The Three Frank Jrs. in Merrily We Roll Along Will Sign Your Playbill

From left, Calvin James Davis, Max Rackenberg, and Brady Wagner. Photo: Gillian Laub

If you can manage to get tickets to Merrily We Roll Along, you’ll be charmed by its central trio of best friends, played by Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe, and Lindsay Mendez, who fall apart over the decades. You’ll also be charmed by a much younger trio — or one member of it, depending on the night you go. Three actors, Max Rackenberg, 6, Brady Wagner, 6, and Calvin James Davis, 7, share the role of Frank Jr., the son of Groff’s character, a successful composer turned music producer. The Franks Jr. have to sing a few lines of Stephen Sondheim in front of an audience of nearly a thousand, but the boys are all more than game to show off for the crowd. “My favorite part is I like being onstage,� says Max. “Because I love being with new people and I love doing it over and over, 2 million and 50,000 times.�

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The vibe backstage among the boys, two of whom have not appeared on Broadway before, is collegial and sweetly rambunctious. For each performance, one of them is scheduled to go on, while another is set as his understudy (the third can stay home for that evening unless one of the other two calls out sick). They spend their time in a dressing room with their minder, who entertains them with games and occasionally oversees homework assignments. The young actors are close with their adult co-stars, including Radcliffe, who they tell me in unison prefers to be called Dan, not Daniel. They all happen to have seen at least a few of his Harry Potter movies — some of the later ones, they remind me gravely, are PG-13.

After the show (which ends around 10 p.m., well past their normal bedtimes), the boys will occasionally head off to the stage door to meet the audience and sign a few Playbills, a Broadway tradition best performed while wearing your pajamas. “It feels very good because everyone is cheering for me,� says Calvin. “It’s just sometimes I don’t want to because I’m ready to go to bed.�

Photo: Gillian Laub