Adrian Zmed brings 'Middletown' to his hometown - Chicago
Actor Adrian Zmed returns to his old neighborhood to star in Dan Clancy's play "Middletown" at Chicago's Apollo Theater.
"I had a blessed childhood," said Zmed, who grew up in the former Parish House of Holy Nativity Romanian Orthodox Church, where his father was a priest, when it was previously located near Seminary and Belden avenues.
"I was five blocks from Wrigley Field and five blocks from Lincoln Park Zoo," Zmed said. "I could go to the zoo and Fullerton Beach, and then when Cubs games would be on in the afternoons, I would go to Waveland and Sheffield and wait for those balls to come over the wall."
Zmed, famed for starring in the 1980s TV cop drama "T.J. Hooker" and the films "Bachelor Party" and "Grease 2," has been with "Middletown" since GFour Productions picked it up last year for productions in Las Vegas, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and Wilmington, Delaware.
For the Chicago premiere of "Middletown," Zmed is joined by Sandy Duncan ("The Hogan Family," "Peter Pan"), Donny Most (Ralph Malph on "Happy Days") and multiple Jeff Award-winner Kate Buddeke ("Airline Highway"). Zmed said he's eager to get to know Buddeke, and that he's already longtime friends with Most, who appeared in "Middletown" in Las Vegas, and Duncan.
"I was supposed to do the national tour of 'Chicago' with Sandy Duncan in the late 1990s. We were in rehearsals and Sandy broke her ankle," Zmed said. "So what's really fun for us is we finally get to work together in a show in Chicago for four weeks."
"Middletown," not to be confused with Will Eno's play of the same name seen at Steppenwolf Theatre in 2011, follows two married couples who meet every Friday night for dinner over the course of 32 years.
"The show takes people by surprise," Zmed said. "It is a roller coaster of the emotions of life."
Like A.R. Gurney's hit 1989 Broadway play "Love Letters," Clancy's drama calls for a bare-bones staging with scripts in front of the actors.
Zmed admits that he was initially skeptical. But he came to understand Clancy's approach and to appreciate how much it focuses an audience on the storytelling.
"It gave me another lesson in trusting the written word and not having to do back flips as an actor to try and make the material work," Zmed said. "And make no mistake. It may look like we're reading from a script, but it gets memorized."
Also like "Love Letters," "Middletown" allows for a variety of stars to easily step into the production. Zmed's previous "Middletown" co-stars have included Sally Struthers, Didi Conn and Cindy Williams.
"It's been really fun for me to have completely different perspectives from different cast members," said Zmed, adding that "we start to bring our own selves and our relationships to the whole project."
Zmed is eager to get back to Chicago, where his past theater work includes tours of "Grease" and "Lend Me a Tenor" at the Royal George Theatre. He has plans to reconnect with relatives (his brother's family lives in Rolling Meadows), and he also hopes that local audiences will help "Middletown" on its projected journey to New York.
"I'm excited because we're going to be in my hometown," Zmed said. "We needed to sit it down somewhere and get word-of-mouth going."
“Middletown”
Where: Apollo Theater Chicago, 2540 N. Lincoln Ave., Chicago, (773) 935-6100 or
apollochicago.comWhen: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, 5 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday and Wednesday; runs Feb. 27 through March 22Tickets: $65