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    With Cameras on Every Phone, Will Broadway’s Nude Scenes Survive?

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    Audiences are increasingly asked to lock their phones in pouches at comedy shows, concerts and some plays. But what happens onstage doesn’t always stay onstage.Jesse Williams was nominated for a Tony Award last month for his work in “Take Me Out,” an acclaimed play about baseball and homophobia. But when his name trended on Twitter the next day, it was not because of the accolade: it was because someone had surreptitiously taken a video of his nude scene and posted it online.In a recent interview Mr. Williams, who became a star through his appearances on “Grey’s Anatomy,” said he was undeterred by the incident. “I come here to do work — I’m going to tell the truth onstage, I’m going to be vulnerable,” he said. But he also made it clear that he was not all right with what had happened to him, saying that “putting nonconsensual naked photos of somebody on the internet is really foul.”Mobile phones have long disrupted live performances by ringing at inopportune moments, and have irked artists when people use them to illicitly film their work. Now the ubiquity of smartphones with ever-better cameras is leading some actors, particularly celebrities, to reconsider whether to appear nude onstage, given the risk that what is intended as an ephemeral moment can live online forever, out of context.“Ten years ago, I don’t think the first thing out of my mouth would have been: ‘Are you OK knowing that there is a decent chance that this will be filmed or photographed and be out there on social media?’” Lisa Goldberg, a publicist who represents actors in Broadway, television and film, said of the discussions she has when a performer is asked to appear nude. “That would be one of the first things I would bring up to a client today.”Jesse Williams, right, said “putting nonconsensual naked photos of somebody on the internet is really foul.” He appeared in “Take Me Out” with Carl Lundstedt.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesNudity has grown common onstage over the past 50 years, and major stars including Nicole Kidman and Daniel Radcliffe have performed scenes without clothes on Broadway when their scripts have called for it. But the chances of being photographed au naturel have grown considerably. Being Broadway royalty offers no protection: Audra McDonald, who has won six Tonys, noticed in 2019 that someone had snapped a photo of her during a nude scene from “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune.” “Not cool at all,” she wrote in a tweet.The recent videos of Mr. Williams surfaced despite the extraordinary steps that Second Stage Theater, the producer of “Take Me Out,” has taken to protect the privacy of the actors who appear nude. Audience members are required to switch off their phones and place them in pouches that are kept locked until the end of the show. The pouches, made by a company called Yondr, have grown increasingly common in recent years, especially at stand-up shows, since comedians are both fiercely protective of their jokes and concerned that some, taken out of context, could cause blowback.Roughly a million Yondr pouches were used at live events in April, nearly five times as many as were used the same month in 2019, the company said. Other shows with nude scenes are now trying them: At the end of May, Penguin Rep Theatre announced that it would deploy Yondr pouches at its upcoming Off Broadway production of “Mr. Parker” because the show contains a brief moment of nudity.Graham Dugoni, who founded Yondr in 2014, lamented that many people still have difficulty figuring out how to “be a human in the world with a computer in your pocket.”“A nude photograph is obviously one very far extreme,” Mr. Dugoni said. “But a comedian’s bit being taken out of context and repackaged on social media and reinterpreted — all of these things don’t enhance the art form. They kind of nibble away at it in a way that makes people go into hedgehog mode.”But the precautions are not foolproof. A night of comedy at the Hollywood Bowl last month was supposed to have been cellphone free, but when its headliner, Dave Chappelle, was tackled onstage, video emerged from a few people who had managed to skirt the rules. And earlier this spring, when Chris Rock had his first public stand-up set after Will Smith slapped him onstage at the Academy Awards, attendees at the Wilbur Theater in Boston were required to put their phones in Yondr pouches, too. They were only allowed to use them in a designated space near the lobby, where one ticketholder sheepishly asked for his phone back because he had forgotten to text the babysitter. Video of that show emerged, too.The ease of recording and uploading video has given pause to people thinking of disrobing in other situations, including some college students who have reassessed the wisdom of traditional naked campus runs and habitués of nude beaches, who are increasingly on the lookout for cameras. But it is becoming a particular issue in the theater, where actors who are asked to appear nude must consent to it when they sign their contracts.Many major stars have appeared nude on Broadway over the years, including Daniel Radcliffe, center, in “Equus” in 2008.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesKate Shindle, the president of Actors’ Equity Association, said in an interview that many actors believe that live theater is “meant to be participated in within four walls” and that “if that sanctity is compromised, the work suffers.” Recording from the audience, she said, can feel “like a violation — even if you have all your clothes on.”Advanced written consent is required for any filming or photography that involves nudity, union officials said. That includes any video that will appear in Theater on Film and Tape Archive at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, said Patrick Hoffman, the director and curator of the archive, which holds more than 4,400 video recordings of live theater productions. Most agree. But over the years, some actors have declined to have their nude scenes recorded for the archive. In some cases understudies have gone on in their places, and in others, their productions have simply not been recorded. Some videos of shows featuring nudity in the archive are specially formatted so researchers can watch them, but cannot pause, rewind, or fast forward.Surreptitious photography posed a challenge to actors appearing nude onstage long before the iPhone debuted in 2007.The theater environment today, where nudity is a regular feature on Broadway and even in some productions at the Metropolitan Opera, is a far cry from what it was like in 1969, when Margo Sappington, the choreographer and a cast member of the original production of “Oh! Calcutta!,” which featured extensive nudity, was among those arrested on charges of indecent exposure after a performance in Los Angeles.Even in that pre-smartphone era, cameras were a nuisance, Ms. Sappington said. So the company decided on a low-tech mitigation measure: If someone spotted a camera from the stage, they would stop the show, break the fourth wall, and call for the ushers.“Now it’s impossible in a Broadway theater in the dark to see cellphones,” she said. “People are so disrespectful. It amazes me.”And the leak of the video featuring Mr. Williams had an all-too-familiar feeling for Daniel Sunjata, who played the same character, Darren Lemming, when “Take Me Out” first ran on Broadway in 2003. Photos of his nude scenes leaked too, but were somewhat more contained in the era before Facebook and Twitter made social media so pervasive.“The main difference between now and then is amplitude,” Mr. Sunjata said, “the speed, the rapidity with which things like this can be spread.”But the leaks troubled Mr. Sunjata, who had found the nude scenes a challenge to begin with. He said he consulted his lawyers and had “wanted heads to roll.”Tatianna Casas, who works for Yondr, helped people seal their phones before a recent comedy show.Calla Kessler for The New York TimesFor Mr. Sunjata, the main difference between performing naked onstage eight times a week before a live audience, and having a photo taken of the nudity, is less about the photo’s permanence then about the lack of context surrounding it. “Someone who hasn’t seen the play just sees naked guys onstage,” he said.The current revival of “Take Me Out” has taken further steps to keep people from filming its actors. As a backup to the Yondr pouches, Second Stage Theater has installed an infrared camera with the ability to pan, tilt and zoom so that security officials can see if any members of the audience are trying to film the nude scenes.At a performance of the play last month, two theater staff members were stationed at the front of the theater at either end of the stage. They stood up during scenes that included nudity. For all the precautions, a phone rang five minutes into the first act. The crowd audibly groaned.When Mr. Williams was asked whether he would sign up again for a show in which he must appear nude, he demurred. “I don’t know,” he said. “My reaction is never as hot, or loud or miserable as everybody expects it to be.”Michael Paulson and Julia Jacobs contributed reporting. Sheelagh McNeill and Alain Delaquérière contributed research. More

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      Leaked Video of Jesse Williams’s Staged Nude Scene Denounced by Union

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      Despite an attempt to ban smartphones in the theater, a video of the actor’s nude scene in the Broadway production of “Take Me Out” circulated widely online.The first time “Take Me Out,” a baseball play with nude shower scenes, arrived on Broadway, there were no iPhones in the theater, because they hadn’t been invented yet.This year, when the acclaimed play returned for its first revival, the nonprofit presenting the show instituted a no-phones policy, requiring patrons to put their phones in locked pouches before entering the theater, in an effort to prevent the photographing of naked actors.The effort failed.This week, someone posted to social media video of a naked Jesse Williams, a star of the play, in a shower scene. The video circulated widely.The incident prompted outrage both from Second Stage Theater, the nonprofit producing the play, and Actors’ Equity Association, the union that represents stage performers.“We condemn in the strongest possible terms the creation and distribution of photographs and videos of our members during a nude scene,” Kate Shindle, the union president, said in a statement. “As actors, we regularly agree to be vulnerable onstage in order to tell difficult and challenging stories. This does not mean that we agree to have those vulnerable moments widely shared by anyone who feels like sneaking a recording device into the theater.”Second Stage, which distributes Playbills with an insert reminding patrons that “photos and videos are strictly prohibited,” issued its own statement, saying “we are appalled that this policy has been violated” and that “taking naked pictures of anyone without their consent is highly objectionable and can have severe legal consequences.”The theater said it was seeking to have the online videos removed, and was adding security at the theater to enforce its phone ban.Second Stage has been using Yondr pouches to restrict phone use — when patrons arrive, they are asked to turn off their phones and put them into the locked pouches, which the patrons hold through the show, and then hand back to be unlocked after it is over. The system, used at some comedy shows, pop music concerts and other live events, is imperfect — some people have figured out how to open such pouches, while others smuggle in phones despite the rules.“Take Me Out,” written by Richard Greenberg, is about homophobia in baseball; Williams plays a team star who comes out as gay and confronts discomfort among some of his teammates. In 2003, the drama won the Tony Award for best play; this week the current revival picked up four nominations, including one for best revival, and three for actors, including Williams, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Michael Oberholtzer. Oberholtzer can also be seen, naked, in some of the online video.In the run-up to the show, Williams, best known for “Grey’s Anatomy,” discussed the nudity. “It’s terrifying in all the right ways,” he said on “The Ellen Show” last year. In an interview this year with The New York Times, he was more sanguine. “I’m here to do things I’ve never done before,” he said. “I have got one life, as far as I know. It’ll be fine.” More

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      Review: In ‘Take Me Out,’ Whose Team Are You On?

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      Richard Greenberg’s 2002 play about baseball and homophobia gets a fine revival starring Jesse Williams and Jesse Tyler Ferguson.Not for nothing is Darren Lemming, the fictional center fielder of a team called the Empires, also at the center of “Take Me Out,” Richard Greenberg’s gay fantasia on the national pastime.Said to be a “five-tool player of such incredible grace he made you suspect there was a sixth tool,” Lemming surpasses even Derek Jeter — on whom he is to some degree modeled — in versatility, steadiness and the kind of arrogance that, arising from excellence, adds up to charisma. He’s a natural star for baseball and, when he decides to come out as gay, a natural irritant for drama.At its best, “Take Me Out,” which opened on Monday in a fine revival at the Helen Hayes Theater, is a five-tool play. It’s (1) funny, with an unusually high density of laughs for a yarn that is (2) quite serious, and (3) cerebral without undermining its (4) emotion. I’m not sure whether (5) counts as one tool or many, but “Take Me Out” gives meaty roles to a team of actors, led in this Second Stage Theater production by Jesse Williams as Lemming and Jesse Tyler Ferguson as his fanboy business manager.True, dropping a few flies along the way and throwing some wild pitches — forgive the baseball metaphors, which the play indulges with the zeal of a convert — makes “Take Me Out” a bit baffling in parts. It’s not the kind of work that benefits much from postgame analysis, which reveals flaws in construction and logic. But in performance, now no less than in 2002, when it had its New York debut at the Public Theater, it is mostly delightful and provocative. Perhaps especially for gay men, it is also a useful corrective to the feeling of banishment from a necessary sport.Jesse Tyler Ferguson, center, as a business manager overjoyed with his new superstar client who awakens in him a love of the game.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBy that I don’t mean baseball itself but the examination of masculinity through its lens. In “Take Me Out,” Lemming’s announcement that he’s gay, prompted by no scandal and involving no lover, is essentially a pretext for a disquisition on maleness. What it finds in the locker room, where the Empires change, shower, snap towels and squabble, is as despairing as what it finds on the field is still hopeful and good.Connecting them, Lemming is a figure of godlike mystery. Aside from his purely technical skills, he is the kind of person, as his teammate Kippy Sunderstrom (Patrick J. Adams) floridly describes him, from whom mess does not “flow forth.” Lemming assumes that whatever he does will redound to his benefit, and that unlike most people for whom coming out is momentous, his gayness will be just another of “the irrelevancies” in his life, like being handsome and biracial.What he hasn’t counted on is the way, for his teammates, the revelation dims his aura of perfection while exposing cracks in their less perfectly airtight psyches. Their nudity now feels different to them, which is why the audience is asked to consider it as well. (But not the wider world; patrons are required to put their phones in Yondr pouches to prevent photography.) However well built he is, a man wearing nothing is inherently undefended.As a result, the Empires, formerly on track for the World Series, begin to lose cohesion and, soon thereafter, games. Homophobia bubbles up from the dark places of other men’s souls; even Lemming’s closest friend, Davey Battle, a religious man who plays for an opposing team in more ways than one, comes unglued by it. And, with the arrival of Shane Mungitt, a pitcher called up from the minor leagues, the confusion erupts in a shockingly violent act.Adams, left, as the veteran player Kippy Sunderstrom, and Michael Oberholtzer as Shane Mungitt, a talented pitcher carrying a ton of baggage. Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesYet “Take Me Out” is not only about that descent into chaos on the playing field; it is also, in the story of the business manager, Mason Marzac, about the elevation of the spirit in the same locale. Marzac, the kind of gay man who feels he has no place in the heterosexual world or even the gay community — “I’m outside them. Possibly beneath them,” he says — is overjoyed when Lemming, his new client, comes out. In that act he sees the possibility of a reintegration into the mainstream of Americanness, and soon develops a maniacal interest in the game.That his newfound fandom is mostly a way of redirecting an impossible crush does not make it any less meaningful; that kind of sublimation may indeed be an unspoken aspect of many sports manias. Ferguson makes that feeling legible in a softer, less biting take on Marzac than the one originated by the brilliant Denis O’Hare, who won a Tony Award for the 2003 Broadway production. Ferguson brings out Marzac’s woundedness in a wonderfully detailed comic performance that is nevertheless full of yearning and unexpected elation.But if Lemming and baseball take Marzac out of his shell of protective pessimism — one of the many meanings packed into the grand-slam pun of the title — Marzac also takes Lemming out of his shell of aloofness. Oddly it is this element, the most fantastical in real life, that feels most believable onstage, and only in part because the locker-room drama, which involves too many obvious tensioning devices as well as too many morons, slightly collapses as the story develops. A late scene added for this production, between Lemming and two policemen, doubles down on that problem.Williams, left, and Brandon J. Dirden in the first Broadway revival of Richard Greenberg’s 2002 play, a Second Stage production.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBut as Lemming and Marzac form a bond — not romantic but not untender, either — the ideas that Greenberg is juggling, about integration on the ball field and integration of the psyche, fully pay off. Williams, a stage novice but a longtime star of the television series “Grey’s Anatomy,” nails the way the glamour of the gifted can keep them from full lives; perhaps the seeming effortlessness of his own career gives him insight into the downside of too much ease.Under Scott Ellis’s assured and sprightly if visually underpowered direction, the other cast members make excellent utility players, moving swiftly between spotlight moments and background work as members of the team. In particular, Michael Oberholtzer, as Mungitt, seems to disappear into his damaged self when he isn’t spewing bizarre biographical tidbits or hatred. And as Battle, Brandon J. Dirden, just off a stellar turn as a factory foreman in “Skeleton Crew,” gives a perfectly etched performance at the other end of the spectrum, finding in his faith a sanctimony that supersedes even love.It is in fact Battle who unintentionally sets the plot in motion, telling Lemming that to be a full human he should want his “whole self known.” Ultimately, “Take Me Out” is about the danger that challenge poses to some people — a danger others may know nothing about. Still, Greenberg shows us, it is crucial to happiness, and not just for gay men, even if it introduces immense difficulties. A game needn’t be perfect to be won.Take Me OutThrough May 29 at the Helen Hayes Theater, Manhattan; 2st.com. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes. More

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      After ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ Jesse Williams Takes the Stage

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      The former “Grey’s Anatomy” star is making his Broadway debut in “Take Me Out.” For that, he said, “I needed to go into a very unknown place.”Jesse Williams will be the first tell you — certainly, he was the first to tell me — that he has no formal theater training and little practice. There’s an Edward Albee play in the hazy past and a one-act opposite Zosia Mamet. That’s pretty much it.When I met him, on a recent weekday afternoon at Spring Place, a ritzy club and co-working space in TriBeCa, he joked that he was probably the least experienced theater actor I had ever interviewed.But on April 4, the Broadway revival of Richard Greenberg’s “Take Me Out” will open at Second Stage’s Hayes Theater with Williams, a familiar TV presence from his decade-plus run on “Grey’s Anatomy.” Which means that he is learning on the job: what “upstage” means, whether to hold for a laugh, how to use his whole body in a scene and not just the torso on up, as is the norm on television.“I’m not even wearing pants in half of those scenes,” he said of his time on “Grey’s.” (I think he was kidding?)In “Take Me Out,” which is set in the mid-1990s, Williams, 40, plays Darren Lemming, a superstar baseball player who comes out as gay. It’s a play about race, class, sexuality, sport and living a life in the public eye. Williams’s Darren stands — in batter’s crouch — at the intersection of these competing themes. “I’m here to just learn and get my butt kicked,” he said, using a stronger word than “butt.”Patrick J. Adams, left, and Williams in the play, which is in previews and scheduled to open on April 4.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWilliams grew up in Chicago, the eldest child of a white mother, a potter, and a Black father, a factory worker who later became a teacher. When Williams hit junior high school, his parents, now divorced, moved the family to a majority white neighborhood in suburban Massachusetts, where he experienced casual, and less casual, racism. Baseball, which he played on school teams and with his father, remained a constant.He graduated from prep school — he had moved on to soccer and lacrosse by then — and enrolled at Temple University, double majoring in African American studies and film and media arts. School, like most things, came easy to him. He would often write his papers the night before, high on marijuana, just to see if he could get away with it. Still, he excelled.Scouted as a model, he shot some commercials during college. But he never took that too seriously. The artists in his family were visual artists, not performers. And acting didn’t seem as creative, as generative, as stimulating. In 2006, having worked as a teacher, a paralegal and a political organizer and an activist with several grassroots organizations, he decided to apply to law school. Or maybe film school. But first he reached out to his old commercial agent, a move he chalked up to a “quarter-life crisis.”Four days later, in an example of the effortlessness that has defined his professional life, he booked an episode of “Law & Order.” He appeared in a few movies and shows, including a brief arc on the teen comedy “Greek” as a character aptly nicknamed the Hotness Monster. Then, in 2009, he was hired onto the medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy,” where he spent 12 years as Jackson Avery, the dynamic, gym-ripped plastic surgeon.Here is the comment that Shonda Rhimes, who created “Grey’s,” gave about a key scene: “We felt that having a shirtless Jackson Avery would be a benefit to society.”What he lacked in formal training, he made up for in his eagerness to master the craft. “He was always watching everybody’s artistry and learning from it,” said Krista Vernoff, a “Grey’s” showrunner.His colleague Sarah Drew, who played his longtime love interest, echoed that. “There’s nobody that worked as hard as he did,” she said. “Nobody.”Ellen Pompeo, another co-star, who said that she lived to mess with him, added: “He’s handsome. Girls always like that.”Fair enough. Williams, whom I watched first in rehearsal and then a few days later across that Spring Place table, is good-looking in a way that seems almost uncanny, with a grin that could melt permafrost. In person, he projects confidence — cockiness, almost — shot through with self-scrutiny and the occasional flash of humility. Colleagues described his keen intellect, instantly legible in the quickness and charm of his conversation.“Can an actor cross the footlights? I thought, I bet he can,” the director Scott Ellis said of offering Williams the lead role in “Take Me Out” after seeing him on “Grey’s Anatomy.”Sabrina Santiago for The New York Times“Yes, he really does look like that,” Vernoff told me. “And yes, he is really smart. And really, really talented.”Which explains why, a few years ago, the director Scott Ellis offered him the role of Darren. Ellis had wanted to revive “Take Me Out,” which received the Tony Award for best play in 2003. But first he had to find a biracial leading man (Darren’s race is a crucial element of the play) of overwhelming charisma who could also pass as a Hall-of-Fame-level player. Having seen Williams on “Grey’s,” Ellis suspected that he could command a Broadway stage.“It’s always that question,” Ellis said, speaking on a rehearsal break. “Can an actor cross the footlights? I thought, I bet he can.”Williams turned Ellis down. His schedule on “Grey’s” — as an actor and occasional director — didn’t allow a Broadway run. The play itself, with its rhythmic, cerebral dialogue and its nude scene, scared him. But the offer nagged at him. And as his work on “Grey’s” began to feel, in his words, “increasingly safe, protected, insulated,” that fear became part of the appeal.“I knew that as I designed my exit, the next thing I did had to be terrifying. I needed to get out of my comfort zone, I needed to go into a very unknown place,” he said. “Take Me Out” provided it.REHEARSALS BEGAN in February 2020 and halted, as all Broadway did, that March. Williams spent the intervening months at home in Los Angeles, teaching the rudiments of baseball to his two children — he shares custody with his former wife, Aryn Drake-Lee — and intensifying his activism, particularly his support of the Black Lives Matter movement.Williams sits on the board of the Advancement Project, an advocacy group devoted to civil rights. “He is deeply committed to racial justice,” said Judith Browne Dianis, its executive director. “He’s not one of the celebs or influencers that does things for his brand purposes. It’s deep in his soul.”Williams does little for brand purposes. And he doesn’t seem to know how to phone it in. “I swing through the ball,” he said, describing his approach to each new project. He didn’t seem to register the sports metaphor.Williams spent 12 years playing the plastic surgeon Jackson Avery on the medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy.” Williams, above center, with some of his co-stars, from left: Robert Baker, Kevin McKidd, Sandra Oh and Sara Ramirez.Randy Holmes/ABCWhen rehearsals began again, almost two years later, he swung through, supplementing run-throughs with voice lessons; personal training; breath work, where he learned about the diaphragm; physical therapy, to heal several torn ligaments in his foot. (Mini golf has its dangers.)“I’m taking the preparation really seriously, because every single syllable is totally brand-new,” he said.Because he lacks training — “I’m not really an actor,” he reminded me, “I didn’t go to acting school” — he fills his characters out with lived experience. In some ways, his experiences paralleled Darren’s.For example, they share a similar focus and drive. “I win,” he said, using more sports metaphors. “I hustle hard. I jump way bigger than I am. And I figure it out.”And he relates to the frictionless way that Darren has moved through his life. The play describes Darren as “something special: A Black man who you could imagine had never suffered.” And that isn’t true of Williams personally, but it’s true enough professionally.“I’ve related to a self-awareness of ease in my life, a self-awareness that the way I look or perform, based on the standards in our society, grants me access,” he said. “I can relate to how it can lull you to sleep, ease.”He has asked himself why Darren chooses to come out as gay. Is it an act of self-determination or a kind of self-sabotage, a way to complicate that ease?Of course, those same questions also apply to a TV actor choosing to lead a Broadway play. “There’s a lot of spillage,” Williams said. “A lot of overlap.” Which means that the role is also a way for Williams to explore some of his own contradictions, like what it means to be a deep thinker admired for his body, to be a Black celebrity in majority white spaces, to live both a public life and a private one.Williams on embracing the play’s locker room nude scenes: “I’m here to do things I’ve never done before. It’ll be fine.”Sabrina Santiago for The New York TimesHe is trying to embrace those contradictions fully and candidly, which also means embracing the play’s locker room nude scenes. He was somewhat resistant at first, asking Ellis about alternatives — a towel bar, maybe? But he has since committed to it, although when he spoke, he admitted that he had yet to try it.“I’m here to do things I’ve never done before,” he said. “I have got one life, as far as I know. It’ll be fine.”But of course his life is not exactly Darren’s, particularly when it comes to sexuality. Darren is gay. And Williams, as a number of tabloids will happily tell you, is straight. While Broadway has largely decided against racial impersonation, when it comes to matters of sexuality, gender and disability conversations around which actors should play which roles remain ongoing.Ellis, who is openly gay, said that an actor’s sexuality pertains less than other factors. “Do they have empathy?” he said rhetorically. “Do I feel that they can understand what this character is going through? That’s all that matters.”That isn’t exactly all that matters to Williams, who has taken these questions to heart. “If there’s anybody in the gay community that thinks that role should be played by a gay person, they have an argument,” he said. “They absolutely have an argument.”And still, he wanted his at-bat. “I really wanted the challenge of trying to do my best at the role,” he said.For Jesse Tyler Ferguson (“Modern Family”), the openly gay actor who plays opposite Williams, that’s enough. “He’s asking very thoughtful questions in the process and doing the work that truly great actors do,” Ferguson said. “I’ve completely fallen in love with his version of Darren.”I watched a scene of that Darren — the shower scene, rehearsed clothed — on a recent weekday morning. Williams looked like a ballplayer, rubbing pain cream into his ankle, swinging a bat like he’d been born with it. He looked like a stage actor, too, communicating danger and an almost feline grace as Darren approached another character.Patrick J. Adams (“Suits”), a longtime stage actor, described how quickly Williams had adapted to the rhythms of theater. “He’s just taking it in kind of instantly, almost frustratingly, to be perfectly honest,” Adams said. “Like, How is this so easy for you?”Williams makes it look easy. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t working hard.“The last thing I want is to be the shiny rich TV guy that thinks he can just show up and do something, because that’s just absolutely not how I feel,” he said. “I’m just here to learn.” More