From Where Magazine - March 2006

By Jennifer Barger

Television, movie and Broadway actor Scott Bakula stars as a Civil War-era patriarch in the musical Shenandoah (page 33) at Ford’s Theatre beginning march 17.  It’s not his first run in the Tony Award-winning saga of a Virginia family during the War Between the States.  “I call Shenandoah my waiter job,” jokes Bakula.  “I’ve been in it at least six times, starting in the chorus on a dinner-theater tour, then playing a suitor and a couple of different sons.  Now I’m ready to play the father.”

While Bakula became a household name with roles on TV’s Quantum Leap and Star Trek: Enterprise, he relishes a return to theater, where he got his start.  “I love the interaction with a live audience,” he says.  “Acting in the theater is a little like participating in a sporting event.  It’s not interesting to play in an empty stadium.”  He finds parallels in this part and his recent turn as the commander of a Star Trek ship.  “They’re both bigger-than-life roles,” he says.  “Commanding a starship isn’t that different from commanding a family of six, running a farm and trying to stand up to Union and Rebel armies.”

Copyright © 2006 Where Magazine.

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