Eric McCormack is stepping back onto the stage in the musical The Fantasticks.  He plays El Gallo in the Reprise Theatre Company’s production which opens Wednesday at UCLA’s Freud Playhouse. I’ll be there on opening night and look forward to seeing the musical theater talent of this actor who became a household name playing gay man Will Truman in the long-running comedy Will & Grace.

Eric, whose TNT series Trust Me was not renewed for a second season, talked to the Los Angeles Times this week about the difficulty of leaving Will behind.

An excerpt:

In an increasingly open culture, where a performer’s sexual identity is yet another variable vulnerable to typecasting, the married father of a 6-year-old son is in an ironic pickle: He’s trying to get audiences to accept him as the straight guy he really is.

He thought he’d found the perfect vehicle in TNT’s dramedy Trust Me, in which he costarred with Tom Cavanaugh as a married ad man in Chicago. But the show never picked up steam and was canceled in March after one season.

“I don’t think America got to know who I was by watching me play gay for eight years.” But he’s quick to add: “I never want to talk about [Will & Grace] like it’s a burden, because it’s not. It was a show I’m very proud of.”

Jason Alexander, the Seinfeld star who is directing The Fantasticks said of McCormack’s post-Will transition:  “He has a different challenge than most of us. Whether it’s me as George or Carroll O’Connor as Archie Bunker, we can say, ‘Hey, I’m not a neurotic,’ and Carroll O’Connor can say, ‘Hey, I’m not a bigot. I played one.’ It’s a little harder for Eric to go, ‘Hey, I’m straight. Don’t hang me up with the gay thing.’ He’s got a little more political pressure on him.”