Get Out! GAY Magazine – Issue 304 – February 22, 2017

BY EILEEN SHAPIRO
CELEBRITY CORRESPONDENT
Nathan Lee Graham
“The View Upstairs”
The vivacious and very friendly stage and screen
actor, singer, writer, director and cabaret sensation,
Nathan Lee Graham, answered his phone with a
tantalizing “Good morning,” well prepared to speak
about his role in the new off-Broadway hit, The View
Upstairs. That is, after he turned off his classical music.
Graham was extremely well spoken and a magnificent
personality.
Graham is known for his role as Todd in Zoolander and as Miss Understanding in
the original Broadway cast of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Amongst his many
other credits are his roles in “Absolutely Fabulous,” “Scrubs” and “Law and Order.”
He also has accepted awards including the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award
for Best Feature Performer in a Musical in The Wild Party and a 2005 Best Classical
Album Grammy Award for “Songs of Innocence and of Experience.”
Having started his career at seven years old, the handsome actor portrays Willie, a
role created especially for him by Max Vernon, writer of The View Upstairs, which
will open on February 28 at The Lynn Redgrave Theatre at The Culture Project on
Bleecker Street in New York City.
I want to know all
about the character
that you play in this
fabulous, flamboyant
musical.
I play the character
of Willie. I like to call
him the Dolly Levi of
The View Upstairs,
because he’s a little bit
of a matchmaker, makes
things positive. He has
a lot of effervescence.
He’s the life blood of
the musical. He brings
people together. I’d
even go as far as to say,
sometimes to a fault,
he really might be in a
constant state of denial.
One might call it alter
affect if you will, but he
does it for all the right
reasons. So that’s who
he is, and that’s what he
does.
How did you get
selected for the role?
Actually, Max Vernon,
the composer and writer,
actually wrote this part
for me. He was in the
last stages of getting
his degree at NYU in
composing, and that
wonderful program is
one of the few programs
like that in the country.
They always ask people
who are professionals to
come and help out with
the graduate students,
if they have time. As a
matter of fact, I’m doing
it again while I’m doing
the show. So that’s how
that started. Thankfully,
and gratefully, he was
a fan of my work, and
he wanted me to do
this role. That’s how it
happened. I said if it
ever came into fruition,
and if it ever went
into production, that
I wanted to be part of
it, and every reading
that it had, and every
workshop, I tried very
much to be available to
play the role of Willie.
It’s a role that I have a
long history with the
past several years, and
it’s just a fabulous role in
the truest sense of being
fabulous. At the same
time, it’s such a