From Ventura County Star - 05/10/07

Favre: Scott Bakula returns to his first love -- singing -- in a revival of the musical --No Strings'
By Jeff Favre

On the "Star Trek" series "Enterprise," Capt. Jonathan Archer never busted out into a ballad when he was flying his starship at warp speed. And Sam Beckett never sang unless it would help him make the next "Quantum Leap."

As a result, most people don't realize that Scott Bakula who brought both of these adventurous characters to life on the small screen is, at heart, a singer.

Bakula made his Broadway debut playing Joe DiMaggio in the short-lived 1983 musical "Marilyn," about the life of Marilyn Monroe. In 1988, a year before he began his 96-episode run on "Quantum Leap," he received a best actor Tony nomination for portraying dual characters in the frothy musical "Romance/Romance."

After that, the singing mostly stopped as television work occupied his time. But now, after almost 25 years, Bakula is returning to his musical comedy roots with a star turn in the Reprise! production of "No Strings," a 1962 show notable because it marked the first time legendary composer Richard Rodgers wrote both the words and music for a musical. It runs through May 20 at the Freud Playhouse on the UCLA campus in Westwood.

Reprise! specializes in staging rarely produced musicals, and "No Strings" certainly falls into that category.

"I didn't know the piece," said Bakula during a rehearsal break. "Then I read the book and found out that it's still really strong. And Richard Rodgers' music, though it's unlike anything else he did, is beautiful. It's a meaty piece, more of a play with music."

Bakula has wanted to do a Reprise! show for years, but this was the first time everything fell into place.

In "No Strings" he portrays David, a Pulitzer Prize winner living in Paris. David, who is suffering from writer's block, meets and falls in love with a younger model, Barbara (Sophina Brown, who plays Raina Troy on the CBS series "Shark").

Howard Taubman, reviewing the musical for the New York Times in 1962, wrote that the then 59-year-old Rodgers had "written enchanted music like a youngster who has discovered the unimaginable wonders of the notes in the tempered scale."

Around the same time Rodgers was impressing Broadway crowds with "No Strings" and winning a Tony for the show's score, Bakula was an 8-year-old just discovering his singing skills. He was involved in theater in high school and then, after studying law at the University of Kansas, he left school to become a full-time theater actor in New York.

As he was making a name for himself on Broadway, he was also building up his television résumé with roles on such series as "My Sister Sam," "Matlock" and "Designing Women." After "Romance/Romance" closed, "Quantum Leap" leapt into his lap.

Donald P. Bellisario, the television producer who co-created "Magnum P.I." and went on to create hits like "JAG" and "NCIS," was having little luck casting the lead role of time traveler Sam Beckett. That all changed when Bakula auditioned.

"Scott came in and read for me and he'd just come off Broadway, where he was nominated for a Tony," Bellisario told Back Stage West in a recent interview. "He read for the part, and I just held my breath until he went out the door and then I said, 'I want him!' That was that."

"Quantum Leap" was a perfect fit for Bakula. He played a scientist who keeps winding up in the bodies of people in different time periods and having to correct mistakes in the past before "leaping" again. He received four consecutive Emmy nominations for the role and won a best actor Golden Globe for his work on the series in 1993.

The show was canceled abruptly after five seasons, ending with an episode that excited and frustrated fans with its ambiguous ending.

Will there ever be a movie that continues the saga?

"I would be surprised if it happened," Bakula said. "I would want to do it, but it's so complicated about who owns the rights, and because so many people involved are all over the place doing other things. Two years ago I was explaining it to my then 9-year-old, and all of a sudden he realized that (Sam Beckett) doesn't get to go back home. He was heartbroken."

Last year, Bakula was seen on two episodes of the sitcom "The New Adventures of Old Christine."

Still considered a rugged leading man at 52, he was cast as a love interest for Christine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). In February, he starred as an arson investigator in the Lifetime movie "Blue Smoke."

With no projects scheduled, Bakula said, he can fully focus on "No Strings," which is a good thing because the Reprise! rehearsal period is less than two weeks.

"It's tough, but compared to TV, where you sometimes get two minutes, two weeks seems like a lot," he said. "The Reprise! people know exactly what they're doing. And I hope by opening night we can have people in the audience also wondering why 'No Strings' is rarely done."

© 2007 The E.W. Scripps Co.

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