Rannells, who was Tony-nominated for his performance in the Tony-winning musical The Book of Mormon, said working with the award-winning actress, who played a version of herself, was "a dream come true. She couldn't be more generous. She's so funny and so nice, and you really feel like you're collaborating when you work with her. And, obviously I'm such a huge fan of hers. It was intimidating, but she immediately put me at ease."
When asked whether "Girls" creator-star Lena Dunham might consider joining him as Yitzhak during his Hedwig engagement, Rannells said with a laugh, "I'm sure she would totally do it! I'm trying to convince her to do a number of things.
"You know, we did an episode last season with Patti LuPone and Reed Birney, and we were trying to come up with what a show was that the four of us could do."
The singing actor, who has also appeared on Broadway in Hairspray and Jersey Boys, said the play they came upon was Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
"That seems right, right? I want to do it, and I want to watch Patti do it," Rannells said. "[We were filming] a dinner scene, and it was just the four of us. We were kind of drunk afterward, and I was just like, 'I wanna do Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? so bad right now!'"
Albee's play about a marriage surviving on illusion and performance is in three acts, titled Fun and Games (Act One), Walpurgisnacht (Act Two) and Exorcism (Act Three). The marital drama opened on Broadway in 1962 and has been revived in 1976, 2005 and 2012. The most recent revival co-starred Amy Morton and Tracy Letts.