Interview: Nicholas Rodriguez of THE SOUND OF MUSIC at BROADWAY AT THE HOBBY CENTER

The Sound of Music is coming to Houston's Hobby Center September 29th through October 4th. It is a presentation from Broadway at the Hobby Center, and BROADWAY WORLD writer Brett Cullum spoke with cast member and Grammy nominee Nicholas Rodriguez, who plays Max Detweiler. 

Brett Cullum: Now, the first thing I always ask people who are in these legacy musicals: If you are only familiar with the Julie Andrews film, how is this iteration, the stage version of The Sound of Music, different?

Nicholas Rodriguez: Oh, it's a really great question, and one that most people don't ask, because you're right, most people, I would say upwards of 90% of our audiences only know it from the film. Before I joined the company, I had never seen it on stage. So what I tell people in a bullet-points version is that the musical did come first. The musical was on Broadway before it was a movie, and they highlight all the great songs from the movie, and all of the stuff with the kids, and all the beautiful things with the nuns, and the captain and Maria. But there's also some really great stuff that they just didn't have time to put into the movie. So, for instance, my character has two songs that aren't in the film, so you get all the hits, plus some more. Certain things take place in different settings, different locales than they do in the movie, because we're not shooting in the hills of Austria, we're doing it all on a Broadway stage. So we honor the order that the things came in in the original Broadway musical, and you get all the great stuff from the movie, too.

Brett Cullum: Yeah, and you're playing Max, which, you have a big song with The Baroness, is that right?

Nicholas Rodriguez: Yes, two of them, yeah.

Brett Cullum: I think it's very funny, because you are a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, and I feel like there's some producer's note in this thing that says that whoever plays Max has to be gay.

Nicholas Rodriguez: I don't know if that was in the producer's note, but I definitely know it was in the brief from our director, three-time Tony Award-winning Jack O'Brien. Once we were casting for this production, they didn't find a Max that they were settling on, and then our conductor, Andy Einhorn, said to Jack, “I think you want Nick Rodriguez to do this.” And Jack called me, and he was like, “Yes, I want you, I want Big Gay Max,” so that's what we're doing!

Brett Cullum: Max to the max. You know, I feel like everyone on the planet can sing at least one, if not two or three songs from this show. I mean, it's crazy.

Nicholas Rodriguez: And they do, while we're doing the show. We're everything short of a bouncing ball across the top. Because it's just part of our lexicon as human beings, as Americans. Whether you've seen the musical or not, you've probably heard “My Favorite Things,” even if it's on Carrie Underwood's Christmas album. Somebody's heard it somewhere, or “Do-Re-Mi.” People have heard these songs throughout their lives, whether they know it or not.

Brett Cullum: What do you think is so appealing about it?

Nicholas Rodriguez: Well, I think the thing is it speaks to generations. It's just as accessible to an 8-year-old as to an 80-year-old. The show talks about themes of faith, hope, love, family, politics, all things that we've dealt with for generations. So at some point in your life, you can identify with something in the show. Everybody's longing for something and looking for something in the show, and I think people go through that their entire life.

Brett Cullum: These legacy musicals are really making a marked comeback this year, and I feel like maybe we need that escape, maybe we need that kind of back to some familiar things, some things that feel a little safer.

Nicholas Rodriguez: It's actually part of it, and I think also a reminder. Yes, these things happened long ago, these stories that these characters are learning about, and that are happening to them, but guess what? A lot of them are happening to us right now, too. So it's just a great thing. People are seeing it and saying, “Oh yeah, I remember that from when I was a kid. Oh, that seems awfully familiar to what's going on right now.” It's kind of a nice balance of both.

Brett Cullum: What about this production? Is it a little bit different? What do you think this one is offering?

Nicholas Rodriguez: Like I said before, I think we lean into all of the great music and the amazing cast that has been put together, and we travel with a 15-piece orchestra. But what makes it—I always say, why are we doing it now? And I think the story, in its essence, is about a man searching for love and a woman becoming a woman, but it's also set against the backdrop of 1938 Austria, which is just about to be taken over by Germany. So we don't shy away from diving into the politics of the time. Not to say that the play is overtly political, but the whole thing is set over this backdrop of authoritarianism, and things being taken over, so we don't really shy away from the fact that the Nazis are coming. We don't change a word of the script, we don't change a word of the songs. But in the movie, they left some of that out to keep it a sweet, upbeat, happy thing. We're still a sweet, upbeat, happy thing; it's just taking place during the backdrop of the invasion of the Third Reich.

Brett Cullum: Now you've done this show before, obviously. You've done the Captain, and now you're doing Max. Which one do you like more?

Nicholas Rodriguez: Oh, it's so—it's like Sophie's Choice in a way. You know, it's interesting, I'm always a person who's looking forward. Playing Captain was a dream. When I got that call, I was like, “You want me to do what?” I never thought that gay, brown Nicholas Rodriguez from Austin, Texas would ever play Captain Von Trapp, and I did. It was a lot of fun. And I will say it was a lot of pressure, because people come to the play with the movie in their mind. Somehow, in playing this version of Max, maybe it's because his songs aren't in the musical, or maybe just this take that Jack O'Brien is pointing me in with Max, is so close to who I am as a human being. Not what he says and what he stands for, but the way he says it and the way he goes through life.

So, basically, I have carte blanche to be the life of the party, is what Jack wants me to do. He said he wants me to be vulgar and charming at the same time. He said, “I want them to slap you, and I want them to kiss you.” So it's just kind of this fun edge to get to play every night. I get to live in my skin, my own Nicholas Rodriguez skin, but say some really vulgar things that I don't agree with, so it's funny.

Brett Cullum: No, it sounds like a blast. Perfect character actor dream role right there.

Nicholas Rodriguez: Yeah, I never thought of myself as a character actor, so I was like, “Okay, check that off the list.” It's a lot of fun.

Brett Cullum: Tell me, Nick, how did you get into acting? What was little baby Nick like?

Nicholas Rodriguez: Oh, little baby Nick, I remember him 50 years ago. No, you know, I grew up playing sports my whole life. I grew up in Austin, Texas. My dad was a football and baseball coach. And then I would sing, like, my whole family sang at church, and my grandmother was an elementary school music teacher, so we were always playing the piano and singing. And I just thought it was something people did. And then when I got to high school, I decided I didn't really want to play football anymore, it wasn't my thing. But I still rode to school with my dad, and the only thing else that happened before school, while football practice was happening, was the show choir. And he said, “Well, you've got to do something.” So I just walked down the hall and auditioned and got in, and through show choir, I met the theater director at my high school, who was still one of my biggest mentors; she just recently passed.

And then the first musical we did in my high school was Cabaret, the musical, not something you think of high school kids doing. And I got to be in that, and then the bug just bit me. And it was towards the end of high school that I realized, “Wait, you can do this for a living?” So I ended up going to the University of Texas to study voice. I studied classical voice. I got my undergrad and graduate degree there, always knowing I wanted to do theater, but I really loved singing and wanted to train my voice. I did undergrad and grad school at UT, and then off to New York with my two bags and one buck.

Brett Cullum: Like everybody else. Now, obviously, singing's a huge thing for you. It's a big part of your career. You were Grammy-nominated, right?

Nicholas Rodriguez: Isn't that crazy? I never get tired of hearing it, but yeah, it was pretty awesome.

Brett Cullum: What was your Grammy nomination for?

Nicholas Rodriguez: So, coming out of the pandemic, right as we were ending, an amazing man named Phil Geoffrey Bond produced this series in New York called Sondheim Unplugged that I had been part of for about 10 years, I think. And then decided to produce an album. He had this idea to produce a three-volume set of Sondheim's work with all these different Broadway stars singing different songs.

I do a song on all three albums. And the third volume was nominated for a Grammy in 2024, so I think we lost to Bruce Springsteen, but if you have to lose, that's a good one to lose to. But just to be on the list was amazing, and doing Sondheim, which is a passion of mine, so yeah, it's been a fun ride.

Brett Cullum: Everyone is very serious about Sondheim. What songs did you do?

Nicholas Rodriguez: I'm definitely serious about Sondheim. I was in the last revival of Company on Broadway, which was the last musical that Steve was alive for. So getting to meet him was a dream come true. I was actually just recently at the Hobby Center a couple months ago, doing my one-man show called Sincerely Sondheim. We had two sold-out nights there, which was just awesome. On Sondheim Unplugged, I do “Marry Me a Little” from Company, “What Can You Lose” from Dick Tracy, and “Move On” from Sunday in the Park with George.

Brett Cullum: Okay, so how do you identify in the queer community?

Nicholas Rodriguez: Oh, I identify as a lot of things. Grammy nominee is one, it's a fun one.

Brett Cullum: My pronouns are GRAMMY/NOMINEE! 

Nicholas Rodriguez: (laughing) No, in the queer community, I'm a gay man. I'm an open gay man. I have been for quite some time.

Brett Cullum: When did you come out? What was that like?

Nicholas Rodriguez: Well, I guess I kind of came out late for most people. I had already finished grad school and had dated a few boys in college, and I can say that now in hindsight, I was so closeted. I guess I never really came out publicly because it just wasn't an issue at the time, but then, in 2007, I was on a television show called One Life to Live. And all of a sudden, it just started coming up all the time, and the press would start asking me, “What's it like being openly gay on television?” And I said, “Oh, I guess we're going there.” So the choice was really between living my truth and lying on the spot, and it just wasn't an option for me. I had to live in my truth.

Brett Cullum: Doing that on a soap opera, that's some serious exposure.

Nicholas Rodriguez: Oh, it was awesome. It was a beautiful time in my life. We had a lot of firsts. We were, like, the first gay kiss on daytime, first gay wedding. My character was unfortunately gay-bashed, but it was a huge storyline for ABC to be telling at the time, and it was transformative for me and my career. Having the outpouring of people writing in, saying, “I watched this with my grandmother,” and I still, to this day, get people that will say, even though it's been a while, people that watched it as a kid, or as a younger person. You take for granted sometimes that just visibility matters, and seeing somebody that looks like you, whether it's on TV or on stage, being gay, being Latin American, being all these different things. I wish I had had that as a kid, seeing somebody like me doing the thing on TV or on stage.

Brett Cullum: Speaking of history, you were on the Sex and the City 2 soundtrack? Is that right?

Nicholas Rodriguez: Yeah, well, in the film and on the soundtrack, yeah.

Brett Cullum: What did you do in Sex and the City 2?

Nicholas Rodriguez: It's really fun. If you go back and watch it, it's the opening of the second movie. There's a big gay wedding that's, like, the first 20 minutes of the film, and there's a gay men's choir. There were 16 or 18 of us singing at the wedding, and we sang three songs. I think maybe two of them made the film, but they're all on the soundtrack. And then we danced at the party with Liza, and it was a fun two weeks of my life to shoot. They assembled just a group, a gaggle of Broadway guys to come and do this, and we were hanging out all the time. People who have now gone on to have huge careers, like Andrew Rannells, Nick Adams, Max von Essen, andJay Armstrong Johnson. I could just go on with this list of awesome guys' names. Sixteen of us, who are all still friends to this day, hang out all the time. And that movie kind of brought us together, where normally we would just be passing in auditions, competing with each other. We got to spend, like, two and a half weeks on set kikiing.

Brett Cullum: You were in a gay Super Group led by Liza Minelli! I am so gagged right now! Well, of course, the big thing that we can see you in is The Sound of Music, so let's not lose focus on that.

Nicholas Rodriguez: Oh, that. Oh, that.

Brett Cullum: That is September 29th through October 4th at Houston's Hobby Center. It is presented by Broadway at the Hobby Center, and Grammy nominee Nicholas Rodriguez will play Big Gay Max, performing songs you might not recognize from the movie if you just watched the Julie Andrews version.

Nicholas Rodriguez: Just me. I'm the gay supergroup for this one.

Brett Cullum: We're so excited to see you. Welcome back to Houston.

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