'RENT' star Adam Pascal bringing acoustic show to Broadway Cabaret at Rittenhouse Grill

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- The Broadway Cabaret at Rittenhouse Grill is about to kick off its fall season with two special evenings of music and storytelling.

Tony nominee Adam Pascal, who originated the role of Roger in "RENT," is bringing his acoustic show to Philadelphia for the first time.

He says this show is his personal journey set to music.

"I didn't get into doing theater in an orthodox way," Pascal says. "It was very unorthodox."

It was 1995, and Jonathan Larson was casting his rock opera, "RENT."

Pascal, an aspiring rock band frontman, would get the role of Roger. How he got there is the stuff of fate.

"Most people don't know this, but Idina Menzel and I grew up down the street from each other," Pascal explains. "She called me up when she had been cast as Maureen, and said, 'You know, they're trying to find somebody for this particular role, and he's a rock singer. I thought of you. Do you want to audition?' The audition was just me going down and singing a song with my guitar."

The show about struggling artists up against poverty, illness, and the AIDS epidemic would win everything from a Tony Award to a Pulitzer Prize.

"It changed everybody's life," Pascal says. "It certainly changed mine."

Pascal's stories and the songs that became the soundtrack to his life -- from "RENT" to "Aida" and beyond -- are all in the show.

"It's an acoustic show, myself on guitar and then I talk about the shows, I play music from those shows," he says. "I would hope that, if nothing else, it would inspire people to maybe take risks that they didn't necessarily feel comfortable taking. Because for me, this whole career has been a risk. It wasn't anything that I was ever intending to do."

Adam Pascal is at the Broadway Cabaret at Rittenhouse Grill on September 29 and 30.

It's dinner and a show, with a backstage meet and greet option.

For tickets and more information, visit RittenhouseGrill.com.