Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 2, 1995 TAG: 9502020024
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KEVIN KITTREDGE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
At the time, the future Tony award-winning actress - star of the Broadway hit "A Chorus Line," and guest star on such TV shows as "Fame," "Dark Shadows," "Family Ties" and "Cheers" - was just a star-struck girl from Detroit.
She joined a dance troupe in New York City. Eventually, her father found her and brought her home.
"I felt I had no choice," McKechnie says now of the experience. "I don't advise it. That was a terrible, terrible time."
Real life - McKechnie's life - is at the heart of "Inside the Music," a still-in-the-planning-stages one-woman musical that will come to Mill Mountain Theatre this spring.
McKechnie will arrive in Roanoke at the end of April for rehearsals. The play opens May 12.
It already is a feather in the cap of the theater - which has axed the previously scheduled "I Hate Hamlet" to make way for the actress.
It is probably no less a blessing for McKechnie - who was seeking a good but inexpensive theater in which to polish up her show before putting it in the harsh spotlight of New York City, theater officials said.
Critical reviews in the too-early stages can kill a still developing play for good, McKechnie noted.
"New York may be the Mecca in some ways," she said, "but it's not the way to develop material anymore."
She has never been to Roanoke.
But McKechnie said contacts in New York told her Mill Mountain Theatre "is really a terrific place. They're very talented down there, I hear."
The 54-year-old actress will bring with her director and choreographer Christopher Chadman - who worked on "Guys and Dolls," and the movie "The Muppets Take Manhattan" - and playwright Christopher Durang, whose "Durang Durang" just opened at the Manhattan Theater Club.
She hopes Durang's "off-the-wall, ironic sense of humor" can bring some dramatic unity to what she has already been performing for years as a kind of cabaret show, she said, featuring song and dance numbers from Broadway musicals she has performed in through the years.
In addition to her role of Cassie in "A Chorus Line," for which she won a Tony Award, McKechnie's Broadway credits include "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying," "The Education of Hyman Kaplan," "On the Town," "Promises Promises" and "Company."
McKechnie, in a recent telephone interview, said the script for "Inside the Music" is still being written, as are some of the songs. About 50 percent of the songs, she said, will be new.
"I know that the people down there are going to get something good," McKechnie said.
Theater officials, at least, are tickled pink.
After such shows as "Children of Eden," which came here for re-tooling after struggling in London, and Robert Fulghum's "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten," which had its genesis at Mill Mountain and went on to Washington, D.C., Boston and Chicago, "Inside the Music" could help cement the theater's reputatIon as a place to polish up a play before launching it in major markets.
"I think it's an incredible thing," said the theater's director, Jere Lee Hodgin. "It's quite the coup for Mill Mountain Theatre to get a star like Donna McKechnie, and a playwright such as Christopher Durang."
McKechnie, who will be here several weeks, will bring only a playwright and choreographer with her. She may wear a disguise when she is outside the theater, she said - though it can hardly be necessary in a city likely to recognize the star of "A Chorus Line," if at all, only from her role as Sam's ex-wife, Debra, in the television sitcom, "Cheers."
Those who come to see "Inside the Music" will leave knowing more. Asked if the musical would attempt to present the story of her life, McKechnie said "in a way. But it's not as boring as that. This is the trick - to create the human interest with a character called Donna McKech-nie. ... I really needed the help of a playwright."
The script is still "in the first stages," McKechnie said. "It's a pouring-out process, in which we get everything out there."
But she is confident the playwright will succeed in translating the salient experiences of her life, however gritty - like her adventures as a 15-year-old runaway - into something entertaining with his dry sense of humor.
In addition to the one-act plays currently being performed in New York, Durang wrote "The Marriage of Bette and Boo" and "The Actor's Nightmare."
Other memorable points of a long career likely to find their way into "Inside the Music" include the time McKechnie, believing that she was completely forgotten, was cleaning her house with the television on and suddenly noticed she was an answer on the quiz show, "Jeopardy!"
Another time, out of work, McKechnie recalled flipping through a trade journal and coming across an ad for a production seeking "a Donna McKechnie type.''
"I rushed down there - and I didn't get it," McKechnie said "They wanted my type. They didn't want me."
by CNB