Oct 03, 2008  |  By: PATRICK FOLLIARD  | COMMENTS     

Portraying a member of a Christian boy band is hardly in the “Othello” league, but for young gay actor Travis Morin, the role suits him just fine.

“Who doesn’t like to sing pop?” Moran says. “I’d much rather be doing this show than ‘The Sound of Music.’”

The show is “Altar Boyz,” Gary Adler and Michael Patrick Walker’s award-winning musical comedy about a Christian boy band out of Ohio whose members come to a personal and professional crossroads on the last night of their “Raise the Praise” tour. Kicking off season two at Bethesda Theatre, “Altar Boyz” gently satirizes the boy band phenomenon and the marketing of religion.

Staged as a concert in real time, the show gives five cute guys — Matthew, Mark, Luke, Juan and Abraham (the lone Jewish kid in the group) — the chance to harmonize and gyrate like ’N Sync as well as the opportunity to prove themselves in solo spotlight moments. Morin plays Luke whom he describes as a bit of a bad — though charmingly naïve — boy with an unhealthy interest in communion wine.

Prior to being cast in the Bethesda Theatre spirited production, Morin had been called in to audition for “Altar Boyz” several times, but never for the part of Luke. After winning the role, he went to see the off-Broadway production and picked up on his character’s faith as something relatable. To be an actor, Morin says, requires a prodigious amount of faith, faith that you’re going to get the part, faith that the audience is going to like your performance and that you’re going to make it.

Not long after graduating from the Boston Conservatory in 2006 where he studied musical theater, Morin found a gig singing and dancing on a cruise ship. (“It was an experience, but not something I’d want to do again.”) The best thing to come from his time at sea was the money he was able to save — enough to finance his move to New York City.

“Life for a struggling actor in New York is not easy,” Morin says. “My first job was bartending at a dive-y gay bar on Ninth Avenue. I’d get home at 6 a.m. and have to be up and ready for early morning auditions.”

Despite an unforgiving schedule, Morin began to win parts. His first New York job was as the Artful Dodger in a musical adaptation of Dickens’ “Oliver Twist” in which his character was in love with Oliver. While the production didn’t break box office records, Morin got decent reviews. Next came some regional work, followed by a national tour of “Seussical the Musical.”

Morin’s dream role is Roger, the musician with HIV in the rock musical “Rent.” Not only did “Rent” inspire Morin to become a professional actor, but the integrity of the work bolstered his decision to come out at 16. He loves the score, knows all the songs and remembers as a teenager playing the CD repeatedly.

But now is the time for Morin to toot the horn for “Altar Boyz”: “It’s an incredibly entertaining show, and the cast could pass as a real life boy band. And who doesn’t like a boy band?”