Sunday, May 18, 2014

The night of the Hedwig

Yes May 18 is H-day!

I was amused and gratified to learn that I'm not the only one who thought that Neil Patrick Harris (NPH) was the perfect choice to play Hedwig.

This Rolling Stone article reveals that the Hedwig team itself is in complete agreement with me - and in fact they wanted NPH for the role so much that they waited years, postponing the production, in order to have him:
Binder: We always wanted Neil — always. It was an ongoing discussion with him for years. But Neil was on a TV show that he had committed to, and then three years ago he had the twins. It took us a long, long time. He wanted to do it, but he just had obligations — personal ones and professional ones. I mean, he has twins! It really became a waiting game.  
Mitchell: There were other actors who we knew would be great but they had a really strong instinct about Neil. I had known him socially enough to say hello to over the years; he came to Hedwig and it was intense for him. It was the antithesis of L.A. in some ways — it was dirty and ugly and messy, and I could see his eyes glowing. But that was 15 years ago. So when they suggested him, I thought that was a fascinating idea. We were basically on a death watch for How I Met Your Mother, because there was no way he could do it with the show.  
Mayer: He's got all of these amazing skills that work so brilliantly for this: the acting, the singing, the dancing. He's an incredible host, and Hedwig is sort of the host for the evening. Neil's great at improvising — we've seen him do that at the Tony Awards — so he's got that great rapport with the audience. I just loved Neil's integrity as an artist, and his bravery as a gay artist. I had an instinct that this would give him an opportunity to just dig into parts of himself that he's never needed to access before for his work.