Broadway's 'Something Rotten!' will make its SoCal premiere at Segerstrom Center

Oct. 31, 2017 2:50 PM PT

Segerstrom Center for the Arts will present the Southern California premiere of “Something Rotten!” featuring three principal cast members from Broadway.

The musical comedy, with 16 performances Nov. 7 to 19 in Segerstrom Hall, was nominated for 10 Tony Awards, including Best Musical.

Broadway actors Adam Pascal (“Rent,” “Cabaret,” “Aida”), Josh Grisetti (“Enter Laughing”) and Rob McClure (“Avenue Q” and “Chaplin: The Musical”) will star in the story set in 1595.

“Something Rotten!” follows Bottom brothers Nick (McClure) and Nigel (Grisetti) who struggle to achieve success in theater as they compete with their popular contemporary, William Shakespeare (Pascal).

“The show’s primary function is to make the audience laugh and introduce a new original American musical, but it also has to do with [the line from “Hamlet”] ‘(To) thine own self be true’ because Nick is not trusting his own instincts,” McClure said by phone during a stop in Denver.

“Anyone who has dabbled in art professionally knows what it feels like to be stunted,” McClure said.

McClure, 35, has received Tony, Drama League, Astaire and Outer Critics Circle nominations and won Theatre World and Clive Barnes awards.

His character is married to Bea, played by actress Maggie Lakis, to whom McClure has been married for eight years. The couple met 12 years ago when they performed — he as Doody, she as Frenchy — in a production of “Grease” in New Jersey.

McClure already had performed in “Something Rotten!” for the last eight months on Broadway and learned Lakis would join him as his wife on stage for the tour after she auditioned for the role and earned the part.

“I can tell he’s having some difficulty, and he’s not communicating with me,” Lakis said of McClure’s character.

“We joke that she’s the first feminist,” McClure said with a laugh.

The new musical is directed and choreographed by Tony Award winner Casey Nicholaw (“The Book of Mormon” and “Aladdin”) with music and lyrics by Grammy Award winner and Tony nominee Wayne Kirkpatrick and book by Tony nominees Karey Kirkpatrick and best-selling author John O’Farrell.

The cast and crew visited their 27th city in mid-October, marking over 300 performances before heading to Costa Mesa and then to the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles from Nov. 21 to Dec. 31.

“It’s a celebration of musical comedy,” McClure said.

Lakis added, “And it’s about having to stop from comparing yourself to others because every path is different.”