by Peter Galvin
Anthony Rapp wants to win a Tony award. He knows snagging Broadway's
highest honor could do wonders for his career, but he has another, 
more political reason for wanting to hear his anem called when the
awards are given out this year. "Think of the visibility," he says
excitedly, picturing the ceremony in his head. "Millions of people
watching me lean over and kiss the man I'm seeing--on the lips. That's
a great image that I'd want to leave people with."
Rapp had better start practicing his kiss now, because when Tony 
nominations are announced in May, he seems a likely contender. It's 
all due to his performance in RENT, the acclaimed rock musical--a
contemporized, Lower East Side version of Puccini's opera La Boheme--
that critics are calling "the Hair of the '90s." The New York Times has
devoted no fewer than five articles to RENT since it first opened off-
Broadway in mid February, bestowing upon the show a kind of mythical
status. The attention is also due to the fact that the musical's 
creator, Jonathan Larson, died of an aortic aneurysm a few hours after
the show's dress rehearsal. Not surprisingly, audiences are all the 
more affected by RENT because they know Larson will never get to see
his name in lights.
But Rapp will. What's more, the 24-year-old actor is no stranger to
Broadway. Born in Chicago and raised in nearby Joliet, Ill., Rapp 
began acting at age 6, winning parts in road tours of Evita and The King
and I. (Note from Lily and Betsy->Yul Brenner punched Anth in the tummy
when they first met, cuz Anth was accidentally blocking his way!) When
he was just 16, he starred in the Broadway drama Precious Sons. A few
years later he played a college student in New York's Lincoln Center
production of Six Degrees of Separation. Filmgoers may recall Rapp's
role as a nerdy teen in the 1993 stoner film Dazed and Confused. He's
also featured in the upcoming disaster epic Twister, starring Helen
Hunt of TV's Mad About You.
Movine RENT to Broadway has its obvious rewards for Rapp--more money,
more recognition as an actor, and more theater groupies waiting at the
backstage door. "I love being persued," he says, "and now is the time,
more than ever, when people will be coming on to me." Still the actor 
insists, he also savors the Broadway limelight for the prominence it
brings to him as an out "queer" actor. "As a public figure," he says,
"I think I have a responsibility to present images that break down
boundaries and stereotypes. I'm obviously of the mind that coming out
is a positive choice."
Rapp also says he prefers using the word "queer" instead of "gay" to
describe his sxuality. "I think, primarily, I am homosexual--politically,
socially, and sexually," he says. "But I say 'queer' because I've had
girlfriends and boyfriends. And I still really enjoy sex with women. 
To me, 'queer' means that you have the potential to love someone of the
same sex, but maybe not exclusively." In fact, he adds, his ultimate
fantasy is to be with a man AND a woman in "some sort of crazy Wedding
Banquet kind of family."
In discussing his sexuality, the actor says he recalls being attracted
to members of the same sex as a young boy. "I remember rolling around
in a bed with a kid from summer camp when I was 6 or 7," he says. "When
I was 12 I started folling around with my friends Cory and Christopher."
Immersed in the theater world, Rapp was frequently around gay people as
a kid but says he doesn't recall having an awareness of "any labels."
It was only at age 14, when a friend's mother caught him and an older
buddy having sex, that he began to question the nature of his sexuality.
"My mom confrunted me about it," he says, "and she was really upset. She
even thought about taking legal action against the guy-he was 18, which
means it was essentially statutory rape. After that, I decided to go back
into the closet."
When Rapp turned 18 he met a man whom he was able "to love both emotionally
and physically," he says, and taht love prompted him to come out to his
parents--by then divorced--once and for all. His was "totally cool about
it," Rapp recalls. "He even told me about his own homosexual fellings."
But his mother remained upset: "She was raised very Catholic. She's a
very openhearted woman, but she's had to battle years of a certain kind
of upbringing."
Rapp has been out professionally since 1992, when he thanked a former
boyfriend of his in a theater program biography. "Being out certainly
hasn't affected my career detrimentally," he says. "I have no idea what
peopel are saying behind closed doors, but who cares? The things I've
gotten a chance to work on since I came out have been remarkable and have
culminated in RENT."
Ironically, Rapp plays straight in RENT as the show's narrator, a
documentary filmmaker named Mark. But the musical has no shortage of
gay characters either. Of course, whether those gay characters are played
by gay actors is a question Rapp is cautious about answering. "There's
one person that I have my suspicions about," he says. "And there's another
who is in the process of coming out."
Fellow cast member Daphne Rubin-Vega, who plays the character of Mimi,
calls Rapp "the glue of the show, not only on account of the role he 
plays as narrator but also in terms of the dynamics of the cast. He's a
mediator--he knows how to get along with everybody." Rubin-Vega add that
she "respects and celebrates" Rapp's openness about his own sexuality:
"He's got incredible fucking balls to be out and be an actor. He's a rare
bird."
Most of the show's characters are either HIV-positive or dyeing of AIDS,
including Mimi; her boyfriend Roger; and the play's gay lovers, Angel and
Tom. "I love the image of two men risking it all for love," says Rapp
about Angel and Tom's relationship. "And the song between the two lesbian
characters, 'Take Me or Leave Me'--that could be about any relationship,
but the fact that it's a black woman and a white woman singing it to each
other is just so exciting."
Although rapp has had his share of relationships with both men and women,
he calls his current boyfriend the "love of my life. I've never been able
to love someone as openly and as fully as I do him." Rapp's forthrightness
in discussing his personal life may seem courageous to some, but he has
even stronger words for those who believe that coming out is till comparable
to career suicide: "Maybe they won't make $20 million a picture anymore,
but who the fuck cares? If they haven't made enough money yet, then I feel
sorry for them. Ultimately, the difference they could make in people's
lives is so great--they really have nothing to lost."

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