Loose Lips

Van Hansis has enough to keep him busy playing gay teen Luke Snyder on the CBS’ daytime drama As The World Turns, especially with his character being involved in a major storyline featuring his troubled romance with fellow teen, Noah. But the theater-trained actor missed doing stage work, which is why he auditioned for the Off-Broadway production of Charles Busch‘s Die Mommie Die! — and ended up with the role of emotionally challenged teen Lance.

“I love being on TV, but having played this goodie-two-shoes guy for the last two years, I was anxious to find a part that would stretch me as an actor and use a different part of my brain,” says Hansis. “Lance is very different from Luke. Our director, Carl Andress, says Lance doesn’t get anything except sex and that’s how I’m approaching him. I also tend to find my roles physically first, and I see Lance as one of those bobblehead figures you see on the windshield. He’s also like someone out of a John Waters movie and different from everyone else in his world.”

Hansis didn’t meet Busch in person until his audition, and was immediately taken aback by the multitalented, gender-bending performer. “I had seen his movies and maybe I was expecting that person, but he was so down-to-earth and quiet,” says Hansis. “But then we did our first scene, and it was like turning on a switch. This voice and character just came out of him. Now, we never even question that he is Angela Arden; we even refer to him as her.”

The actor knows doing double duty on both the soap and the stage may be a little rough, but he’s confident it will work out. “I have a schedule where I can go in one day and shoot like 17 scenes in a row. I call it marathon acting,” he says. “But Michael Park, who did Broadway and our show at the same time, gave me some pointers, and I watched Matt Cavenaugh do Grey Gardens while he was on our show, so I know it’s possible. Everyone has been so gracious.” Hansis, who says that he expects a large part of his ATWT fan base will come see Die, Mommie Die, is grateful though not surprised how well his groundbreaking storyline (nicknamed Nuke in the press) has been received by that show’s audience. “I think people have wanted to see this kind of story for years, because they have a gay child or a gay friend,” he says. “And it’s so well-written. I think what viewers relate to are reality-driven, character-driven stories.”

FINDING HER CALLING
In Adam Bock’s new play The Receptionist, which begins performances at Manhattan Theatre Club on October 12, award-winning actress Jayne Houdyshell plays the title character, a woman named Beverly “who takes tremendous pride in her work, even if she’s not as good at her job as she thinks she is,” says the star. But she’s a lot better at answering phones than her portrayer ever was. “When I first moved to New York after acting steadily in the Midwest for about six years, I had never done office work, but I signed up at this temp agency which sent me to be a receptionist in the garment district,” she recalls. “The first job reduced to me tears in the morning, and I was fired by noon. They tried again, and the second time I made it through the day, but didn’t get asked back. Fortunately, I got hooked up as the private secretary for the head of a yacht designing firm — which is a funny job for a girl from Kansas — and that kept me going until I made a living as an actress.”

These days, Houdyshell is almost never without work — most recently, she co-starred as Madame Morrible in the Broadway megamusical Wicked. “I loved doing that show — I had done a lot of musicals before I moved here — but it was quite a learning curve,” she says. “It was scary to do something that big, in a house that big, everything really had to be sized up. I would love to do another big musical now. I’d especially like to take a crack at Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd.”

Like The Receptionist, Wicked was directed by Joe Mantello, but the pair’s relationship dates back over 25 years. “We did summer stock at the Timberlake Playhouse in Illinois, when he was a young actor. When I played Dolly in Hello, Dolly! he was one of the waiters; he was my son in Life with Father, and in Equus, he was Alan and I was Hester,” she notes. “All of us were slackjawed at how brilliant he was. We knew he was someone to watch out for.”

Houdyshell is living what she terms “the actor’s dream,” knowing that she has another job in store, starring in Paul Rudnick‘s The New Century at the Mitzi Newhouse Theatre in March. “I play this Midwestern woman who’s into crafts — she does things like decouple and appliqué — and she’s a mom. It’s a familiar niche, but I don’t think of her as a stereotype,” she says. “I think New Yorkers tend to think of Midwesterners as a single breed, but each person I play — from Ann Kron in Well to Carol in The Pain and the Itch is really an individual.”

SPEECH WRITER

Having tackled the stories of troubled high school students in his last play columbinus, Stephen Karam has returned to that milieu for Speech & Debate, now getting its official world premiere at the new Roundabout Underground space. The work focuses on a trio of students — Howie (played by Gideon Glick), Solomon (played by Jason Fuchs), and Diwata (played by Susan Steele) — who have each had troubling encounters with their drama teacher. “I was originally interested by the Jim West scandal [the former mayor of Spokane, Washington who was both accused of having sexually abused boys in the 1970s when he was a scout leader and later of having lewd email exchanges with teenage boys], but I gradually began to feel I didn’t want to tell that particularly story, so it became a backdrop for this one,” he says. “And once I had my characters, their very strong personalities took me in some interesting and strange directions.”

While Karam is aware that his protagonists may fit the mold of the classic “outsider,” he prefers to view them differently. “I know you can look at them as freaks, but I prefer the word our director Jason Moore used when he first read the script: overachievers,” he says. “They’re not sitting around waiting for something to happen; they’re desperately trying to wrestle their way into something bigger, even if they make bad choices along the way.”

Karam has nothing but praise for his three stars, two of whom are 19 and one of whom is 21. “It was hard with such young characters to find actors who were age appropriate, yet had enough distance from high school. I can’t believe sometimes how sophisticated and intelligent they are,” he says. “My instinct would have been to cast people in their mid-20s.” Karam is also equally enamored of his fourth cast member, Susan Blackwell, who plays all the female adults. “She is so hilarious that I want to give her her own post-show.”

STAR GAZING
David Eigenberg, Larry Keith, and Sloane Shelton will head the cast of the Bay Street Theatre’s free reading of Men’s Lives on October 13. Dog Sees God co-stars Logan Marshall-Green and Ari Graynor will reunite for a free reading of Brooke Berman‘s The Jesus Year on October 15 at Ars Nova. That same night, singers Joyce Castle and Mary Phillips will help composer Jake Heggie launch his new CD Flesh & Stone in New York City; and Nick Blaemire, Jessica Lee Patty, Cheryl Stern, and Teal Wicks will be among the artists participating in Performers for Peace at the Triad.

Darrin Baker, Fred Barton, and Jim Weitzer will be among the stars of AMAS’ BURLY-q!, October 16-18 at the Players Loft. Law & Order: SVU star Christopher Meloni will star in the Food for Thought lunchtime reading of Arthur Miller’s A Memory of Two Mondays on October 17 opposite the author’s sister, Joan Copeland. Eve Ensler will star in a benefit reading of Any One of Us: Words from Prison, Miami on October 18 at Miami’s Gusman Center for the Performing Arts. Oscar nominee Karen Black will kick of D.C.’s Ganymede Arts’ fall festival on October 19 with the world premiere of her new solo show How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Sing the Song.

Nancy Giles, Angel Desai, and Keira Naughton will be among the stars of the 52nd Street Project’s What’s New series of short plays by adolescents, October 19-21 at Ars Nova. Ted Mann will discuss his new book, Journeys in the Night: Creating A New American Theatre with Circle in the Square at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts on October 20. Rue McLanahan will read from her memoir My First Five Husbands… and the Ones That Got Away at benefit performances for the Playhouse on the Green in Bridgeport, Connecticut on October 20 and 21. Robert Cuccioli will star as Gaylord Ravenal in the beloved musical Show Boat at the Rosen Theatre at the Y in Wayne, New Jersey on October 21.

Susan Stroman will be present at a pre-show cocktail party before the October 23 performance of her new musical Young Frankenstein to benefit the Play Company. Melissa Errico will be on hand to honor her Dracula director Des McAnuff at the La Jolla Playhouse’s Diamonds are Forever Gala on October 27; that same night, Hair composer Galt MacDermot will join rock stars David Johansen and Vernon Reid for The Staten Islander Composers Project at the St. George Theatre. Finally, Big Apple Circus star Barry Lubin will be the special guest at Parallel Exit’s Halloween Gala Benefit on October 29.