INTERVIEW: Barbara Walsh has a few tricks up her sleeve in ‘Presto Change-O’

Presto Change-O, a new musical playing as part of Barrington Stage Company’s Musical Theatre Lab, follows three generations of magicians as they navigate family issues and their shared love of illusions. In the musical, which runs through Saturday, June 11 in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Tony nominee Barbara Walsh plays Mary, a character who finds herself in the middle of the trickery and humorous antics of this unusual family.

Walsh performed in the Berkshires, where Barrington is located, many years ago in A … My Name Will Always Be Alice, and she also completed a reading of a musical at the famed institution. Being that she knew the composer of Presto Change-O, Joel Waggoner, she decided to sign up for the show.

“I was sent the music, and I was intrigued from the very beginning of it,” Walsh said recently in a phone interview. “The music was strong, so I thought this could be a lot of fun.”

Walsh was immediately intrigued by the characters, in particular Sheldon, played by Broadway alumnus Larry Wolpe. Together they join a cast that also includes Bob Walton (Broadways’ The Drowsy Chaperone), Jarrod Spector (Tony nominee for Broadway’s Beautiful: The Carole King Musical), Michael Rupert (Tony nominee for Broadway’s Falsettos) and Jenni Barber (Broadway’s Wicked).

“I was intrigued by the idea of a family of three generations of magicians,” said Walsh, who was also nominated for a Tony for Broadway’s Falsettos. “I thought it was a strong role for me, something that would be fun, and, you know, the Berkshires, come on. I mean it looked like a great cast as time moved along.”

The challenge of mounting Presto Change-O is that the show is a new musical, and these untested waters can be daunting. Walsh called the experience both exciting and frustrating because of the unproven material. On top of that, the actress needed to learn the intricacies of performing magic tricks on stage; however, she relishes the challenge and seemingly loves the results.

“It’s very different from being in the city, working in New York City on Broadway doing a brand-new musical,” she said. “I’ve also done that, but I mean … no one project is going to be alike to another one. But it’s always exciting to work on something new and to originate something. I think every artist wants to originate something.”

There was a lot of collaboration among the cast members as they learned Waggoner’s music and Eric Price’s book and lyrics. Marc Bruni directed the actors, and Chris Bailey choreographed the numbers.

“We had completely open collaboration, great respect between us,” she said. “So I think we had all the ingredients to come in, you know, in a really positive way with something new. We’re all seasoned, and we’ve all developed new work before, which is a different muscle than doing work that’s already established.”

It didn’t hurt that Rupert and Walsh knew each other from their days in Falsettos in 1992 on Broadway. They had never worked together since that iconic musical nearly 25 years ago, but Walsh said their time together on Presto Change-O has been “tremendous fun.”

Walsh also performed a couple of readings with Wolpe before, and Walton and Walsh go back to the Wagon Wheel Playhouse in 1979. “He had to remind me of that, and he’s just divine, one of the funniest human beings on the planet, love him,” she said of Walton. “Everyone’s fantastic.”

There have been many shows for Walsh over the years, including Company, Rock ‘N’ Roll — The First 500 Years, Big, Blood Brothers, Hairspray and Ragtime, but one of the highlights must be her originating a role in Falsettos, the musical by James Lapine and William Finn. The show, which is gearing up for a Broadway revival in the fall, consists of two one-act musicals brought together.

“It was really kind of a singular experience in a lot of ways,” Walsh said. “I had first done the two one acts together for the first time at Hartford Stage in the fall of ’91. … It was supposed to move to Broadway to be at the [Vivian] Beaumont Theatre at Lincoln Center, and then that fell through. I was quite fortunate to get the call that the Weisslers were going to produce Falsettos on Broadway under the hand of James Lapine who I never worked with before. … And so I was incredibly lucky because I knew both experiences, and they were visually very, very different. Different casts, but they were equally compelling and important, and for me just astonishing experiences quite frankly. Both of them are very dear to my heart. Then I was lucky because I got to go to Broadway with it.”

Walsh has been performing, in one way or another, since she was a student. She comes from a large family of eight children on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. There were four girls and four boys, and Walsh was the shy one among them. She would often pretend she was a nun and teach imaginary students, much like her own teachers at Catholic school. She would also offer impersonations of characters she viewed on soap operas.

“I wasn’t a particularly avid student, a straight-A student of any kind,” she admitted. “I was more of a daydreamer and very shy, and so I would sing at home alone after school when no one was there. And then in high school I kind of came out of my shell.”

In high school, Walsh studied painting, creative writing and singing, and she eventually started performing in musicals. She continued the work at a community college, and this led to her first career move: dinner theater, which she likes to call her “grad work.”

“I played … a variety of different roles as I also served cocktails at intermission,” she said. “But it was great training in many ways.”

Today, Walsh likes to think of the future. Still, the nostalgia of her many roles and many colleagues over the years bring back a flood of memories. “I feel somewhat extremely fortunate to have all the experiences that I’ve been able to have and particularly in New York but also in regional theaters,” she said. “I’ve done some great roles in regional theaters, and I’ve worked with incredible people, whether it’s in a reading, or a workshop, or a full production for Broadway or off-Broadway or around the country. I feel very fortunate.”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

Presto Change-O continues at Barrington Stage Company through Saturday, June 11. Click here for more information.