I gotta do this once.
That's it.
Everyone's favorite Scottish nanny.
Eho Doubtfire. Mrs Doubtfire at the Bushnell this week through Sunday.
I want you to meet the two characters in the show.
They kind of helped put her together,
but they're absolutely an essential vital part of the show.
I want you to say hi to Aaron Kari.
He plays Frank Hilliard and Nick Alexander who plays Andre Mayham.
Nice to see you both. Thanks for having me. Are you kidding?
We, we, you know, and as Erica said, a couple of minutes ago when we were talking
to you, excuse me,
you would choose fan girling over your
two characters because they're just wonderful as,
as not so much comic foils but comic assistance to Rob mcclure's Mrs.
Tell, tell me about your character. Oh, Andre and Frank are
a married couple. Frank is
um Daniel's brother
and we are hairdresser and we make him over into Mrs Doubt Fire
and um
we're having a great time doing it.
All right. So I always ask this. Here's, here's the pop question quick.
What town are you in?
We're in.
Ok. But how long have you guys been on tour.
How you two have been, you know, you go from town to town and it's tough to keep up.
Right. Yes. How long have you been with the tour?
Well, this is our second,
two week.
You're, you're fresh. We are, we just
came
from.
There you go. You're seeing pictures.
We just showed you pictures of, of the show, uh, for those,
for the three people watching right now who do not
know the story of Mrs Doubtfire take us through it.
Yeah. So it's basically
about a guy named Daniel Hillard who uh goes through a divorce but wants
to see his kids and he'll do anything possible to be with his kids,
including turning himself into a Scottish nanny, which leads to high Jin.
So Rob
plays uh there uh plays the uh the main uh uh plays Mrs Down Fire there. There he she is
and
he's a whirling
dervish. He is amazing. He's like, you know, the, the Tasmanian devil on screen.
How do you
keep from breaking up laughing? How do you act around that?
It's difficult. Yes.
Yes. But we're very lucky. Jerry Zaks is our director, legendary Jerry Zach
and he grounds every single scene in an, in an emotional reality.
So any time uh Rob is doing something foolish that's always grounded as well.
Uh That might make us wanna giggle, we can go back to that.
Now,
let's fawn over both of you because both of you are inheriting uh
roles that were played by Tony winners when not necessarily for Mrs Doubtfire,
but legends of this stage, Jay Harrison, he just won best actor and, and
Brad Oscar, I saw the producers many years ago. Is it hard to inherit those shoes?
Because forget, I mean, Robin Williams obviously
was, this is down fire and Rob mcclure has his, his hands full with that,
but you two have inherited big jobs too.
Is it hard? No, it's, uh we're, we're all in the same industry and community. And,
um
you know,
Aaron's worked with Brad before and I knew Jay back
when I started and so it feels like this,
it feels like they're with us and
they came to our rehearsal and gave us their blessing and, and I think that's great.
I think you said it perfectly that, you know, it's a family and,
and we were talking during the break.
I, I'm just constantly amazed when I see you two on stage when I see any actor on stage,
um especially for either the revivals or the movies that have become musicals.
You have to lay a little tribute to the tradition,
but you also have to make the character your own.
And to hear that you've got their blessing is a nice thing is
a great,
yeah.
Now, in terms of the tour, what's the best part about being on stage city to city,
to city?
Oh, I think it's an immediate, you, you sense, a different audience with each city.
Uh because of the, the size of the theater, for example, Buffalo,
where we just were last week, it was a very large theater here in Hartford.
It's much more intimate and you can feel the audience
and that's kind of exciting to have that
different feel every single week. Yeah, a different energy.
You can feel you get a more, a different sense of the city,
um
just based on the energy and the people like, oh, this is Cincinnati. Oh, this is,
you go
and, and as I've said, we, we've been the best city so far.
Yes,
two weeks. So
tickets are available at the Bush now.
Bushnell dot org or of course, we always link you to them via our Fox 61 website,
Frank Hilliard and Nick Alexander continued success.
Break Lots of Legs. Uh, again, it's a wonderful show and, and
you know, it's, it's just, it's a romp for 2.5 hours.
So thank you for being part of that romp
and thank you for bringing it here to Hartford.
Yes. Thanks for having me. Delighted to have you. All right.