Tony Award winner Roger Bart is no stranger to reinventing iconic movie characters thanks to his celebrated runs in “The Producers” and “Young Frankenstein.” The actor scored another Tony nomination this season for his portrayal of Doc Brown in “Back to the Future: The Musical,” a role made famous by Christopher Lloyd in the film. The actor takes the character far beyond mere mimicry. “I tried to take the quality of him being surprising and unpredictable, intense and animated and funny,” explains Bart. Watch the exclusive video interview above.
“When you take a part like this…I try to take the basic qualities of what I love about their performance in that particular work,” explains Bart. He refers to Lloyd as an actor of “intensity and concentration,” two qualities Bart had free reign to explore in his own ways, and on a massive scale on stage.
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While Bart is thrilled that the giant scale of the show gives him license to go big, the actor is adamant that the most important part of the story is the tender connection between Doc and Marty McFly. Casey Likes portrays Marty, and Bart has a blast exploring the self-aware comedy in the show with his frequent scene partner. “Our rapport as a person who’s been doing this a long time with somebody who’s brand new to the scene is extremely helpful as part of the dynamic of this relationship on stage,” he explains. “I’m a father of two, and there is something very paternal at times about this relationship between Doc and Marty, and there’s also something about being buddies because I learned from him as well. It’s the same way I’ve learned from my daughters.”
Bart gets to showcase the zany side of Doc in plenty of high energy comedic numbers, but the sentimentality that he describes is perhaps best showcased in “For the Dreamers.” It’s an Act 2 ballad that surprised audiences by getting “a little bit more grounded and a little bit more intimate,” according to Bart, “where some of the insanity goes away and you realize you get to peek at Doc’s fallibility, his insecurity, his fears and his vulnerability.” The actor plays Doc as someone who swings for the fences, but often misses. So he has genuine concern that he is risking his friend’s life in their time travel mission. “It is a real peek into somebody who is very concerned about screwing up and by raising a glass to people who give things a good college try,” explains the actor, “there’s integrity in failure.”
Bart won a Tony Award for his performance in “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown.” He received a subsequent Tony nomination for “The Producers.”