Rob McClure and Maggie Lakis Are Making Mrs. Doubtfire a Family Adventure

Right now, Rob McClure could have been prepping for a simple romp through the forest in the Broadway revival of Spamalot. In spring 2023, he played the Historian in Josh Rhodes’ Kennedy Center production that is moving into the St. James Theatre this fall with most of the original D.C. company. And yet, in lieu of a comfy Broadway gig, McClure has opted instead to traverse the country in one of the most demanding roles in recent Broadway history.

Reprising his Tony-nominated performance as Daniel Hillard in the national tour of Mrs. Doubtfire, McClure is joined by his wife—fellow actor Maggie Lakis—who co-stars as his onstage wife, Miranda Hillard. Before hitting the road, the pair sat down with Broadway.com Editor-in-Chief Paul Wontorek on The Broadway Show with Tamsen Fadal to talk about bringing a real-life marriage to the stage and the vital love story at the heart of this musical.

Of course, if you’re at all familiar with Mrs. Doubtfire, you’ll know the love story McClure and Lakis will be sharing across the continent is not theirs. The spouses of 13 years are portraying one of the most famous divorced couples in cinematic history. Memorably played by Robin Williams and Sally Field in the 1993 film, we meet Daniel and Miranda Hillard at a marital inflection point—one that initiates a contentious divorce and leads Daniel, in an act of fatherly desperation, to disguise himself as a British nanny (cue Catherine Zuber’s parade of fabulous costumes). The story does have a happy ending, but one that distinctly prioritizes familial love over romantic love.

"That's what's so special about this show," says Lakis. "I remember when this movie came out, friends who came from families that were divorced talked about how special a movie it was because the happy ending wasn't them getting back together." Forgoing the classic Parent Trap caper where a broken family reunites, Lakis values that Mrs. Doubtfire validates a family unit that is not dependent upon a traditional two-parent household. "It's such a powerful message to know that…your family isn't broken. Your family is special, and there's love."

"And joy," McClure adds. "Anytime a movie becomes a musical, there's a huge swath of people who go, ‘Why?’ I have over 220 letters from children to adults to grandparents who are all answering the question of why Mrs. Doubtfire should be a musical" (watch the segment to hear McClure read a particularly poignant fan message that he shared with one of Mrs. Doubtfire’s Broadway audiences).

Though Lakis was privy to Mrs. Doubtfire’s development through McClure—who opened the show’s world premiere at Seattle’s 5th Avenue Theatre in 2019—she had to stay at arm’s length for the majority of the musical’s tumultuous ride through the pandemic.

"Yesterday was the first time in rehearsal I put on the mask," says McClure, referring to the prosthetic face that transforms him into the show’s title character. "Maggie came walking up to me and was like, ‘Whoa! I’ve never seen this up close.'"

"Once the pandemic happened, I was actually very separate from it," Lakis recalls. "It was all about keeping him healthy."

Mrs. Doubtfire, which came to New York City fresh off a box-office-record-breaking run in Seattle, had the misfortune of holding its first Broadway preview on March 9, 2020. Broadway shut down three days later on March 12. The musical came back to Broadway’s Stephen Sondheim Theatre in October of 2021 ahead of an official December opening, but the Omicron wave of the pandemic forced the production to shut down again until April 2022. After all its fits and starts, Mrs. Doubtfire played its final Broadway performance just over a month later on May 29.

"It's this weird dichotomy, because I've been doing this show for a long time, but actually not many performances because the universe kept on interfering," says McClure. "There was a part of me that felt unfinished business with that show. For as much time as I spent with it, I never really got a satisfying run where I could catch my stride and feel like it found the people who needed it when they needed it most."

That sense of unfinished business is what brings McClure back for what will likely be his final chapter with Mrs. Doubtfire—a second (or third or fourth) chance for him to give audiences the performance he spent years refining, and a rare opportunity for theatergoers outside of New York City to see a musical’s original Broadway star. The do-over, however, that seems to mean the most to both McClure and Lakis, is the one that will allow them to finally bring their almost-five-year-old daughter Sadie into Mrs. Doubtfire’s warm and welcoming fold.

"I'm excited to bring Sadie backstage and show her around because all of that was taken away from us," says McClure, looking back on all the Covid restrictions that distanced his daughter from the show. "It was really important to us that she feel like a part of a community and a company," Lakis agrees. "One of the big decisions when [producer] Kevin McCollum approached us about this was that she could feel welcome at the theater because she had to be so separate during the pandemic."

"She's already friends with the Hillard kids," McClure happily reports. "The first day she came home from rehearsal, she said, ‘Those are the nicest kids I've ever met.'"

"You take on the culture of the show you're in," McClure says. "The culture of Mrs. Doubtfire is: What would you do for your family?" That question is McClure and Lakis’ lodestar as they head out on this "big family adventure"—to borrow McClure’s words. And to borrow Mrs. Doubtfire’s, "There are all sorts of families"—including ones with a mom, a dad and a tour bus full of nomadic entertainers.