Anthony Rapp, the actor who originated the role of Mark Cohen in RENT, took the stage at City Winery Chicago on Monday night at 7:30 p.m. for a show billed as an intimate evening of music, memories and storytelling. The performance paired Broadway classics with songs that have personally resonated with Rapp throughout his career, drawing from a repertoire built over decades on stage and screen.
Rapp was joined onstage by Daniel A. Weiss on keyboard and Lee Moretti on guitar, according to the event listing from City Winery Chicago. The venue's description promised selections from Rapp's favorite repertoire, mixing show tunes with more personal picks rather than a straightforward greatest-hits set. For an actor whose career has spanned stage musicals and television science fiction, the format gave him room to narrate the path between those worlds rather than just perform it.
From the East Village to Deep Space
Rapp's name is inseparable from RENT, Jonathan Larson's groundbreaking musical in which he originated Mark Cohen, the aspiring filmmaker narrating life among a group of artists in New York's East Village. That original cast, including Rapp, earned an OBIE Award for the production, per the same City Winery listing. The role remains the touchstone most associated with Rapp's stage career, even decades after RENT first opened.
More recently, television audiences have known Rapp for a very different part: Lieutenant Commander Paul Stamets on Star Trek: Discovery, a role the City Winery billing called beloved among fans of the franchise. The pairing of a scrappy downtown musical and a big-budget space saga makes for an unusual career arc, and it's one Monday's show leaned into by letting Rapp narrate both chapters in his own words between songs.
A Midday Preview Before the Night's Performance
Earlier Monday, Rapp appeared on WGN-TV's Spotlight Chicago, which airs weekdays from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. on the station, ahead of his evening performance at City Winery. The segment, reported by Sarah Jindra and Ji Suk Yi, framed the City Winery date as a showcase of music and storytelling spanning Rapp's career. It served as a same-day preview for Chicago audiences deciding whether to catch the show that night.
City Winery has hosted Rapp before. A listing from do312.com previously advertised an Anthony Rapp performance at the venue on a Sunday, September 21, at 7 p.m., with Rapp backed by Daniel A. Weiss, bassist Paul Gil, drummer Jerry Marotta and guitarist Lee Moretti, according to the do312.com listing. Monday's lineup trimmed that band down to just Weiss on keyboard and Moretti on guitar, giving the evening a sparer, more stripped-down feel than the earlier date.
