Straight From Broadway: Betty Buckley crams 30-year history into one show at UNLV

Betty Buckley brings her acclaimed voice to Artemus Ham Hall at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where she will perform songs from her many Broadway shows.

      Andrew Lloyd Webber had only a few words of advice for Betty Buckley when she stepped into the role of Norma Desmond in the Broadway and London hit, "Sunset Boulevard."
      "He told me to sing it the way he wrote it," said Buckley in a recent phone interview from New York.
      It worked, as it did for others who played the aging silent picture star from Billy Wilder's classic film.
      Buckley will be in performance Tuesday night in Artemus Ham Hall at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas with "Betty Buckley's Broadway," part of the "Best of the New York Stage" series presented at the Performing Arts Center.
      She will be performing songs from a who's who of Broadway shows: "Cats," "1776," "Song and Dance," "Gypsy," "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" and "Pippin."
      "I'll be doing the songs I'm known for," Buckley says. "The Broadway shows and the rest of the repertoire from five CDs, including the new one, `Heart to Heart.' Old stuff and new."
      The new stuff comes out March 28 and features duets with pianist Kenny Warner. Buckley has worked for years with Warner. "We know each other pretty well, at least musically we do," Buckley says.
      Even with all her success on the New York stage, Buckley is still recognized for her role as Abby Bradford in the hit TV series "Eight Is Enough," which aired from 1977 to 1981 on ABC.
      Reruns have helped keep the role in the public's mind.
      Since then she's covered a lot of ground and moved on to a higher level of accomplishment, to the extent that the TV show and her present work seem worlds apart. But Buckley doesn't feel as if there have been two Betty Buckleys.
      "I feel like I'm an actress and I play lots of parts," she says.
      Born in Fort Worth, Texas, Buckley was inspired to go into show business when, at age 11, she saw Bob Fosse's original "Steam Heat" choreography in a summer stock production of "The Pajama Game."
      Four years later Buckley made her professional stage debut in Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim's "Gypsy." She also performed up to 16 shows a day in musical revues at the Six Flags Over Texas theme park.
      Buckley attended Texas Christian University as a journalism major (she was also head cheerleader) and won the Miss Fort Worth title in 1966. She was runner-up in the Miss Texas competition.
      In 1967, Buckley was asked to perform at the Miss America pageant, where she was discovered by a talent agent who convinced her to audition for the International Famous Agency. She signed with the agency but returned to TCU to get her degree.
      In 1969, Buckley she auditioned for the role of Martha Jefferson in the Broadway musical "1776."
      That was the beginning of a 30-year run in top Broadway shows, which included a Tony Award for best featured actress in a musical in "Cats," in which she played Grizabella, the Glamour Cat.
      Buckley also has worked with some top film directors: Brian DePalma ("Carrie"); Bruce Beresford ("Tender Mercies"); Woody Allen ("Another Woman"; and Roman Polanski ("Frantic").
      "Lucky girl," Buckley says of working with the acclaimed directors. "They were all great moviemakers. I never thought of them comparatively. They were all really fun, all different men, different kinds of directors, different kinds of films. It was always an adventure. Learning what that guy was about, how he directed, how he saw things. ..."
      Currently Buckley is having a couple of shows developed for her KO Productions company. She won't give any details, saying she can't talk about them because they're in the preliminary stage.
      And she's touring the country with her "best-of" show.
      She's never played Las Vegas before, never been here, in fact, but says she's received several offers to play the Strip. "I haven't found anything I'd want to do yet," she says.
      Meanwhile, Buckley won't rule out returning to television. "If the project was great. If it was a character that I'd really wanna go hang out in her skin every day, all day. It has to be something like that, otherwise it's too all-engulfing. There's so many other things I'm interested in, that it's hard to give a TV show that kind of priority in my life."
      Like many actors, she would like to direct in the future. "I've been a teacher for 27 years so I have a facility for helping people arrive at their best stuff, so I think I'd like to direct at some point. I think I have a feeling and a skill for that," Buckley says.
      Tickets to "Betty Buckley's Broadway" are $35, $45 and $55. Discounts are available for students, seniors, military and the disabled.
     
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      What: "Betty Buckley's Broadway"
      When: 8 p.m. Tuesday
      Where: Artemus Ham Hall, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 4505 S. Maryland Parkway
      Tickets: $35-$55