By Andrew Gans
05 Jan 2007

Q: When did you realize that wasn't the case?
Estabrook: Oh gosh, well my mother had five kids, and I think I found out walking home from school with my girlfriends — but this was before women's lib; these are the old days. This was before the book "Women and Their Bodies." I found out from my friends how it happened, and I said, "No, no, no — not my parents!" And I really believed when I was seven and eight years old that if you were married, you got pregnant, and if you weren't married, you couldn't get pregnant.

Q: Do you have a favorite moment in the show, either for your character or one that you look forward to?
Estabrook: I think my favorite moment is when Stephen and I dance together because it's us just messing around. It's us just having fun. It's the only point in the play where I really am just laughing out loud because we look so ridiculous. [Laughs.]

Q: What's it like working with such a young cast?
Estabrook: The most amazing thing is their energy level. They have way lot of energy, and they never rest. [Laughs.] Every spare moment of rehearsal we worked — they would work us to the last 30 seconds. . . . What's great with these young kids is that they inspire you to what you used to feel about theatre. I've always felt that it was a magical experience, but they're really close to it, as opposed to knowing the whole bureaucracy of the business. I think that's what's really refreshing is new blood, the same thing the play's about.

Q: It must be exciting, I would think, to hear that score every night. I think some of the music is so beautiful.
Estabrook: I know. I do, too, and I've heard it since October 9th. I've heard it almost every day, and I still love hearing it.

Q: Do you like getting to be part of the final number?
Estabrook: Yeah I do, I really do — I get such a thrill out of it. Every night I [think], "I cannot believe I'm standing here singing on a Broadway stage!" I mean, I have a nice voice, but I don't want to be singing by myself.

Q: Had you ever done a musical? I know you haven't done any on Broadway, but in grade school or . . .
Estabrook: In grade school I did a couple of musicals, but my head shook so hard, I was so scared, that singing never became something that was a natural expression of my creativity. . . And, also, I'm so affected emotionally — as far as when I go through emotional things in the scenes — and you can't sing if you're being really emotional because it just tightens up your chords. I could never do it. I never could be relaxed with it, so when I first started in New York, I think I did two singing auditions, and at the second one I said to myself, "This isn't cut out for me. I can't do it." I just can't relax doing it.

I never thought it was in my future to go from being in L.A. and doing "Desperate Housewives" and then getting killed off "Desperate Housewives," to going back into New York and being in a show — the first show back that is so incredibly popular. It's funny, though, when Tommy Hulce called me about doing a show in New York, I thought he was in Portland, Oregon. I had heard that he had a theatre company in Oregon, and so I thought he was calling me to do a role in Oregon, and I thought, "Well, I wouldn't mind working there. I hear that's a pretty city." And then, I have an apartment in L.A, but I don't have anything here [in New York]. I called [the woman] who was my roommate when we got out of Yale together — she's an administrator — and I said, "Do you know anybody who needs somebody to stay in their apartment?" And she said, "I do! Come stay with me." So, I went into the apartment that I'd been in when I first got out of Yale many years ago. It all kind of worked out, so I thought, "It's written in the stars. I have to do this."

Q: I wanted to go back a little bit in your career. You worked on Broadway in two Wendy Wasserstein plays, and I was wondering what it was like working with her.
Estabrook: Wendy was one of the most empathetic writers I'd ever known. She was a classmate of mine at Yale. She was always very quiet and very giggly, and she was really instrumental in putting me in Broadway shows. She was always very humble and very kind and very supportive.

I remember she had on pearls when we were doing Sisters Rosensweig. We came into the theatre, and we were teching it. I came and sat with her in the audience because I wasn't in a scene, and she had on these pearls. They were blue — they weren't real pearls —but they were pretty with what she was wearing. And I said, "Oh Wendy, I like your pearls." She said, "Take them, darling! Take them. They're yours!" She said, "Everyone in a Broadway show should have a set of pearls." And I still have them.

Q: You touched on "Desperate Housewives." I was wondering what that experience was like even though it wasn't that long-lived.
Estabrook: Well, it was wonderful because the character that I played in it, I had played a similar kind of character for the same writer, Mark Cherry, 10 years earlier. It was kind of a continuation [but] she was just ten years older. And he wrote that character, and he's a master at the passive-aggressive neighbor or boss. It was always fun to do his lines because you always knew there was going to be a twist and turn in the line. So that she says — this is perfect for her — she'd go, "Oh, there's Susan. You know she's screwing the guy next door." You'd think she was going to say something nice, and then she'd turn around and say something awful, and I loved that about it.

Q: Do you have any other projects in the works or are you just concentrating on this at the moment?
Estabrook: Just concentrating on this and still trying to figure out the characters — and I do it every night. I try to approach it in some new way.

Q: Does that make it more interesting for you?
Estabrook: It does. I always try to get more and more into their mindset and what I want in the scene — what this woman wants and what's important to her, and it changes a little every night, so that it makes it interesting.

Q: What's it like getting that huge ovation at the end of the show? The night I went the audience went crazy.
Estabrook: It always makes me laugh! [Laughs.] It's kind of overwhelming. You just go, "Oh my!" It's wonderful!

[Spring Awakening plays the Eugene O'Neill Theatre, 230 West 49th Street. Tickets are available by calling (212) 239-6200. For more information visit www.springawakening.com.]

DIVA TIDBITS
One of the cabaret scene's biggest hits, Leslie Kritzer Is Patti LuPone at Les Mouches, is being recorded. A spokesperson for Ghostlight Records, a division of Sh-K-Boom Records, told me earlier this week that the acclaimed cabaret act — which features Leslie Kritzer re-creating Patti LuPone's now-legendary performances at the defunct New York nightspot Les Mouches — was recorded Jan. 3 and will be recorded again Jan. 6. No release date has been announced. Kritzer's act, which re-creates word for word and note for note LuPone's performances at Les Mouches, was one of the surprise hits of the cabaret season. Several additional dates were added to her Joe's Pub engagement, and Kritzer will play her final performance at the intimate venue Jan. 6 at 11:30 PM before heading to San Francisco to begin rehearsals for the Broadway-bound musical Legally Blonde. Joe's Pub is located within the Public Theater at 425 Lafayette Street. Tickets, priced at $25, are available by calling (212) 239-6200. For more information visit www.joespub.com.

Tony Award winner Faith Prince will have the chance to belt out "I Want it All" when she stars in the Reprise! Marvelous Musical Mondays staging of Richard Maltby, Jr. and David Shire's 1984 musical Baby. Prince will play Arlene McNally in the Feb. 5 presentation of the musical, which concerns three couples whose lives are affected in various ways by the prospect of having (or not having) a baby. Kevin Chamberlin directs. Baby will be presented at UCLA's Freud Playhouse. Call (310) 825-2101 for reservations. Visit www.reprise.org for more information.

Broadway favorite Liz Callaway, who received a Tony nomination for her performance in Baby, has scheduled several concerts throughout the country in the next few months. Callaway will join sister Ann Hampton Callaway for their acclaimed "Relative Harmony" act Feb. 10-11 at the Osher Marin Jewish Community Center in San Rafael, CA. The two Callaways will also blend their voices on their first duets act, "Sibling Revelry," Feb. 25 at the Tennessee Williams Theatre in Key West, FL. "Two of a Kind," a cabaret evening that features Liz and Jason Graae, will be presented Feb. 17 at the Ocean Reef in Key Largo, FL, and Callaway will go it solo March 22-25 at the Philharmonic Center for the Arts in Naples, Fl. And, on April 22 the singing actress will present her sixties-themed show, "And the Beat Goes On," at the Van Wezel Arts Hall in Sarasota, FL. For more information visit www.lizcallaway.com.

Well, that's all for now. Happy diva-watching! E-mail questions or comments to agans@playbill.com.

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