Auditioning actors know that getting cast in a show can be a cutthroat business. But imagine the dilemma for a performer if his or her spouse was competing to play the exact same role.
This uncomfortable situation actually happened to married Chicago actors Wade Elkins ( Blue Man Group ) and Steven Strafford( End Days, Methtacular! ). Both were called in to be seen for the comic role of a romantic soda jerk named Frank Lippencott in Tony-winning director Mary Zimmerman's new production of Wonderful Town at the Goodman Theatre.
"Steven was actually called in for the role of Frank Lippencott, and I was called in for the understudy of Frank," Elkins said. "We've never had that happen before."
Both Elkins' and Strafford's auditions went so well that they were called back multiple times in competition for the same role.
"We were actually pretty excited that the chances for at least one of us getting the role was pretty good," Elkins said.
Strafford was slightly nervous when he was contacted yet again for another callback. In addition to Frank, he was also asked to prepare an audition for the character of the smarmy New York reporter Chick Clark.
"I threw together this audition," Strafford said. "Usually, that never works out. When you get asked to read another role, it's usually because they say, 'We think you're talented,' but then you don't get the job."
But to the delight of Elkins and Strafford, they were both respectively cast in the show as Frank and Chick. They even get to play opposite each other in a musical comedy number called "Conversation Piece," where their characters turn rather nasty toward each other during an awkward apartment dinner party.
The reason for the animosity is because both Frank and Chick are trying to get the romantic attentions of one of the show's leading ladies, Eileen Sherwood ( Lauren Molina ), the prettier sister of the more enterprising and ambitious journalist Ruth ( Bri Sudia ).
"I quite enjoy the fact that we have this scene together where he is just a jerk to me and it's so funny," said Elkins of playing opposite his husband.
"Every time I'm doing the scene in rehearsal, my number one job is not to laugh," Strafford said. "It feels like The Carol Burnett Show where we're trying so hard not to break and laugh."
Both Elkins and Stafford have delighted in getting to know Wonderful Town itself. It's about the misadventures of two Ohio sisters who move into a basement Greenwich Village apartment in 1930s New York.
Wonderful Town was a critical and audience hit, winning five Tony Awards in 1953 including Best Musical and Best Actress for its famous Hollywood leading lady, Rosalind Russell. But the show isn't that well known.
Part of the problem stems from Hollywood never turning Wonderful Town into a major musical motion picture. It was due in large part to complex rights issues with Ruth McKeney's original stories as source material versus Joseph Fields and Jereome Chodorv's 1940 stage adaptation entitled My Sister Eileen.
Columbia Pictures released a musical version of My Sister Eileen in 1955, but it didn't feature Wonderful Town's jazzy score by bisexual composer Leonard Bernstein and lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green ( which included the wistful duet "Ohio" and showstoppers like "Conga!" and "Wrong Note Rag" ). Russell was only able to preserve her acclaimed performance as Ruth in a special 1958 TV version of Wonderful Town and in an earlier 1942 non-musical film version of My Sister Eileen.
Wonderful Town did get some major attention in the past decade when a New York Encores! concert staging was revived and adapted for Broadway in 2003 starring Tony Award-winner Donna Murphy as Ruth and Kissing Jessica Stein star Jennifer Westfeldt as Eileen. That production didn't tour to Chicago, so Zimmerman's new take on Wonderful Town for the Goodman Theatre is a major and rare chance to see a full-fledged staging of the musical.
"What was really amazing about working on it is that even though it is of its period, the style and sophistication of comedy is really exciting," said Strafford, a self-professed "musical comedy nerd" who admits to not being that familiar with Wonderful Town before he started auditioning for it.
"So often when you do older shows, the book is creaky and the jokes feel hackneyed," Stafford said. "But these jokes are excellent and they're really, really funny. We're really excited to be in the cast we're in."
Wonderful Town plays from Saturday, Sept. 10, through Sunday, Oct. 16, at the Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn Ave. Tickets are $25 to $93; call 312-443-3800 or visit GoodmanTheatre.org .