The Inheritance’s Andrew Burnap on Being a Broadway Lost Boy and the Soothing Magic of Tidying Up

Before pursuing acting, Andrew Burnap was just a kid growing up in South Kingston, a Rhode Island beach town, watching movies and hanging out in a local CVS parking lot. Now, Burnap is making his Broadway debut as Toby Darling in The Inheritance, Matthew Lopez's two-part drama that follows three generations of gay men searching for connection in New York City. The young actor discovered his life’s calling thanks to a trip to the circus. “I would always go to the Big Apple Circus as a kid,” says Burnap. “One day I got pulled into the show to direct the band as a bit, and I remember feeling so terrified and thrilled at the same time, and so I started chasing that feeling.”

Imposter Syndrome No More
Burnap chased that feeling first to the University of Rhode Island, then to the Yale School of Drama. “I can't remember for the life of me what the first class was, but I do remember thinking I had full-on imposter syndrome,” Burnap says of his first day at Yale. “I remember watching people in my class work or do scenes or talk about their lives and being like, ‘What am I doing here? Why did they ask me to come?’ And then, through my journey there, it was about owning the fact that no one is actually like me, just like no one is actually like them.”

Longtime Collaborators
Playwright Matthew Lopez first discovered Burnap for his show, The Legend of Georgia McBride, which chronicles an Elvis impersonator's transformation into a lip-syncing drag queen. "It's a 90-minute ball of fun,” Burnap says of the piece, whiche he performed in Los Angeles. The playwright and actor reunited for several workshops and the West End run of The Inheritance and are both making their Broadway debuts with play. “I feel like Matthew and I have now a shorthand of vocabulary and way to talk to each other about the work that's so valuable in order to get to the juicy stuff with a collaborator,” Burnap says of their relationship. “We know when we're right with each other. We know when to let go and to take hold. I'm very grateful to him for his genius.”

Broadway's Lost Boy
Burnap describes his character, Toby Darling, as part Peter Pan, part Gatsby and part Holden Caulfield. The actor worked on The Inheritance in an early reading playing one of the young men and got to know the role of Toby at a distance at first. When he was tapped to play Toby in a week-long workshop, he got to consider the character more intimately. “How do I describe Toby Darling? The word that gives me the most juice is Toby's vivacity, his appetite for life," Burnap says. "He is truly a life-liver to the fullest degree, and I admire that about him. Toby loves to party. His love of language, we definitely share. I think in the way that we both seize the day, we're similar, and then we start to branch off as the story progresses. He's sort of this beautiful Lost Boy [of J.M.Barrie's Peter Pan]. Toby is very much in that realm."

Bobby Baby
Beyond his dramatic roles, a quick YouTube search will show off Burnap's musical theater chops. "Musical theater was my first deep, deep love. I would watch Oliver! over and over and over again and also The Wizard of Oz,” says Burnap. “I got to play Bobby in Company in college, and that was one of the hardest and most gratifying experiences I've ever had. I think anything that Stephen Sondheim wrote is one of the most profound gifts to an actor who loves musical theater.”

Move Over Marie Kondo
When he's not inhabiting the manic, tumultuous life of aspiring writer Toby Darling, Burnap says he's becoming the Marie Kondo of Broadway. “I love organizing!” Burnap gleefully reacts to his current obsession of tidying up. “Organizing is the most fun I think I've had in trying to be an adult. I look at pictures of closets on Instagram and it gives me so much joy. In this rehearsal process—everything seems to be so crazy sometimes—folding clothes, putting it in a drawer, putting it in a closet and hanging it on a hanger, it just makes me feel like I have some sort of control over my life, even though it's all sort of false.”

Watch the charming as hell Andrew Burnap in action!

Photos by Caitlin McNaney | Video directed and edited by Kyle Gaskell | Additional cameras by Mark Hayes