5 Questions with Pat Brady

“BOCA” by Jessica Provenz is making its Capital Region premiere this week, having tickled audiences a couple of years ago under Barrington Stage’s tent in the parking lot during that COVID summer of 2021.

The comedy is set in a gated Florida retirement community where the inhabitants fill their days with yoga, road trips and trying to hook that last available Mr. Right.

Pat Brady is among the show’s small, exceptional cast of Capital Region seniors, which also includes Gary Hoffman, Melissa Putterman Hoffman, Susan Katz and Dennis Skiba. Pat has worked on Capital Region stages for decades; I’ve known her since 2006, when I directed her as Mrs. Venable (the Katherine Hepburn role) in “Suddenly Last Summer” at Albany Civic Theater. I recently had the chance to interview the local legend.

Question: When did you know theater was something you wanted to do?

Answer: It goes way back to being a very young person. I was lucky to have a father who used to take me to musical theater in Cincinnati. I saw “My Fair Lady” and “The Sound of Music” and “Stop the World, I Want to Get Off.” There was music in our house all the time, scores of musical theater. While I was raising two children by myself, it kind of put things on hold. I never thought until my second and last child went away to school … and then I thought, “Gosh, would I love to find a chance to do musical theater.” I looked in The Gazette and there was an audition for “Annie,” and I knew “Annie” backwards and forwards, and I just walked in cold and I got bitten by a big bug.

Q: What did that bug do to you? What do you get out of performing?

A: Well, I can make a few words. One is it taps a creative side of your brain. I was in medicine for 30 years and it taps a whole different sphere of your brain. You are creative and performing. It’s a very different part of your personality to bring that all onstage. It opens a whole world of knowledge and friendships and experiences and activities. It really, honestly changed my life. It allowed me to do something that was gnawing, longing in my body to want to do this. Then to see that there was a group of people that was just as crazy as I was, true fans of live theater … it really did change my life.

Q: Who do you play in “BOCA” and what do they do?

A: Well, each of us plays two parts and one of us plays three. I play two parts. I play Elaine, who is a very efficient, controlling kind of widow, and Louise, who is a yoga instructor, kind of zany, very spiritual. They’re as different as can be and it’s huge fun to play two very different characters.

Q: You made your debut in “Annie” and just last season you were seen as Madame Armfeldt in “A Little Night Music” at SLOC. Can you talk about moving between plays and musicals, and what you get out of working on straight plays?

A: For the first 10 years I was involved in theater I only did musical theater, that was my game. I just loved singing and dancing and the way musicals were constructed. This wonderful gentleman Bill Hickman saw me ushering at Light Opera and said, “When are you going to do a nonmusical?” I thought, ”Why would you do that?!?” I couldn’t figure out why you would possibly want to do that. So he gave me the name of Laura Andrujski and she’s doing a play called “After Play.” “Why don’t you call her and get a script?” Well, the first play I did was called “After Play” and I remember thinking there were four of us sitting around a table for the entire show, and I remember thinking, “Are we just going to sit here the whole time and talk?!?”

Q: What is a role or project you’re dying to do?

A: There’s a couple of musicals. One would be “Ballroom” and one would be anything written by Sondheim. As far as plays, I love to do one-woman shows. It’s great to interact with the audience. And there’s one called “Ann,” it’s the story of Ann Richards, who was the governor of Texas, and she has always intrigued me. She was so funny and had such a different way of relating to her audience. I am not very knowledgeable about a lot of plays and dramas, and a lot of musicals, too. And sometimes I audition for something I know nothing about and it opens a whole world, and fills me with surprises.
“BOCA” opens Nov. 30 and runs through Dec. 17 at Curtain Call Theatre, 1 Jeanne Jugan Lane, Latham. For tickets, call 518-877-7529 or visit curtaincalltheatre.com.

Patrick White is a Nippertown contributor.