Northeast Ohio native Rory O'Malley reprises a role he played on Broadway for the second half of Playhouse Square's 'Hamilton' run

Dec. 16—It isn't represented on his IMDb page, but Rory O'Malley's acting career began with a second-grade Christmas pageant at Cleveland's Our Lady of Angels Catholic School, for which his aunt was the director.

"She cast me as the male lead, Joseph — it's always who you know in this business," O'Malley jokes during a phone interview from his home in Los Angeles. "I just really got the bug for it right away, and I sat my mom down and told her I wanted to be an actor when I grew up."

That led to classes and youth-theater productions at the Beck Center for the Arts in Lakewood. However, it was an experience as an audience member at Playhouse Square in Cleveland that really did a, well, musical number on him.

"I saw ('Les Miserables') at the State Theatre," O'Malley says. "And to see that these incredible performers were just down the street from me and that there were these shows that just keep coming and going — it just really changed my life and made me think bigger about Broadway and becoming a performer."

That's what he did, earning credits over the years that have included movies, TV shows and, yes, Broadway productions. Among the most notable in the latter category: He took over the laugh-generating role of King George in "Hamilton" on Broadway.

And now, with Lin-Manuel Miranda's Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical about one of our country's Founding Fathers in the midst of a lengthy run at Playhouse Square, O'Malley is set to reprise the role for a string of performances beginning Dec. 20.

So was there a time when O'Malley — who grew up in Cleveland's West Park neighborhood and then Bay Village — truly believed he could make it in the highly competitive acting world?

"Yeah, I mean, I still have to tell myself that every day," he says. "It's the nature of this business. Every day you have to renew your faith in yourself and keep going because it's not like a ladder like other professions.

"But I was at high school at St. Ignatious (in Cleveland) performing in the drama program there, the Harlequins, and had an amazing time and went to a college summer camp and realized that I wanted to (study) it at college."

He did just that at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where his classmates included now longtime friends Josh Gad and Leslie Odom Jr., with whom he would later share Broadway stages and he can be heard voicing characters over three seasons of the Apple TV+ animated musical series "Central Park."

Later, it was off to Los Angeles and, well, some "Happy Days" — in that he portrayed Richie Cunningham in the musical written by the show's creator, Garry Marshall.

Broadway would call in the mid-2000s, with O'Malley taking over multiple roles in "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee."

A few years later, a huge opportunity literally came calling.

"If you look at my career, there's before 'The Book of Mormon' and after," O'Malley says. "I was working at a financial firm as a temp when I got a call from my agent saying that the 'South Park' guys (Trey Parker and Matt Stone) and ("Avenue Q" co-creator Robert) Lopez were writing a musical about Mormons and they wanted to know if I could be part of the ensemble in a workshop. And I dropped the phone, and I basically ran from my temp desk to the first rehearsal, and, you know, my life changed from that moment on."

Parker, Stone and Lopez apparently enjoyed working with O'Malley so much that they created a supporting character, Elder McKinley, for him — he says they referred to the closeted gay Mormon as essentially the musical's equivalent to the hilarious Butters on "South Park."

"They started giving my character more and more lines, and all of a sudden I had a song called 'Turn It Off' and a tap number," he says.

The uproarious show's Broadway production, in which the aforementioned Gad was one of the leads, went on to score a pile of Tonys.

"When we opened on Broadway in 2011, we didn't know if it was going to be accepted," O'Malley says. "We knew (it was funny), but we didn't know if the Broadway community was going to embrace this insane show, but it certainly did. And it was an extraordinary experience."

That was a career high. Soon enough, arrived a low, if a short-lived low.

"I was performing in a Broadway show that got closed early; it was called 'Nerds.' I was playing (Microsoft co-founder) Bill Gates in this crazy, over-the-top comedy about Bill Gates and (Apple co-founder) Steve Jobs.

"Some of our producers dropped out," he continues. "We were about to open on Broadway, and we didn't even get to have one performance. It's so sad."

At the same time, "Hamilton" was working its way to Broadway. Thanks to his friendship with cast member Leslie Odom, O'Malley saw the show in its early Off-Broadway days.

"I begged him to help me get on the waitlist to see it," O'Malley says. "It was brilliant. ... I knew it was going to have a huge impact.

"And I saw Brian d'Arcy James play the King, and I thought, 'Man, one day I'm going to play that part. That is too delicious."

That day would come at the same time as the death of "Nerds," about eight months into the life of "Hamilton" on Broadway — when Jonathon Groff, who originated the role on Broadway left the production to star in the Netflix drama series "Mindhunter."

"This business, it's so tough; just when you think you learn every single way it can disappoint you, another way shows up," he says of the "Nerds" experience. "But I got a call from an agent the next day, and she said, 'How would you feel about doing another Broadway show?' And I said, 'Oh, I couldn't. I'm so heartbroken over that.' She said, 'Well, what if it's for the King in "Hamilton"?' And I was like, 'I'll be right there!'

"And all of a sudden," he continues, "I'm in the 'Hamilton' cast with the original Broadway cast and sharing a dressing room with Lin-Manuel Miranda (who portrayed Alexander Hamilton) ... and I'm in this moment of theater history. It was incredible, like a real whirlwind."

He felt pressure to bring something new to the role, but the nerves went behind that.

"It's also like, 'How do you walk without the crown going off your head?'" he recalls. "It's one of the most important things.

"And I really leaned heavily on our director, (Thomas) Kail, who was there every day and was very helpful in giving me the space to create and make it my own but also give me the tools to make it a good performance.

"And, you know, with this role in particular, the costume does so much of the work. Sometimes when I sing the songs out of costume, I think, 'Well, this is no fun.' Nobody wants to see (me) without a scepter in my hand and the crown on my head.'

O'Malley yielded the crown and scepter back to Groff for the live recording of the show, which would become a hit on Disney+.

It would seem to have been a gracious move by O'Malley.

"Oh, yeah, no — I literally was in the show for maybe about three weeks when that happened, so it was not being gracious. It was like, 'Oh, yeah. Oh for sure," he says with a laugh. "I (was not) in a position where I'm like, 'Oh, I want my performance recorded for all time.'

"It was so clear it was Jonathan's moment to (do) the recording and be with the rest of the original cast," O'Malley continues. "And I'm so grateful to him because he was so gracious to me when I came into the role and really helped me out — and not just in performing it but kind of how to manage the craziness around it."

One would expect some craziness to surround O'Malley's Cleveland stint in the role, a scheme hatched by O'Malley — who planned to be home for the holidays — that started with a phone call to a friend, Neil Haskell, the regular performer in the role for the North American tour now at Playhouse Square. To hear O'Malley tell it, NOT spending his Christmas in Cleveland — and instead being able to go home himself — was an offer Haskell couldn't refuse.

"No one's allowed to take that time off — otherwise, everyone would want to take the time off," O'Malley says. "And it's a really important time of the year for theater; that's when a lot of people show up and buy tickets."

He then sold the idea to the "Hamilton" folks.

It's very unique to just drop into a show," he says. "I'm just really grateful to 'Hamilton' and to Neil for letting me have this time.

His first show will be a bit of a full-circle moment.

"It's the first time that I've performed at the (KeyBank) State Theatre since I actually (performed in productions by) the Cleveland Opera, which doesn't exist anymore," he says. "I have performed on that stage before, but it's been a very long time."

As you'd expect, friends and family scooped up a bunch of tickets for the show's final weeks.

"Let's just say that the box office knows my mom's name — she's on a first-name basis with everyone at the box office," he says. "It's been so exciting to know that people are going to be showing up, people I grew up with.

"To get to perform in Cleveland again is a dream come true."

'Hamilton'

Where: Playhouse Square's KeyBank State Theatre, 1519 Euclid Ave., Cleveland.

When: Through Jan. 15. (Note: Rory O'Malley begins performing in the show Dec. 20.)

Tickets: $39 to $249.

Info: PlayhouseSquare.org or 216-241-6000.