Tituss Burgess Thinks ‘Golden Girls’ Reruns Get Funnier as You Age
Returning to Broadway for “Moulin Rouge! The Musical,” the actor shares his love for dishing during a haircut and comes out as a pluviophile.When he was a child, Tituss Burgess went with his mother to see “Your Arms Too Short to Box With God” at the Fox Theater in Atlanta. The musical made a lasting impression. “The sheer exhilaration and reckless abandon with which Stephanie Mills performed has stayed with me forever,” he said in a video interview from his New Jersey apartment, across the Hudson River from Harlem.Similarly formative experiences included “The Wiz” on a VHS tape and “Rent.” Burgess has not forgotten how they made him feel. “Every time I’m onstage, it’s someone’s first time experiencing the magic that all those greats gave me,” he said, “and I must deliver the way that they did.”Burgess certainly has plenty to work with in “Moulin Rouge! The Musical,” in which he is playing the master of ceremony Harold Zidler through Dec. 17. It is, he said, “one of the wackiest, most conniving, most fun roles I’ve ever seen outside of Fagin in ‘Oliver!’”This is his first Broadway outing since his stint as Nicely-Nicely Johnson in the 2009 revival of “Guys and Dolls.” But that does not mean that he stayed away from theatrical roles in the interim: He earned five Emmy Award nominations for his performance as the Broadway-aspiring actor Titus Andromedon in “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” and played the slightly sinister narrator in Season 2 of “Schmigadoon!” — a perfect segue into his new job in “Moulin Rouge!”Burgess, 44, talked about some of his pick-me-ups and revealed his secret ingredient in the kitchen. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1NapsIt’s a lost art form. I have no troubles taking naps: It could be on the train, it could be in an Uber. I suspect when I get the show’s schedule under my belt, some delicious naptime will be built into it.2RainI’ve been a pluviophile all my life. I don’t know what it is about rain, but I just feel my most calm, my most connected to source. I love it so much. From my balcony when there’s a gust of wind with some water in it — woof! It’s exciting. It doesn’t inconvenience me the way some people experience precipitation.3‘The Golden Girls’Those four ladies and the writers together made television magic. It’s like a fine wine: The jokes somehow are even funnier now, or I’m just getting older and maybe I understand the references a little more. On some level, every creator can reference it as a source of inspiration. For me, TV’s never been funnier.4N.Y.C.’s SkylineFew things excite me and calm me down as when the plane is descending into one of our local airports and that beautiful skyline is there waiting, saying, “Welcome home.”5Renée FlemingThere aren’t enough superlatives to describe her magic and her seamless approach to every genre. The first thing I saw her do, with the San Francisco Opera, was André Previn’s adaptation of “A Streetcar Named Desire.” She has this one aria called “I Want Magic”: Oh, dear Lord. She brings me a great deal of joy, and each listen is a lesson.6BroadwayThere’s something unique about the intersection of all of these art forms coming together to tell different stories. And then to watch Broadway transform and remake itself again and again and again — I don’t know anything outside of cinema that has the ability to recreate itself so seamlessly.7My DogsMy babies. Micah is 10, and Hans is 8, and they have the energy of puppies — I guess it’s all the love. They’ve been keeping me sane. [Hans climbs over Burgess on the couch.] He thinks he’s a star. He is the center of attention. Both of them are from the ASPCA. I much prefer my furry friends to humans.8Truffle OilI don’t claim to be some master chef, and I hate to follow directions, both recipes and in life, but I love to cook. A dash of truffle goes a very, very long way, and I put it on just about anything. It can turn a disaster into a masterpiece.9My Barbers (Both of Them)I always know when I’m due for a haircut, and it’s not the length of my hair — it’s when my heart is full and I have a lot to talk about. I highly recommend finding a barber that knows your heart as well as your head. I will admit I have two that I rotate and I tell each one different things.10Gospel MusicI grew up in the church. Being in New York, I got in and out of relationships, but at the end of the day, the one thing that seems to serve as a reminder of who I am and how I got here, and what formed my earliest connections to source material and to humans, is gospel music. So I return to it as often as I can. It’s a great reset for me. When I’m done talking to you, I’ll probably put some on. More
