Casual Screaming About Christian Borle

What better time to write a blog post about Christian Borle than when he is nominated for yet, another Tony. There is a reason he has two Tony's under his belt, he is an amazing actor.

Christian's Tony Portrait

Christian won  a Tony in 2012 for Peter and the Starcatcher and another in 2015 for Something Rotten. His nomination this year is for his portrayal of Marvin in the 2016 revival of Falsettos.

Christian and Andrew Rannells who plays his on-stage lover

I have been a fan of Christian Borle since 2013, when I watched the NBC Sound of Music Live! with Carrie Underwood. I watched it because I love Carrie Underwood and I love the Sound of Music and it was during the short three years my family had cable. Afterward, I came out a fan of Stephen Moyer Audra McDonald and Christian Borle.

And I say fan very loosely. The only one I followed afterwards was Audra, but I knew Stephen and Christian's name, so when ever they popped up I was like "oh! That's the guy from Sound of Music!" I know I saw some stuff for Smash, but it didn't grab my attention, because I was a little into theater and musicals, but I also wasn't.

I had no idea, at the time, that someone who has never seen a Broadway show, can still be a fan of Broadway. Fast forward to 2016 when I got into Hamilton and Hair and learned that I can be a Broadway fan without seeing a show, thanks to cast albums. Mid to late 2016, when they announced that Christian was going to be Willy Wonka in the Broadway performance of Charlie and the Chocolate factory, I was excited and that's when he started showing up on my radar much more. Towards the end of 2016, I started seeing and hearing things about the revival of Falsettos. I knew nothing about it besides, Andrew Rannells, Christian Borle, and Tracie Thoms were in it. I was a fan of Andrew since 2011 and I knew Tracie from the RENT movie. However, I didn't know anything else, except that I thought it was going to be about a polygamous relationship between four people because of the "Unlikely Lovers" video from their rehearsals.

However, I got into Falsettos two days before the revival closed on Broadway. Why did it take me so long? Why did I even want to check it out? Because of a meme someone made of the show. I don't have it, nor do I know how to find the meme, so I can't include it, but it had me laughing so  with the help of some people on Instagram and Tumblr I was able to get into the show an I do not regret it. I have met some amazing people through this show and I have been introduced to Stephanie J. Block, Brandon Uranowitz, Betsy Wolfe, Anthony Rosenthal, and William Finn, who wrote the show and many other musicals.

And honestly, it's been a spiral of finding more people and musicals. It's been great. I'm glad I got into Falsettos, but I already wrote a post about Falsettos. This post is about Christian Borle!

Since getting into Falsettos and falling more in love with Christian, I binged both seasons of Smash. In Smash, Christian plays a composer named Tom Levitt who is half of a song-writing duo. I started watching the show because he was in it, but he never became my favorite character. He was my second favorite. In season one, my favorite character was Frank, played by Brian d'Arcy James and in season two it was Kyle, who was played by Andy Mientus. I'll write seperate posts about them and Smash, another time.

Christian in full Wonka costume

But Christian is amazing. Currently, he is on Broadway in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, playing Willy Wonka. I was excited at first, because I grew up loving the Gene Wilder Willy Wonka and the Charlie Factory. Despite Johnny Depp being my favorite actor and Tim Burton being my favorite director, I never liked their version. I was so excited for the Broadway version and I was excited to see Christian in the role, until recently. I am still so excited to see Christian in the role, because of the one video I have seen of him performing on a Good Morning America.

I am convinced that as long as he is playing Wonka, they will sell tickets, but I don't agree with a lot of the creative decisions so if I don't see this, it won't be a loss. It's no shock to me that they didn't get any Tony nominations. Even though, I think that Christian does Wonka well from this one clip. In this one clip, he embodies the creepiness of Wonka, but also the goodness of the character. I just want the cast album so I can listen to him sing "Pure Imagination" forever. It's one of my favorite songs of all time, because of the original film with Gene Wilder.

I can't remember if I got into Something Rotten before I got into Falsettos, or after. I know I've been interested in SR since Will Chase did the Ham4Ham. That is how I fell in love with Will Chase, but that's another post. I think I got into Something Rotten after Falsettos, but I probably listened to the cast album before, because I know I listened to the Legally Blonde cast album before Falsettos, but I didn't get into it until after.

In Something Rotten, Christian plays a rock star version of William Shakespeare. Yes. The author of Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet. It is the role he won his second Tony for. I am actually listening to the cast album as I write this post. It's great. I'm on my third listen through because this is one of the musicals I can listen to non-stop for hours. It's so good and funny. It takes place in 1595, but Will Shakespeare is clad in leather with his background dancers known notoriously as the "leather boys". It's great.

I probably should have put the music video, put I like the White House performance more. If you have not seen Heidi Blinkenstaff's Broadway.com vlogs from when she was still in Something Rotten, you need to. Christian has a segment in her vlogs called "Book Nook!" and it's hilarious and I really love it. I keep advertisting Something Rotten, only to remember that currently it is off Broadway on tour and Adam Pascal is playing Will Shakespeare. So go see it if you can for Rob McClure and Adam Pascal who are both really amazing.

Legally Blonde the Musical. Better than the book. Better than the movie. Legally Blonde the Musical is so much better than I expected. I had avoided the movie my whole life, until I learned that Christian plays Emmett. I wanted to watch the movie first before I watched the pro-shot of the musical, which exists on YouTube. Luke Wilson's Emmett is great, but he's more of the handsome, knight in shining armor type. Christian's Emmett is much more caring about Elle and he's just so adorable and even though he's scruffy, he's still adorable and lovable.

Fun fact about Legally Blonde: Michael Rupert whom plays Prof. Callahan, is also the original Marvin in Falsettos. So you get to see two Marvins in Legally Blonde.

I never got into Peter and the Starcatcher, which is something I need to fix, but it'll have to wait until after Tony season is over.

Overall, Christian Borle has to be one of my favorite actors of stage and screen. He is amazing. And he's a huge nerd too. I've watched too many of his interviews than I'd like to admit and he's a comic book and sci-fi nerd. He's really quite adorable in interviews.

I hope he wins this Tony, because he did a very good job with Marvin and I can't wait to see what the future holds for him. Maybe I'll be able to see one of his shows.