John Cameron Mitchell on His New Musical Podcast Anthem, Patti LuPone Almost Joining Hedwig and the Angry Inch & More
(Photos: Caitlin McNaney for Broadway.com)
John Cameron Mitchell is a Tony winner who has made his name known for being in Broadway's The Secret Garden, Six Degrees of Separation, Big River and of course, his acclaimed Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Mitchell is now off on a new adventure and releasing Anthem, a new podcast that combines music, drama and theater.
"[Anthem] originally started as a sequel to Hedwig," Mitchell said in a recent interview on Broadway.com's #LiveAtFive. "The main character of this piece is living in the same trailer that Hedwig lived in but doesn’t know who she is. The character is out of insurance, so he's doing a telethon on an app in his phone to raise money to get his tumor out. He's staying online until he gets $100,000 to get this tumor out or until he dies, whatever comes first." Headlined by Mitchell, Anthem also features five other Tony winners, including Patti LuPone, Cynthia Erivo and Glenn Close.
Season One of Anthem, titled "Anthem: Homunculus" is produced by Topic (makers of the binge-worthy Missing Richard Simmons) and distributed by Luminary. Over ten episodes, it will feature 31 original songs by Mitchell and co-writer Bryan Weller, which will be distributed on a soundtrack by Ghostlight Records on May 20. Mitchell hopes writers will be inspired to collaborate on creating future seasons.
While Mitchell is celebrating Anthem, he also has a bunch of other exciting projects in the works. "We're getting ready for The Origin of Love Tour Tour. It’s the history of Hedwig through story and song," he said. "It invariably ends with me crowdsurfing in a seated venue, which I first did at my last show at the Belasco [Theatre] for Hedwig. I was singing "Angry Inch" and climbed up on a chair and slowly fell forward and bewildered theater people carried me. I did a full surf to the back of the house and forward again. I did it at Sydney Opera House and couldn’t get enough of it."
During Hedwig's 18-month-long Broadway run, six stars took the wig out of the box as the titular character. Mitchell revealed that there could have been a seventh diva added into the mix. "We asked Patti [LuPone] to play Hedwig on Broadway," he said. "She actually thought about it, and before she could decide, we had to pull the plug [on the show].
Bringing Hedwig to Broadway was a dream come true for Mitchell, but it is also where one of his biggest nightmares happened. "I did a terrible thing inadvertently," he said. "I decided I didn’t want to do matinees [of Hedwig], so I did two shows at night with an hour and a half in between. I forgot to pee between two shows one day and halfway through the second show I was like, 'I have to pee like a racehorse, and I can’t leave the stage.' Lena Hall had a song so I receded into shadows upstage into the darkness and sat on the corner of the stage and just let go. I just sadly looked off into the middle distance like your cat does when it's peeing and said, 'Oh my God, this is terrible.' I bought the stage hands expensive scotch the next day. I had just enough credit to get away with it. It's kind of a beautiful thing if you think about it. Thank God for stage hands."