Longtime seasonal Vineyard Haven resident Roger Bart has been nominated for his third Tony award for his role as Doc Brown in the Broadway production of Back to the Future. Previously, he had been nominated for The Producers and won a Tony for You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown.
The 77th Tony awards take place June 16 and Mr. Bart said he is especially pleased about the latest nomination. He made his Broadway debut in 1985 and since then has had a long and successful career on stage, in film and on television.
“I think it’s sweeter because it’s been 25 years since my first Tony nomination, which is a really remarkable feeling for me,” Mr. Bart said. “Just to be back on Broadway and to receive that honor and recognition means so much about survival.”
Another milestone for Mr. Bart was the unveiling of his portrait at the famed New York restaurant, Sardi’s. Sardi’s is located in the heart of the city’s theatre district where it has become tradition to honor Broadway’s stars with a portrait.
On April 25 Mr. Bart’s portrait was added to the walls, hanging alongside some of Broadway’s most legendary figures, from Lin-Manuel Miranda to Barbara Streisand. Mr. Bart was presented with his portrait in front of his castmates from Back to the Future.
“I’m next to the greats,” he said in an interview with the Gazette at Sardi’s, seated by his portrait. “I don’t know how I ended up here, but it’s amazing.”
In Back to the Future on Broadway, Mr. Bart plays Doc Brown, an eccentric inventor originally played in the movie by Christopher Lloyd. Back to the Future the movie also starred Michael J. Fox, another longtime seasonal resident of the Vineyard, who was in attendance at the Broadway opening. Mr. Fox’s character Marty McFly is played by Casey Likes.
Mr. Bart’s connection to the Vineyard dates back generations, when his grandparents arrived on a whim. They had traveled to Woods Hole for a nearby event when they noticed ferries headed to Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. Out of curiosity, they chose to take the shorter trip to the Vineyard and immediately decided they wanted to spend their summers here.
Eventually Mr. Bart’s grandparents bought a home on the Island, settling in Vineyard Haven where Mr. Bart continues to visit when he is not in New York.
“It is more a part of our lives and our history of our family than any other place, because we moved around,” Mr. Bart said.
Some of the skills that have served Mr. Bart well in his theatrical career were honed on the Island during a summer job as a singing waiter at the Seafood Shanty in Edgartown. He worked there six days a week for two summers, singing five sets of five songs each night.
“It was a great, great job,” he said. “And I learned a lot, a lot of theatre music when I was up there.”
Starring in a Broadway show is incredibly demanding, Mr. Bart said, and he looks to his Vineyard vacations as a time to relax and renew. He said he enjoys the beaches, the lobster rolls and the frogs in his backyard that occasionally will make sounds that are reminiscent of the tunes of famous musicals.
Mr. Bart said he thinks Doc Brown would feel right at home on the Vineyard, a place that welcomes characters and creatives. And given that Doc Brown is always searching to invent something new, Mr. Bart believes he would attempt to find a way to increase the number of ferries going to and from the Vineyard, making the occasional spontaneous trip during the summer so much more realistic.
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