By Tom Nondorf
02 Mar 2009

	Michael Shulman
	photo by Aubrey Reuben

SHULMAN'S WAY
Caught the irrepressible Michael Shulman in White People at Atlantic Stage 2 last month, and was able to talk to him about the show, the new movie he produced and starred in, and his memories of playing chess with Stephen Sondheim. Shulman played Billy in the original Off-Broadway production of Assassins and spent a couple years as Gavroche in Les Miz before joining the cast of TV's "Party of Five." His new movie is titled "Sherman's Way" and also features James LeGros, Donna Murphy, Enrico Colantoni and Brooke Nevin.

Q: How have you enjoyed doing White People?
Michael Shulman: It's an intense play, but it's been a thrill. The writing is incredible. With my character, there's just so much there. It is a joy to do every scene. Since it is all monologues, the audience is my scene partner. I'd never done that before, a monologue play where you're really just talking to the audience. But I learned to really enjoy it because you get to see people's feedback and play off their reactions more than you would in a typical play. One performance, when I said the "n" word at the end, this woman went, "Oh my God!" Just screamed it. Things like that are just so exciting because it changes the way my next line comes out.

Q: Since you basically had three actors doing monologues, did you ever meet John Dossett and Rebecca Brooksher, your co-stars?
Shulman: It was the strangest rehearsal experience I've ever had. We got together in the beginning to do a table read with all the designers and the director. Then we split up for two-and-a-half weeks and did individual work, so I was working with the director for two hours a day, and then Rebecca would, and then John would. So I really didn't see them at all [laughs] till the end of rehearsal when we did a couple runs. I showed up to the theatre, and here I am sharing a dressing room with John Dossett, and we'd gone through a three-week rehearsal and I really didn't know him at all! [laughs]. We quickly bonded. He's just the nicest guy and has had so much experience and so much to offer.

	Michael Shulman in White People
	photo by Joaquin Sedillo

Q: What are your memories of Assassins?
Shulman: That was one of my first musicals. To work with these incredible people, Stephen Sondheim…Jerry Zaks directed it. Victor Garber…I wish I could go back in time and relive that moment because when I was doing it, I don't think I really appreciated it because I was younger. I didn't know who any of these people were! [Laughs.] I'd heard of Stephen Sondheim. But when I told my mom I was playing chess with him during the breaks, she dropped on the floor, and here I was, just so excited to be playing chess! It was one of those experiences, to be working with Victor Garber and Jonathan Hadary and Debra Monk, these wonderful, incredible actors. It was an experience that I still remember. I'm still in touch years later with people like Lee Wilkof. That's the kind of thing you remember the most. The same thing with Les Miserables where I was with this incredible cast and it was so exciting to go perform every night, but what you remember often are the off moments where you went to dinner, or when I hung out with all the other kids. It was like a huge family. So it's really an honor to get to be a part of a show like Assassins.

Q: Did musical theatre acting come first for you?
Shulman: Yeah, I started doing musicals. I did Assassins and Les Miserables. I fell into the business. I've never done anything like White People where the stage is so small. I'm used to looking — like Les Miserables — where you'd look out and it would be total blackness, like you were performing in front of nothing. The good thing about that is that if someone is sleeping, you don't see them [laughs]. For White People, when I see someone sleeping, I can really see someone sleeping. I was talking with John also, that with a musical, you get a high off of the audience, but it's really set. So you know, if you hit these notes, the audience reaction is kind of set up for you, so there's something reassuring in that. You can improvise a little, but you can't decide that all of a sudden you are going to walk to the right, or take a beat. So [doing plays] is really different than doing musicals.

Q: So tell folks about "Sherman's Way."
Shulman: "Sherman's Way," I'm very excited about. It's coming out the first week in March in New York and Los Angeles. It's a story that's really personal to me. It's about an uptight, New York City-raised Yale junior who thinks he has everything figured out until he winds up on this road trip through Napa Valley with this older guy [James LeGros] who has nothing figured out. It's kind of a buddy picture/coming-of-age picture/love story. I meet a girl who changes my life. What I love about it is it teaches you that it is about the journey, not the destination, finding little detours that will change your direction. For me, that has been the story of my life. I stumbled into acting, stumbled into singing; traveled doing films and movies of the week to all these different parts of the country. I realized that each thing I've ever done, not getting a part, not doing something I thought would be great for my career, has helped me. Going to a regular school, not a performer's school — that's informed my life. Going to Yale and studying art history instead of drama has helped me. I think it is an important message, and I was happy to do something like it. There's some great humor in it, some moments I would love to take back, but that's film. I learned how to drive a stick shift, how to climb a tree, which nobody could believe. There's one scene where a bunch of us go skinny-dipping. I had never in my life done that. I was so out of my element. It paralleled my character perfectly.

	Michael Shulman in "Sherman's Way"
	© 2009 Starry Night Entertainment

Q: How did you get Donna Murphy involved? It is always fun seeing her on film.
Shulman: We were talking about who should play my mom, and Donna and I had worked together before on an HBO film, "Someone Had to Be Benny," and she's been a huge mentor and role model for me. Almost like a second mom. She told me she'd play my mom in anything at any time. She's such a wonderful woman. She has this huge presence in this film. We wanted someone who is a real force, and you know she is the force in musical theatre.

["Sherman's Way" opens March 6 at Village East Cinema, 181-189 2nd Avenue in Manhattan, and on March 13 at the Laemmle Monica, 1332 2nd Street in Santa Monica, CA.]

HITHER AND YON
The show that cannot be stopped, The York Theatre Company's Enter Laughing rolls on at The Theatre at Saint Peter's (619 Lexington Ave.) now until March 20. Josh Grisetti stars, and Bob Dishy is also in the cast. Dishy is married to one of my childhood crushes, Judy Graubart, once the lovable Winnie on "The Electric Company." (This came back to me with the new "Electric Company" finally airing on PBS. I also saw that L. Steven Taylor of Broadway's The Lion King is among the new "EC" cast.) As for Enter Laughing, go to www.yorktheatre.org for information. . . .The celebrated (2008 Bistro & MAC Award winner) Jonathan Whitton brings his cabaret evening titled "Something Beautiful" to the Laurie Beechman on March 30 at 7 PM. Fellow MAC Award winner Miles Phillips directs the show in which you can expect to hear some John Cameron Mitchell and John Bucchino songs, among others. The Laurie Beechman Theatre is located within the West Bank Café at 407 West 42nd Street (at 9th Avenue). Call (212) 695-6909 for ticket info. . . . Speaking of Bucchino, the composer will be at Birdland on March 9 at 7 PM, as part of the ongoing gift to theatre fans from Jim Caruso known as "Broadway at Birdland." Bucchino's guests include Brian Stokes Mitchell and Brian Lane Green. Other guests not named Brian and with only two names include Lucas Steele and Jamison Stern. Ann Hampton Callaway and Daisy Prince are among the distaff side. Birdland is located at 315 West 44th Street; call (212) 581-3080 for reservations. . . . Next weekend (the weekend of March 8) is the last chance to catch Some Enchanted Evening, the Rodgers and Hammerstein Revue at St. Bart's (Park and 50th). Call (212) 378-0248 for tix. . . . John Tartaglia has what promises to be a great night at Feinstein's on March 30. Check out feinsteinsatloewesregency.com. . . . Finally, I was introduced to her through her singing on many of the Ben Bagley "Revisited" albums, but little did I know I already knew her voice through her singing on several of TV's "Schoolhouse Rock" episodes. There was only one Blossom Dearie, friends, and we lost her on Feb. 7. All of her albums on the Verve label are incredible recordings. The gentleness of her voice and her piano on a song like Cy Coleman's "I Walk a Little Faster" make it seem as if she is sitting beside you, whispering the song into your ear. She did magic with numerous Cole Porter tunes as well. One thing is for certain, wherever Ms. Dearie is now, she is surely giving 'em the "Ooh-la-la."

Tom Nondorf can be reached at tnondorf@playbill.com.