For Broadway Sensation, A Transitional Stage
•Singing And Dancing Darling Karen Ziemba Takes A Turn At The Bard

September 5, 2002
By GREG MORAGO, Courant Staff Writer

If you've been to Broadway musicals over the past dozen years, even infrequently, chances are you've seen her.

You may have caught her singular sensation in "A Chorus Line," going into her dance in the original production of "42nd Street" or proving she's got rhythm in "Crazy for You."

Composer and lyricist John Kander and Fred Ebb made her their Broadway baby, fashioning a new musical around her: "Steel Pier," which brought a Tony Award nomination for her role as a Depression-era dreamer in Atlantic City's marathon dances. Next came the role of jazzy chorine/killer Roxie Hart in "Chicago," followed by a star turn in "Contact" that resulted in a Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award and, yep, the inevitable Tony.

Yet for all her hoofing and singing talents - and they are ridiculously considerable - Hartford audiences won't see her incredible legs or hear her amazing voice showcased as such. That's because Broadway powerhouse Karen Ziemba will be flexing different muscles playing the high-spirited, sharp-tongued Beatrice in the Shakespeare comedy "Much Ado About Nothing" at Hartford Stage. Mark Lamos' production, now in previews, opens Tuesday.

It's Ziemba's first Shakespeare, or, as she jokes, "The first time I've ever done the Bard and gotten paid to do it."

For an actor known primarily for belting out (and tapping out) musical showstoppers, Ziemba's transition to Shakespeare - even a comedic Shakespeare - is significant. It requires a new mindset, employs a physicality other than dancing and asks for an entirely different stage communication.

"It's telling a story with language as opposed to telling a story through dance," she says. "And the language! It's such a musical language."

Yet for anyone who saw her as "the wife" in "Contact," Ziemba proved unequivocally that her acting chops are razor sharp. In her unsung, largely wordless balletic piece, Ziemba conveyed everything from euphoria to heartbreaking despair using just her face (an extraordinarily versatile face that can first strike one as ordinary but on stage blossoms into a perfect evocation of whatever role she's playing - from wholesome ingénue to sexy adulteress to broken housewife). That face is a gift that has won her theater's highest honor.

Ziemba, however, is acutely aware that the Hartford Stage audience, via that unforgiving thrust stage, will be watching every aspect of her performance.

"You better be talking with your back and your front and even your heels. They're going to be looking at everything," she says. "Everything is exposed. In this piece, the movement and the carriage and the body language really tell the story."

Ziemba's story of the road to Shakespeare at Hartford Stage is a bit unusual. She had tried out for Lamos' 1996 production of Dylan Thomas' "Under Milk Wood." She didn't get it.

"I remember him being such a kind man, being so lovely and attentive," she says of her audition with Lamos. "I was in that transition period where I wanted to stretch, to play the versatility card."

She would have to wait for years to show that hand, though. Broadway continued to beckon (including "Steel Pier," "Chicago," "Contact" and the memorable Encores! Production of "The Pajama Game.") But last year she took her first major step into straight plays, starring in Alan Ayckbourne's "House" and "Garden" project at GeVa Theatre in Rochester, N.Y.

Ziemba weathered the predictable concerns from fans - even friends - about why she'd want to make the transition from an above-the-title song-and-dance performer to a straight stage actress. She's heard the questions: "Why are you doing it?" and "Can you do it?" Though they bothered her initially, they don't anymore.

"It doesn't bum me out anymore. I stopped for a moment and realized they love what I do on the stage. That's the important thing," she says. "Hopefully, I will be able to cross that barrier, whatever barrier that may be, and give the same joy and inspiration in `Much Ado About Nothing.'"

The role of Beatrice is a plum. In the play's underplot, Beatrice and Benedick play a memorable love game, a comedic war of wit between an opinionated, self-governing woman and a confirmed bachelor who ultimately succumb to each other.

"She's a very modern woman, the first of its ilk for Shakespeare. It's the first woman he wrote that way," Ziemba says. "She's a woman who is independent and has her own money; she's an aristocrat and bright. She doesn't want to admit she's in love, especially to him. With Beatrice, it's about letting everyone see your intellect and wit and yet trying to cover up your heart."

In the play, Beatrice goes through a life-changing transition. In real life, Ziemba's doing the same with her role in "Much Ado."

"There's a lot of things that happen to Beatrice during the course of the play that she comes to realize about herself," Ziemba says. "Maybe I'm in a place where I want to do that, too."