Penny Fuller (#278) - July, 2010

While playing the "anchor role" in Off-Broadway's "Love, Loss and What I Wore", actress Penny Fuller talked about her wide-ranging career, noting (even to her own surprise) how many times she got roles because someone else dropped out or was let go fairly late in the production process. She recalls her first Broadway break, understudying Elizabeth Ashley (who would later play her mother in "Dividing the Estate") in the original production of "Barefoot in the Park"; standing by for Jill Haworth and going on more than 100 times in the original "Cabaret", performing "Henry IV Parts 1 and 2" in repertory in Central Park with Sam Waterston as Prince Hal and Stacy Keach as Falstaff; playing the world's most infamous understudy, Eve Harrington, opposite Lauren Bacall in "Applause"; the challenges that faced the ill-fated musical "Rex"; the thrill of appearing in William Finn's "A New Brain"; playing Mrs. Kendal both on stage and on TV in Bernard Pomerance's "The Elephant Man"; and why she's a leading lady in the theatre but a character actress on television. Original air date - July 21, 2010.