- "Mrs. Doubtfire" is headed to a city near you.
The comedy musical, now on tour.
And returning to the title role, Rob McClure,
who earned a Tony nomination
for his performance on Broadway.
Let's check back in with Paul Wontorek.
- That's right, Tamsen.
Rob McClure is revisiting his titanic comedic performance
in Mrs. Doubtfire, alongside wife
and fellow performer, Maggie Lakis.
I sat down with the real life couple
at New 42nd Street Studios
before they kicked off the national tour.
(upbeat music)
You are back, getting ready to go back
into this crazy role, and these costumes,
and these quick changes, and this beautiful story.
What was it like making the decision to step back in,
and obviously, this great treat
of getting to do it together?
- Yeah, it's this weird dichotomy
because I've been doing this show for a long time,
but actually not many performances,
because the universe kept on interfering.
We came from the Fifth Avenue Theatre in Seattle,
where we had broken their box office records.
We were coming to Broadway with this great advance.
We were super excited.
And third preview, we didn't even get to open,
when the pandemic hit.
18 months went away, came back,
and we're just starting to build an advance again.
And then Omicron came and knocked us out.
And so there was a part of me
that felt like unfinished business with that show, you know.
For as much time as I spent with it,
I never really got a satisfying run
where I could catch my stride and, you know,
and feel like it found the people who needed it
when they needed it most.
People who come to see tours are enthusiastic.
They're so great.
There's a mutual gratitude when you go on tour.
And there is like, there is the sense of a touring audience
who go like, "Oh, we've been waiting for you."
You know what I mean?
And we're just, and the show stays fresh in a way
because you're constantly faced with opening nights,
and closing nights, and opening nights, and closing nights,
and new markets, and new conversations
with new press people in new cities.
So it keeps it fresh in that way.
And then the company bonds on tour
in a way that they don't anywhere else.
So I'm just as excited to bring it to them
as they are to come and see it.
And it's nice to get to do it.
- Now Maggie, you've also lived with this show. (laughing)
- Yeah.
- All these years.
Sometimes at home with your daughter
while Rob was doing the show,
and sort of watched him go through this whole thing as well.
What's your relationship with the show
and was this sort of like a role
that you were like, wait a minute.
- Yeah, certainly.
- I can play Miranda.
- (laughs) Certainly there is like an oddness that they are,
you know, a couple, you meet them and they're divorcing.
- Right, right. - But, so it's a great role.
It's a great show.
And I, my relationship with it is I saw it change so much.
Once the pandemic happened,
I was actually very separate from it
because it was all about keeping him healthy.
- The bubble, the bubble, yeah.
- You know, so I never was backstage, you know,
Sadie never was backstage.
So I didn't really get,
I got to know some of the cast in Seattle,
but I didn't really get to be
feel really a part of it during the pandemic.
And even getting to see it as much when it was in New York
because you had to be careful about
finding a babysitter who, you know, it was just,
it was a stressful time to be in live theater, you know?
- Yeah, but it also, it like, it's so interesting.
Yesterday was the first time in rehearsal I put on the mask.
And I put on the mask and Maggie came walking up to me.
Was like, "Whoa."
And I was like, "What?
I've done this for how many years?"
And she was like, "I never came backstage,
I've never seen this up close."
- Yeah, I'd seen pictures and videos
that he showed me, but yeah.
- Because she couldn't come backstage.
- You had been on the road together before.
And you did "Something Rotten" on the road.
- [Rob] And "Avenue Q."
This will be our third.
- But this time there is a third member of your family
- Yeah.
- Sadie, who's about to be five.
So what does this mean?
What are the logistics here
and what was the decision like?
And just tell me how this is all gonna work.
- Yeah, we're still learning what this means,
and what the logistics will be.
But we had like wonderful advice during "Something Rotten."
Autumn Hurlbert toured with us
and she had her son Lincoln.
- And our friends Sebastian Arcelus
and Steph Block just toured in
"Into the Woods" with their daughter.
So we had a lot of people
we could reach out and ask for advice.
And luckily, Sadie will turn five in December,
which means she doesn't start kindergarten this September.
She starts it the following September.
So we could go on this big family adventure.
- It's the perfect year to go on an adventure
- And be done right before she starts school.
So it wasn't like we would have to pull her outta school
and figure out, you know, homeschooling or whatever.
She can just go and have an adventure
and then start school when we get back.
- And I think one of the big decisions
is when Kevin McCollum approached us about this
was that she could feel welcome at the theater.
Because she had to be so separate during the pandemic,
because she couldn't get sick 'cause he couldn't get sick.
So she, you know, couldn't really go and do like,
go back to daycare when most of the kids were going back.
So we, you know, it was really important to us
that she feel like a part of a community and a company.
Obviously we want her to not be in the way of the show,
but just to feel like she'll be around the other kids.
And they've already met. - They're already buddies.
She's already friends with the Hillard kids,
which makes me so happy.
They're already so sweet to her.
And the first day she came home from rehearsal
she said, "Those are the nicest kids I've ever met."
- Yes, they were so kind, yeah.
- They were so kind to me.
- Aw. - Yeah.
- This show has a big, beautiful heart.
And since you experienced it as an audience member first,
I'm curious, what do you love about it?
- I remember when this movie came out,
friends who came from families that were divorced
talked about how special of a movie it was
because the happy ending wasn't them getting back together.
Because for so long that's what it was.
The happy ending is the parents separate,
like "Parent Trap," and you get 'em back together.
But this wasn't about that.
And this is a different happy ending.
And finding, like building a new family,
and what does family mean.
And what's wonderful about it is that even though
they stay on their separate paths,
there's still love and respect.
- And joy. - Yeah.
And that there's happiness for everyone
at the end of the play,
without it being that and they get back together, you know.
- Right.
Anytime a movie becomes a musical
there's a huge swath of people who go, why?
And they're right.
There needs to be a reason, right?
But I have like over 220 letters
from children, to adults, to grandparents,
who are all answering the question
of why "Mrs. Doubtfire" should be a musical.
Do you know, in the movie, Mrs. Doubtfire reads a letter
from a girl named Katie who's going through divorce.
The musical has a similar moment,
although the monologue has been expanded
to include all definitions of family
for the world right now, which I love.
And as we were closing on Broadway
I read this to the company 'cause I got this on Instagram.
"Hi, my name is Katie,
and I was at "Mrs. Doubtfire" tonight,
and I just need to share something with you.
See, at the end of the show
you read a fake message from a young girl named Katie.
Funny coincidence.
But it didn't stop there.
A little over a year ago my dad left
and my parents separated.
I'm not a kid, but it hurts just as bad.
For months I questioned if he ever really
cared for me or what family even meant.
I saw the show tonight as my first Broadway show ever.
And I don't know how or why things happen the way they do,
but I need you to know that tonight
the Katie you were talking to was me.
And it meant the world to hear
that I was gonna be all right.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you, Mrs. Doubtfire."
"Mrs. Doubtfire" means a lot to a lot of people.
And if we can make it mean more to new audiences
I think it's a worthy mission to take on tour.
(upbeat music)