NR: Tell me about your website. First of all, I have to say that it's very well done. Kristine (Kulage) has done a terrific job. I had to really think, "What can I ask in this interview that's not already there?" How did that come about?

RB: Kristine contacted me. She had seen Aspects of Love years ago at the Fox in St. Louis. Then she came to see Sunset Boulevard. She and her sister were the best audience ever. They were so enthusiastic. They came back stage afterwards and we signed autographs. Kristine wrote me when I was doing Phantom. I was out in L.A. and the CD had just come out. She wrote me and said that she was just getting into this type of thing. She was doing a website called Gateway to Broadway and it was about St. Louis theater. She said if I was interested in doing a website she would be happy to do one for me. I had just gotten into computers. I had just bought one myself recently. The Internet was brand new to me. I looked at some of the fan sites that were out there and I realized there were a lot of unofficial sites. I thought that if I said, "No," she could really do this anyway, and maybe not do it very well, but if I said, "Yes," and I helped her and I gave her a lot of stuff, and told her, "I'd like it to be this," or "I'd like it to be that" it could be a really great site. So, that's what we did. It started out on Geocities as a free site but it was hard because the address was so complicated, it was hard to get people to come to it. It was actually my friend, Brad Little, who plays the Phantom out on tour that said, "You really should purchase a domain name and make it RonBohmer.com." I did that and boom, the hits just went up instantly. We started getting a lot of attention. The wonderful thing about Kristine is that she's a fast learner. She's very eager to get things going. As she became more and more excited about the site, she would learn how to do more things and she would add more things.

NR: You're so open on that website. It doesn't bother you to have everyone know so much about your life? Does it make you nervous at all? I noticed you mentioned something on the site about your daughters.

RB: I'm careful about my daughters. I don't run photographs of them on that. I did initially and I got a reaction from family and friends saying, "This makes us uncomfortable." There were a lot of horror stories about people finding out about celebrities' children - not that I'm any big celebrity or anything like that, but nonetheless, when you publish on the Internet, everything is out there. I thought about it and I agreed that it's better to be safe than sorry. So, in that regard I'm very cautious about it. But, I have found through my life...I went through a divorce last year and that was one of the hardest times for me ever. What was tough about it was that I had spent a large part of my life projecting an image of myself that I could not keep up. It was an image of the perfect father and the perfect husband and also, "Yeah, look. He's an actor and he does Broadway, but he's so normal and he's such a good father." And I really found that ultimately, (and it had more to do with my relationship than anything else), I found that I was projecting something that I was not. I was trying to create a "Superman" kind of "Mr. Perfect" image that I couldn't live up to. Through the course of going through the divorce and all of the therapy, I really found out that it was OK to be flawed, and to not be what everyone expects you to be. Somehow that made it OK for me to become an open book. I got much more open with the website. I became more free about "This is who I am. This is where I'm from. This is what I like. This is what I don't like. This is who I love." I feel a lot better about that than I did about trying to create something. This way, if people come and they've visited the website, there's a much more personal sense. I think that by demystifying somebody that you see in a show, it takes away some of the crazy element that some fans have, where you get people who think, "Oh, I have to find out everything I can about this person. I have to follow them home." The great thing about the Internet for me is, "You want to find out more about me? Go see my site."

NR: That's true, but do you think it makes you more accessible? I remember when Douglas told me that he was very friendly and very open with people, but it made some people think of themselves as his friend, when actually he considered them to be an acquaintance. Then they felt they had access to his life which was not what he wanted.

RB: I know that Doug was tremendously open with his fans and with his time. I heard that Douglas used to have people come up to his dressing room - people he didn't even know. I know I would never do that. I just would not do that because I think that's lowering a barrier that you should not lower. With the Internet, I still have a barrier. Whatever is there is through my eyes first. Kristine and I have created it and said, "Yes. You're privy to this. You can have all of this." What it does in a lot of ways is it gratifies that "need to know" in certain people but at the same time, doesn't put them in that mode of "let's find this out." Consequently it gives me space but at the same time allows me to feel that I'm in touch with everybody.

NR: Now, you encourage people to email you...

RB: Totally.

NR: ...and you answer them back.

RB: It's so much easier than people writing me here at the theater. I'm horrible about answering my regular mail, but I do get to my email because I don't have to lick any stamps. I can just type, "Thanks. Glad you liked the show. Here's the answer to your question."

Interview conducted and photographs by Nancy Rosati.