Megan Hilty, Pablo Schreiber, and More Broadway Actors Take to the Small Screen This Fall

You won't have to shell out a lot of dough to catch your favorite theater actors this fall, as many of them are headed straight for your living rooms. The onslaught of talent pervading prime time reads like a Broadway-musical program's Who's Who list. Whereas theater talent has frequently popped up in guest roles of prime-time series (check out any episode of The Good Wife and Law & Order: SVU), the new season brings many Broadway and off-Broadway actors to series-regular roles. Many of them spoke with TheaterMania about the transition, and how life on the small screen compares to breaking that eponymous fourth wall.

Megan Hilty (Wicked, 9 to 5) says that her current work on NBC's Sean Saves the World feels similar to working in theater because she is in front of a live studio audience. "It's a multi-cam sitcom, and it's a lot like doing live theater every week. There just happens to be cameras there," she says of the ambitious new comedy. "Because of the live studio audience we're finding out what's working. The great thing is that when things don't work, the writers are all there to change it! It's weird, though; when I did Smash, it was very strange not to perform for an audience, and I definitely missed it."

Pablo Schreiber, who seems to have had one foot in the door in every television show (most notably in Weeds and The Wire), feels that his work in theatrical productions such as reasons to be pretty, Awake and Sing!, and Desire Under the Elms prepared him for his overall career. "My goal as an actor is to cover as broad a spectrum as I can to play characters [who] are as different from one another as possible, and theater is kind of a template that sets that for you," he says of his diverse roles, many of which will be on display this season when he stars in four projects. "When you start in theater in college, you play every character in every play, whether they're an old man or a young man, or short, tall, whatever, and you get to use your imagination and create a character from scratch. Later, you use those tools to access those places in yourself, and eventually use them to play a broad range of characters in television."

"I've always said that there's nothing harder or more rewarding than eight shows a week," Hilty agrees, saying that theater is the best preparation for being in front of the camera. "I think if you can do theater, your skin is tough enough where you can handle just about anything. For so long, people have said that theater people are too big for the camera…at least they told me that, saying that we're just too theatrical. I don't think that's the case. As actors we have two jobs: to tell a story, and to engage our audiences accordingly."

It's clear that the networks are on the same page. CBS has Hamish Linklater returning to the network (he previously starred in The New Adventures of Old Christine) with The Crazy Ones, after having racked up a bunch of credits in the New York theater community (The Comedy of Errors, Seminar, Twelfth Night). Memphis star Montego Glover has a recurring role opposite Dylan McDermott and Toni Collette on CBS' Hostages. How I Met Your Mother creators Craig Thomas and Carter Bays actually cast Cristin Milioti in the coveted role of "The Mother" for the CBS hit's final season because of her Tony Award-nominated performance in Once. Also joining a successful show is Legally Blonde's Laura Bell Bundy, who will play Charlie Sheen's new sex-study research partner on FX's Anger Management. After the 2012 cancellation of I Hate My Teenage Daughter, two-time Tony Award winner Katie Finneran (Annie) will bounce back opposite a heavy hitter with the premiere of NBC's The Michael J. Fox Show.

Aduba is reminded that Orange Is the New Black has made it when people quote lines from the show to her, such as "I threw my pie for you" and "Can I be your dandelion?" "There's nothing like it on television," she says. "It's a dramedy that toes both lines with excellence, and the writers are telling very human stories. It's incredible to be a part of something that has so many phenomenal, gifted women both in front of and behind the camera, and women of every shape, size, color, orientation, and gender."

Much like Hilty's bonding with her costars over musical theater, Atkinson finds herself at home with television actors such as Bledel and Jason Ritter, who together with others on the series went to a tiny theater in Brooklyn to support Atkinson's boyfriend's band. "They embraced being here in New York, and being a part of this community," she says of the place where she made her Broadway debut in The Ritz opposite Rosie Perez. "I feel like I still identify as a theater actor. When I have to change clothes and there's a man in the room, I'm like 'Yeah, whatever, I'm in theater!' And then I rip my shirt off. There's just certain things that don't leave you. I'd rather have a pin jammed straight into my head to hold my hair on than to feel comfortable. I kind of want the hairpins to hurt a little, because then I know my hair's going to stay put. That's such a theater thing! If it doesn't stay put on TV, they just fix it."

Though Heusinger says he's on Revolution until they kill him off, he would love to come back to theater if the work affects people and can change an audience. "I love plays like Clybourne Park, August: Osage County, and Once," he says when debating what would get him back onstage. "I loved Next Fall because it's a play that can potentially help to change the social character of our culture. You really have to give yourself like a monk to the stage when you do it, so I want it to be something I'm excited about."

Though Schreiber is enjoying work on Ironside, a genre show that he feels is "much better than your average genre in that it's really stylish," he is also "dying" to return to theater when he finds the right time…and some meaty material.

Atkinson may find herself in the same boat as Hilty. Us & Them, which is based on the hit British series Gavin & Stacey, was one of the first series to get picked up for 13 episodes this season. "God, I really like working in TV, it's really fun," says Atkinson. "It's a completely different experience. I hope to spend my life going back and forth between TV and theater because there's a time for each for me. After six months of either one I go, 'Alright, I need a break from this.'"