College kids often pick up seasonal jobs when they come home for the holidays, perhaps returning to a previous employer.

Cleveland native Rory O’Malley is a few years removed from his college days but he’s picking up a few shifts at an old job for Christmas — playing King George II in the national tour of the musical “Hamilton” at Playhouse Square.

“It was either this or Panera,” O’Malley joked during a telephone interview.

Counting Broadway, Los Angeles and the national tour, O’Malley estimated he’d played the king between 800 and 1,000 performances.

On Broadway, O’Malley replaced Jonathan Groff, who was one of the first cast members to leave the Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning musical, so he shared the stage with Lin-Manuel Miranda, Leslie Odom Jr., Daveed Diggs, Phillipa Soo and the rest of its original cast.

Then again, he doesn’t quite “share” the stage with any of the other actors. As those who’ve seen “Hamilton” know, while King George has one of the show’s best songs in “You’ll Be Back,” he is the only actor on stage during his three numbers. He doesn’t interact with any of the other performers.

That’s one of the reasons his holiday pop-in is possible.

“It’s kind of my dream job,” O’Malley said. “I kind of begged for this to happen. I was home for the summer over Fourth of July and saw it was coming to Cleveland over Christmas. I asked Neil Haskell (the national tour’s current King George II) if he wanted to take Christmas off and let me do the show and be a part of the Cleveland theater community. I was so happy he said yes.”

It won’t be his first time on the KeyBank State Theatre stage. He appeared in the children’s chorus of some Cleveland Opera productions when he was growing up, but it will be his first chance to appear there as a Tony-nominated professional.

O’Malley, 41, vividly remembers his mother taking him to see “Les Miserables” when he was about 9 years old.

“It really changed my life,” O’Malley said. “I couldn’t believe these amazing people were singing these amazing songs. I was so young and it was so special. I knew what I wanted to do the rest of my life.”

His mother enrolled him in the children’s theater program at the Beck Center for the Arts, and he did shows throughout his childhood in northeast Ohio. Playing Sky Masterson in a production of “Guys & Dolls” when he was a student at St. Ignatius HIgh School was a particular favorite.

“I think Cleveland is an excellent theater town,” he said. “I didn’t realize it until I left how incredible it is, to have so many community theaters and such an incredible downtown area of bustling theaters, from Playhouse Square to Great Lakes Theater and the Beck Center on the west side, where I spent so much of my youth. I’m so grateful that I got to develop my craft there.”

O’Malley left Cleveland after high school for Pittsburgh, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in drama from Carnegie Mellon University. His classmates there include Leslie Odom Jr. from “Hamilton” and Josh Gad, with whom he worked in “Book of Mormon” on Broadway.

The three friends also are part of the voice cast of the Apple TV+ animated series “Central Park,” one of several animated projects featuring O’Malley.

He initially went to Los Angeles after graduation but then relocated to New York. Within two months of his arrival, he landed a job as an understudy in “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” where he made his Broadway debut.

“It was a surreal moment, a dream come true.”

It took three years to get back to Broadway, but this time he was originating the role of Elder McKinley in “Mormon,” where he earned a Tony nomination for best featured actor in a musical.

Being involved in a musical from its inception is entirely different from stepping into a show that’s already running on Broadway.

“It’s incredible,” he said. “I liken it to going to a tailor and having a suit made for you. It’s a perfect fit. If a line wasn’t working for me, they have to tailor it around me.They’re going to be putting you in your best light. Getting to work for three years with Matt Stone, Trey Parker and Robert Lopez was extraordinary.”

He’s slipping into a very different “suit” for his return to Hamilton.

“I remember the first time I rehearsed with the crown, it almost fell off my head. I had to make sure not to make that same movement, there are a lot of restrictions because of how regal the costume is,” O’Malley said. “I’ve gotten more and more comfortable wearing the crown. My husband probably would say I’ve gotten a bit too comfortable wearing a crown.”

O’Malley won’t be joining the cast until a couple of weeks into its Cleveland run, which goes from Dec. 6 to Jan. 15, 2023.

“I’ll probably have a few hours of rehearsals with the cast, but my scene partners are the audience,” he said. “When I come out, it’s really about having a rapport with the audience. It’s a very unique situation and a real gift to come back.”