpretentious" and genuine in his memoir. He begins his book with a series of auditions and workshops related to Rent, then shifts the focus to his home in Illinois. Doctors had discovered a tumor on his mother's adrenal gland, and over the next months, he watched her health decline as his career took off. Their relationship had always been close, but had gone through some strain, in part because of his romantic involvements with men. On days off from Rent, the actor flew home to spend time with his mother during her final days. A Publishers Weekly writer recommended Without You as a "sensitive, heartfelt" story that is also "absorbing, warm and hopeful." Without You is an "impressive" first book, according to a Kirkus Reviews writer. Rapp brings "a keen actor's sense of detail, timing and pathos to the page."