Meet the 2022 Tony Nominees: TAKE ME OUT's Michael Oberholtzer

My name is Michael Oberholzer. I'm nominated for my performance in Take Me Out for Best Featured Actor in a Play

It is Tony Day. How do you feel? Listen, I mean, this is a great day. I mean, it's a great 72 hours. 72 hours, I guess. 96 hours. I don't know what day it is

It's wonderful. There's a lot going on. I couldn't be happier, truthfully

But you know what's interesting about your journey with this play? In rehearsal, you guys were supposed to start and it shut down for two years

You all came back. Everybody loved each other as a cast, a company. I mean, it must have been so great to get back together again and the journey you're on with this play now

Absolutely. You know, it was great to reconnect with these guys. I mean, as soon as we sat down at the table, it was like no time had passed

Everybody knew what was going on in each other's lives. People had changed. People had gotten more jacked up. People had babies

Yeah, it was great to see everybody. We did our first table read and we just took off. We had the rapport built in

We just had a team ready to go. All that stuff was just there. So we didn't have to work on any of that in the beginning

You play such a complex character that is so beautifully written by Richard Greenberg. But I have never seen him play your second act breakdown scene. It's one of the most brilliant things I have ever seen on stage

Are you serious? Yeah, totally. You're so sweet. I've been going to the theater since I was 10 years old. It was like, wow. That totally wiped me out. What was it like rehearsing that with Scott Ellis and putting that whole scene together

Scott is one of the best that we have, truthfully, for a lot of reasons. I think for this play, he was able to cast it perfectly. I'm not saying that about myself, of course. I'm saying that about everybody else

He knew how to pay attention. He knew how to get out of the way. And he said no to a lot of things, which is very, very important. I had a lot of ideas about what I thought Shane should look like and sound like and do

He liked some things and said no, no, no. Leave that, leave that. I think the biggest thing for me was that, and he understood this for my journey with Shane, is that you have to rehearse it 100%. You have to play full out with Shane at all times to really delve into what he's wrestling with

There was one rehearsal in particular where we did the last scene and it's exhausting. He said, this is good. If you want to wrap it for the day, we can wrap it. Or do you want to do it again? I said, let's do it one more time

I said, let's do it one more time. And I was so tired. And I was so grateful that we did it. We learned so much. Patrick learned so much. Jesse had so much. We just got so much in that from just playing full out repeatedly. And that's what it's been like since the very beginning

You're on Broadway in this beautiful new hit production of Take Me Out. You're introducing a whole new audience to this show. What that means to you

For me personally, to be in a Richard Greenberg play, I have such affection. I love him so much as a person. He's just one of our great American playwrights. So to be in a play like this, it's the best

And to be recognized is something that I will forever be grateful for. I don't even remember what your question was. It's emotional, really. It's really hard to put into words

I feel so fortunate. Even without a nomination, this has been an incredible experience. Really. It truly has. And for me to be able to step forward a little bit and to bring more attention and recognition to this play and to everybody who's attached to it, it's something that I cherish and that I take a lot of pride in

Because a lot of people are responsible for me sitting here and for us and for this play being where it is right now