CLARION – Actor Anthony Rapp will be speaking, Tuesday March 16, at 7:30 p.m., in Clarion University’s Marwick-Boyd Auditorium. The University Activities Board is sponsoring his appearance.
Admission is free for students with valid I.D. and $3 for the public. Tickets are available at the Gemmell Student Complex information desk.
Rapp is best known for playing Mark Cohen in original Broadway cast of Jonathan Larson’s musical “Rent.” Clarion University Theatre performed “Rent,” Feb. 25-28.
He is an advocate in show business for LGBT rights. Rapp has served on the board of the non-profit organization Friends In Deed, which provides emotional support for anyone with a diagnosis of HIV/AIDS, cancer or other life-threatening physical illnesses, their families, and their friends.
Rapp was born in Chicago, Ill., where he attended high school at Joliet West High School and theatre camp at the prestigious Michigan Interlochen Arts Academy. At the age of 14, he won an Outer Critics Circle Award for his performance in the Broadway production of “Precious Sons.”
After graduating from high school, he moved to New York City and attended NYU until he dropped out to pursue film work in California. He appeared in supporting roles in such features as “Dazed and Confused” and “Six Degrees of Separation.” In 2005, he reprised the role of Mark Cohen in the film adaptation of “Rent.” He also has experience in directing and scriptwriting.
In 2006, Rapp released a memoir about his days in “Rent,” as well as his mother’s struggle with cancer and his own struggle with finding himself, entitled, “Without You: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and the Musical Rent.”
