Stage star lands ‘dream role' in Broadway comedy

You don't know his name, but Stephen Patterson is a star.

He's led the cast of touring productions of "Little Women," "Urinetown," "Miss Saigon," "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" and "South Pacific." After two years on the road with "Les Misérables," he then played Marius in the Broadway revival.

He has a CD of Broadway tunes called "Tonight at Eight," which you can find used on Amazon.com. And in November, he began a 22-week tour of "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," an Equity production with Broadway sets and costumes that opens Tuesday at the Pikes Peak Center.

He's not a star with a capital S, but after 15 years of steady work, that's just fine.

"When I first started, the ultimate goal for a young actor from Canada was to get to New York, to get to Broadway," says Patterson, who heads home to Canada when he's not on tour. "That's been going pretty good. I can kind of tick that off my list.

"But I have a young family now, and I think the dream for me is to stay employed and doing what I'm doing. But yes, of course, I'm always looking for that next big thing, looking for that ‘Wicked.'"

It's a life churning with touring and auditioning and touring some more. A typical year could include three to five shows, unless he lands something such as "Les Miz" or "Mamma Mia!" which wife Robin Hutton toured in Canada for two years.

"For me, I'm happy to be employed for six months," he says. "The fact that I don't have to hustle for the next role. And you know, I would sit down and do this role for a couple of years."

Sitting down? That's what theater insiders call playing a role in one theater for an extended time.

"He's got crazy energy," Patterson says of his character, Freddy Benson, a two-bit con man determined to cut himself a piece of high-tone con artist Lawrence Jameson's (Brian McKay) profitable love-'em-and-leave-'em grift. When the con men realize that the wealthy town in the south of France can't accommodate both of them, they make a deal:

Whoever bilks $50,000 from a certain heiress will see the other man hit the road. The musical, which opened on Broadway in March 2005, was based on the Michael Caine-Steve Martin film from 1988, which is itself a remake of the 1964 film "Bedtime Story," starring David Niven as Lawrence and Marlon Brando as Freddy. The Broadway production won 10 Tony Awards, including Best Musical and one for David Yazbek's ("The Full Monty") score.

Patterson is a fan of both movies, but as he sat in the second row of Broadway's Imperial Theatre and watched Tony winner Norbert Leo Butz chew up the scenery as Freddy, he had a thought.

"I thought, ‘Man, that would be a dream role'," he says, the awe still evident in his voice.

"I would love the opportunity to jump into that, to play such a person."

Unlike the romantic leads he usually plays, Freddy Benson stood to offer a lot to a man who thinks of himself as a "goofy, crazy guy": some great songs, Monty Python-worthy shtick and an appealing mix of unsavory personality traits.

For a piece of such broad humor, though, "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" demanded an exacting balance act. The protagonists had to be bad but not despicable - not if you wanted your audience to linger after the intermission.

"We don't want people to walk away saying, ‘I didn't really like those guys,'" Patterson says. "We need to be con artists that you actually like."

And he has to do it while singing, dancing, acting and, oh yes, hitting his marks.

"I'm not going to say it's harder than straight acting, because I don't want to be that guy," he says. "But it's a lot trickier than a lot of people give it credit for. And you know, a lot of people, straight actors, come to musical theater and they don't cut it, either."

Patterson laughs.

It's a tough business, he says. "But I've been lucky."

Patterson tours with Freddy and "Dirty Rotten" through mid-May. "Luckily enough, it would take a lot for this to ever get boring."

DETAILS
DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS

What: Broadway touring production
When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday
Where: Pikes Peak Center, 190 S. Cascade Ave.
Tickets: $30-$50; 520-7469, 1-866-464-2626, TicketsWest outlets or www.pikespeakcenter.com

CRITICS ON THE ORIGINAL BROADWAY PRODUCTION

"Though shot through with bawdy jokes, smirky innuendoes and a rowdy spirit of self-parody, ‘Dirty Rotten Scoundrels' seems to believe in its own brazen agenda only when Mr. Butz, a criminally talented young performer, is allowed to command the stage. And confidence, as any grifter can tell you, is the irreplaceable basis of a successful con game."

- Ben Brantley, The New York Times, March 4, 2005

"It has been a long time coming, but the 2004-05 season finally has a big new musical that Broadway can feel unashamed - heck, thrilled - to call its own. ‘Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,' which opened last night at the Imperial Theatre, is a sweet-natured yet droll, dorky but gorgeous, wholesome yet raunchy and somehow sophisticated adaptation of the beloved Michael Caine-Steve Martin movie about con men in the south of France."

- Linda Winer, Newsday, March 4, 2005

"What the show lacks, for all its drollness, is a set of characters or situations worth caring about. As much of current pop culture proves, it's easier and more instantly gratifying to mock hollowness than to challenge it. The problem with relentless sarcasm, though, is that it tends to make any emotional engagement suspect."

- Elysa Gardner, USA Today, March 4, 2005