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Sunday, July 06, 2003

By Sharon Eberson, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Television viewers know Charles Shaughnessy mostly as the dashing Shane Donovan of the soap opera "Days of Our Lives" or the ditzy yet dashing Mr. Sheffield of the sitcom "The Nanny." Now add to the London-born actor's varied resume his first role in musical theater, as the proper and pompous Henry Higgins, for Pittsburgh CLO's "My Fair Lady."

	Charles Shaughnessy arrived last week to rehearse for his first musical role: Henry Higgins in CLO's "My Fair Lady." (Matt Polk) Pittsburgh CLO's "My Fair Lady" Where: Benedum Center, Downtown. Starring: Charles Shaughnessy, Glory Crampton. When: Tuesday through July 20; 8 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; and 7:30 p.m. July 13. Tickets: $12 to $44; 412-456-6666.

All this, and a shiny award he won at the recent Daytime Emmys for his portrayal of ... a goldfish.

That's Dennis, the scene-stealing pet on the Disney Channel animated series, "Stanley."

"After all that classical training," he says with a chuckle from his Los Angeles home. Even over the phone, you can envision him smiling and shaking his head, perhaps reliving moments with Cambridge's famed Footlights Revue comedy troupe, drama school in London, and then on to touring repertory before arriving on the Los Angeles theater scene.

In the summer of "Finding Nemo," being another fish in Disney's vast sea isn't such a bad thing.

"He's a great goldfish," Shaughnessy, 48, says of Dennis.

"This business is so strange. The big success is so unexpected, and 'Stanley' is such a phenomenon in the under-8 age group. A pretty low demographic, but it's an extremely vociferous one."

He found that out when he and his family, wife Susan and two daughters, recently went to Disneyland for the opening of a live "Stanley" show.

"The lines were unbelievable. The whole park was trying to get into the show," Shaughnessy marvels.

There's another live show very much on his mind these days. "My Fair Lady," which runs at the Benedum Center Tuesday through July 20, came into Shaughnessy's life at just the right time, although he's still not quite sure how the stars aligned in just the right way to bring him to Pittsburgh.

It started with a call from his agent about auditions for the Los Angeles production of "The Producers."

"He asked, would I like to go and audition for the part of the German writer, which I'm totally wrong for," Shaughnessy recalls. "Franz Liebkind was something I could not see myself as. But I thought, I'd been wanting to get into musicals for a long time, and it would be extremely frightening to go to New York and audition for a full-out Broadway show, but that's why I had to do it.

"So I flew out to New York and I'm walking the streets of Manhattan and thinking, 'What the hell am I doing here?' But I went to the audition, which was absolutely terrifying, with Susan Stroman and 12 members of her production team. But I survived and not only survived, but I did a decent job, and I heard afterward that she liked me. ... Then I came back and told my wife, what would be perfect now would be to do "My Fair Lady."

Three days later came another call from his agent, who said, "I don't know if you'd be interested, but there's a production of 'My Fair Lady' at the Benedum in Pittsburgh."

Of course, he said yes to this "next logical step," a step that's different from any other theatrical experience he's had, and not just because it's a musical. Shaughnessy is doing all the preparation at home in LA, and then coming here for a quick rehearsal schedule. Before this week, there'd been no back-and-forth with Glory Crampton's Eliza or up-close and personal instruction from director Glenn Casale.

Shaughnessy also is taking singing lessons, even though Higgins is written for an actor to sing-song his way through, as made famous by Rex Harrison. And that's fine with this musical first-timer.

"I can sneak into musical without hitting those high Cs or whatever," he says. Still, "I would like to do a little more singing than Rex Harrison did. I think the contrast works best if there are passages that are sung."

Shaughnessy's not worried about audiences' familiarity with the material or that the role is so identified with Harrison, or even that theatergoers might strongly identify him with his television roles. He expects that the audience will be willing "to go on the journey" with him.

If anything, familiarity is what draws Shaughnessy to "My Fair Lady," which to his mind is "the best musical adaptation of a play."

"I'm not saying it's the best musical, but as an adaptation of a play, because Lerner and Loewe kept every word of [George Bernard] Shaw's dialogue. I mean, the dialogue is right out of 'Pygmalion.' And then they just had a knack, they were just brilliant at writing lyrics and songs that I think, were Shaw to have been a musician, I don't think he could have written anything more Shavian than these particular lyrics. They did such a good job of stitching the music into the Shavian fabric that it turns out to be a really remarkable musical version of the play."

Shaughnessy recalls a trip to Pittsburgh in the 1980s for a "'Days jaunt." It was a time when he also was speaking out against nuclear proliferation for a group called "Beyond War" and gave a series of talks at Juniata College.

This time, by George, he's come to town as the star of a musical production, and he said he's in talks for a possible musical tour next year.

"I'm really just doing ["My Fair Lady"] because I think it's a great experience to have," Shaughnessy says.

"I love Shaw and I'm doing Shaw's dialogue, which has some great musical interludes for Higgins. But it's primarily just a great play."

Sunday Magazine Editor Sharon Eberson can be reached at seberson@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1960.