Loose Lips

Shakespeare in the Park is one of the summer’s biggest treats — not just for audiences, but for actors as well. So says Camryn Manheim, who’s returning to the Delacorte Theatre for the first time in 13 years to play the Nurse in Michael Greif‘s staging of Romeo and Juliet, beginning June 5. “Doing Two Gentlemen of Verona in the park was the most fantastic summer I ever spent in New York,” she remarks. “Now I know how to deal with 2,000 people, planes overhead, and lots of rain. But since I’ve spent the last 10 years working in television [starring in The Practice and Ghost Whisperer], I am a little concerned that if a cell phone goes off during the show, I may just yell ‘cut.'”

Manheim says that her performance will differ from some of her celebrated predecessors — in part because, at 46, she’s a bit more age-appropriate for the role. “It never made sense to cast her so much older; she would’ve had to be of childbearing age when Juliet was born,” she notes. “But what I really bring to the table is what I do best, which is being brassy.” She also brought food to the table, literally: “I couldn’t stand the idea of all these kids not having a craft table, so I went out to Costco and bought hundreds of dollars in snacks. I guess I am the nurse in more ways than one.”

The Emmy Award-winning actress is particularly excited that Juliet is being played by her friend and fellow television star Lauren Ambrose (of Six Feet Under fame). “Her language skills are so phenomenal that these words just sound contemporary coming from her mouth. She’s really quite astonishing,” says Manheim. “It’s a thrill to be on stage with 29 talented people who are working towards the same end.”

An Off-Broadway stalwart in the early ’90s, Manheim is beyond happy to be back in her old apartment on the Lower East Side; but, the day after the show closes, she’s jetting back to L.A. to resume production on Ghost Whisperer, in which she plays Delia. “It’s exactly what I need as a single mom [her son, Milo, is six years old], since they’re respectful if I need to take time off,” she notes. “It’s also been interesting that the show has really struck a chord with people. I think anything that helps people grieve or mourn their loved ones is useful. I loved doing The Practice — it combined perfectly with my interest in fighting the death penalty and working with the ACLU — but I don’t think it offered much comfort to anyone.”

SONG OF THE SANDS
Receiving his first-ever Tony Award nomination for his Broadway debut as the naive soldier Raleigh in Journey’s End has been both exciting and slightly bittersweet for Stark Sands. “It’s been a great couple of weeks, and the nomination was really unexpected,” he says. “But our entire ensemble is so good that it feels a little weird to be singled out. I wish all of us could be experiencing this together.”

Instead, Sands is experiencing all the Tony hoopla with co-star Boyd Gaines — nominated for Best Leading Actor in a Play — who has been his closest castmate since even before the show’s first rehearsal. “We met at a marketing photo shoot for the show last December, and he’s been looking out for me ever since,” says Sands. “The last play I did was in my senior year of college, so I didn’t want to be the guy holding everyone else back. If we had a rough rehearsal, Boyd would give me a reassuring wink or nod. It’s been like life imitating art, since our relationship offstage is very much like the schoolteacher/young soldier dynamic in the play.”

Sands notes that Raleigh is the fourth soldier he’s played in the past two years, including his role in the award-winning Clint Eastwood film Flags of Our Fathers and his upcoming onscreen gigs in Day of the Dead (a quasi-remake of the George Romero horror classic) and My Sassy Girl, which co-stars Jesse Bradford, Elisha Cuthbert, and Joanna Gleason. So he’s ready for a change of pace after the show closes on June 10 (the same night the show is likely to take home the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play.)

So instead of returning immediately to Los Angeles, Sands plans to stay in New York for the summer and continue pursuing theater. “I got to sing and dance at the Easter Bonnet competition in front of a full house at the Minskoff, and the sound of 1,500 people applauding made all my hairs stand on end. I had never heard anything like that, since our biggest house [at Journey’s End] was probably 600 people,” he remarks. “As soon as it was over, I ran over to one of my friends in Mamma Mia! to tell him how I felt, and the first thing he said to me was, ‘Go do a musical.’ So I’m working on my voice.”

THE SKYLAR’S THE LIMIT

Skylar Astin, who plays Georg in Spring Awakening, is learning what it means to be part of a show that’s nominated for the Tony Award for Best Musical: lots of extra rehearsals, promotional appearances and, oh yes, the opportunity to perform a number from the show on the June 10 national telecast of the awards ceremony.

“I’ve been watching the Tonys my whole life, so knowing that I’m going to be on the stage of Radio City is such a thrill,” says Astin, who said during our interview that the show’s producers had yet to finalize what number will be performed on the telecast. “It’s been tough to take this all in. A lot of the older people involved in the shows tell us we’re not going to understand the effects of all this for about five years. And we’re so busy with everything, including doing the show every night, that we rarely have time to freak out anyway.”

An alumnus of the famed performing arts camp Stagedoor Manor, Astin has been working professionally for many years. He joined the Spring Awakening family two years ago, when the show got a reading as part of Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series and he played the role of Otto. At the Eugene O’Neill Theatre, he stands out because of both his unusual hairstyle and his on-stage piano playing. “I started playing piano when I was 5 by ear, and I finally took my first lesson at 14, but I only did that for a year,” he says. “As a musician, I know enough theory to understand things and communicate them, but not enough to write it down.”

JUST BECAUSE IT’S JUNE, JUNE, JUNE
On Sunday, June 3, Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Brenda Russell, a co-writer of Broadway’s The Color Purple, will make a rare appearance at BB King. The following night, June 4, Marya Grandy will use her night off from Les Misérables to perform her cabaret show Nice Talking to Me at Ars Nova. That same evening, Seth Rudetsky, Kevyn Morrow, and Anne L. Nathan will participate in a reading of The Lost Art of Conversation at the Abingdon Theatre; and Staceyann Chin, Paul Sparks, Adam Rapp, and David Cale will be among the artists lending their talents to A Common Ground Cabaret, a benefit at Playwrights Horizons to raise money for recovery work in New Orleans.

On June 5, Whoopi Goldberg will star in a special benefit performance of Stories Left to Tell, during which the second annual Spalding Gray Award will be presented to National Theatre of the United States of America. On June 6, Bill Daugherty and the rest of the cast of the popular cabaret revue When The Lights Go On Again will perform in the Any Wednesday series at Barnes & Noble Lincoln Triangle. On June 9, two more cabaret favorites, Jeff Harnar and Shauna Hicks, will reunite at The Town Hall for I Got Rhythm: Mickey and Judy’s Hollwyood. And speaking of Town Hall, Fyvush Finkel, Judy Gold, and Freddie Roman will be part of the National Yiddish Theatre-Folksbeine Annual Gala at the famed venue on Wednesday, June 13.

Monday, June 11 brings an embarrassment of one-night-only options: Screen and stage legend Farley Granger will discuss his autobiography Include Me Out at the Drama Book Shop; Frances Sternhagen and Matthew Arkin will headline a reading of Luke Yankee‘s new play The Jesus Hickey at the Players Theatre; Lea DeLaria will headline Luscious ’07, benefiting the Ali Forney Center; Matt Cavenaugh, Ann Harada, Megan Lawrence, Kate Reinders, and Chip Zien will take part in the York Theatre’s NEO3 benefit; and Edward Hibbert, Richard Kind, Juliana Margulies, Daniel Sunjata, and others will serve as celebrity waiters at the annual Project ALS Benefit at Sapa restaurant.

Over on the West Coast, Seattle Repertory will present An Intimate Evening with Phylicia Rashad on June 11, including an interview led by director Kenny Leon. In North Hollywood, California that same night, more than 30 performers including Chad Kimball, Vicki Lewis, Valarie Pettiford, Bruce Vilanch, and Ruth Williamson will star in Fractured Broadway 2 at the El Portal Theatre. Finally, on June 14, those multi-talented One Life to Live stars Kathy Brier, Kassie DePaiva, and Renee Elise Goldsberry will offer a a special joint concert at the Derby in Hollywood.