Screen star Nathan Darrow returns for Guys and Dolls at MTH

Photo by Cory Weaver

For his latest theater turn, Nathan Darrow is taking great joy in a being part of what he calls “a fable of Broadway.” Darrow will play inveterate gambler Sky Masterson in Music Theater Heritage’s production of Guys and Dolls, running June 5 to 29 at Crown Center.

“It’s like he’s a person who really thinks he has his life organized in way that he’s happy with and that he can sustain, and, of course, like in any great drama, that character is going to be tested,” Darrow says.

Although you might know Darrow from his on-screen roles in House of Cards, Gotham, or Billions, theater has played an important role throughout his career. He credits the theater program at Shawnee Mission North for nurturing his early acting interests and helping him develop a good work ethic.

“That place was run by these two amazing artists and educators, Maureen Davis and Margaret McClatchey. Those two people, they saw something in me, they believed in it, and they gave me a lot of really amazing opportunities to work and also to experience the theater in all of its madness, if you will—its wonderful madness,” says Darrow.

He moved on to study at the University of Evansville and later New York University. Although he now calls New Jersey home, Darrow has been a frequent face on Kansas City stages for about 20 years, appearing at The Unicorn Theatre, the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, and more. He’s also performed at other theaters around the country.

Going to see performances during his youth on the very stages where he has now performed is something that Darrow does not take lightly.

“It was so impactful, the work I saw here. I feel like I’m part of a community and a tradition,” he says.

Despite his success on stage and screen, Darrow knows it’s not always an easy road.

“The journey of any artist, but certainly somebody trying to make it a profession, is varied. It’s not just a steady climb. There’s a lot of periods of doubt. There’s a lot of periods where you’re not getting the work, and maybe there’s a reason for it, but if people know, they’re not telling you,” Darrow says.

Although he takes joy in acting on screen, one thing that appeals to him about performing live on stage is the direct connection he has with an audience.

“In the theater you’re making the actual thing that is being received in the moment by everybody. When making a movie, you’re trying to make ingredients that the director and editor can use to then make something, and that was an adjustment,” he says.

Darrow remembers getting an important acting tip from Robert De Niro when the two were performing a scene as father and son during the making of The Wizard of Lies about the Bernie Madoff scandal.

“It’s going to sound really wild to say it, but it’s almost like he gave me a real, major basic lesson in acting. It was to do with—the actor always knows how the story turns out. The actor always knows even what the next line is. … But of course, we have to be really keen about your behavior in a scene and how it can start to tip your hand,” Darrow says.

By the end of the scene, “I was like, ‘Oh. I’m sitting here talking to Bob, and yet it seems like I’m talking to my dad, and it really seems like this is all happening. I’m making a movie and I’m pretending fully in this reality, this imagined reality.’ It’s something I’ll never forget,” he says.

Darrow says he relishes roles where it feels like the writer is observing and reflecting something authentic about life, whether it’s heartbreak, greed, or humor.

“When that happens, I’m usually like, ‘I’ll play any role in that thing,’” he says.

With Guys and Dolls, it’s the exploration of what someone would do for love that’s caught his attention.

“I think this play is essentially about romantic love and how romantic love is a force that is thrilling and that is also terrifying, and it does challenge all of those things about a person, whether they’re willing to gamble or risk all of their structures of self-protection and even survival,” Darrow says.

Guys and Dolls runs from June 5 to 29 at Music Theater Heritage in Crown Center, 2450 Grand Blvd, Suite 301. For more information, visit MTH’s site. Tickets start at $45.