Company's Claybourne Elder Challenged Patti LuPone to Make Pork Buns During Quarantine

Claybourne Elder should be performing in Marianne Elliott's production of Company as Andy the flight attendant. Instead, he's soaking up the time at home with his husband, Eric Rosen, and their two-year-old son Bo, hopping on Zoom calls with his Company castmates and promoting his new film Netuser. "We're actually having a great time," Elder said to Paul Wontorek on Broadway.com's #LiveatFive: Home Edition. "It's fun to be a full-time parent, especially after being so busy. One small gift of this, is that it's been really lovely to spend time with [Bo]."

Elder loves having this extra time with family, especially because one of his newest projects means so much to him and his husband. "Eric wrote and directed Netuser," Elder said. "The film actually got picked up by a production company and was planning on going to a whole bunch of festivals this year, which have all been canceled. It's very loosely inspired by the Buttigieg campaign, and [Eric] felt it was really important to release it now. It's been really exciting releasing it online and seeing all the buzz and attention on it. We shot some of it in our apartment and Bo is in it as well. We love working together and collaborating. It was fun getting to watch him do something he loves and believes in."

When he's not on dad-duty or fixing up their newly-bought home upstate, Elder is checking in with his Company co-stars. "We meet every Thursday on Zoom to play games, exchange recipes, drink," he said. "We also run through the show too, don't worry. Luckily, we had had a couple of months to get to know each other but we'd only had a week of previews. We hadn't really gotten to the point where we let the audience, as the other cast member, affect our performance. It'll be fun to come back and start that next step together."

When Elder's Company co-star Patti LuPone stopped by #LiveatFive: Home Edition, she tols us all about having the cast dance along to tunes from her jukebox during their Zoom calls. Now we know baking challenges also come into play. "I actually just gave Patti a baking challenge this week," Elder said. "It is pork buns, like steamed buns with braised pork in the middle. I wrote out a Company Broadway-themed recipe where I have all these inside jokes in it and sent it to her. She's going to do the challenge. We could probably do our own thing; Company Cooks, or something." Sign us up for that cooking class!

Watch Claybourne Elder working with Stephen Sondheim for the third time and more in the full episode below!