Need a little Christmas? Linda Purl headlines 'Mame' at Jacksonville's Florida Theatre

The stage at the Florida Theatre has seen it all over the last 90-some years, but "Mame" might just put it to the test.

The stage, 40 feet wide and 30 feet deep, is going to be nearly standing-room-only when actress Linda Purl leads a cast of 18, a 26-piece orchestra and a 30-voice chorus through two performances of the Broadway classic "Mame."

Performances are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $38-$73.

The shows are a collaboration between the Florida Theatre and Theatre Jacksonville. They will be "in concert" stage readings rather than full productions, so the actors will deliver their lines and sing the familiar songs, but there won't be full sets and costume changes and the like.

"This has been an incredibly successful format," Purl said in a phone interview. "The cost is so high that the only way this generation is going to experience these shows live is going to be as a staged reading. You get it. You get the hits from it."

Purl, best known for her work as Fonzie's girlfriend on "Happy Days," Ben's daughter on "Matlock" and Pam's mom on "The Office," will take on the title role. Dorothy Bishop, a New York cabaret performer known for her "Dozen Divas" shows, will play Vera Charles in the production. Most of the rest of the cast is from the Jacksonville area.

The title character is a free spirit who finds herself in charge of a young boy. The role was made famous on Broadway by Angela Lansbury and in the 1974 movie version by Lucille Ball. Purl knew both of them; she appeared in three episodes of "Murder She Wrote" with Lansbury and was briefly married to Lucy's son, Desi Arnaz Jr.

"I saw Angela do it in 1966," Purl said. "I think it was my first Broadway play; it was the first one I remember, anyway. I still remember the wave of energy coming off that stage."

Purl said any actress worth her salt wants to try her hand at Mame someday. It's not an easy role, she said, but Mame is very inspiring and she gets to sing "We Need a Little Christmas" in August.

"There's great tragedy in Mame's life, but you get the sense that she has had great fortune and great losses," Purl said. "If you're past the age of 1, you've had to find your bootstraps, had to pull yourself up, had to find your way forward in the face of loss."

Purl was raised in Japan and took to the stage at an early age. The Japanese were very curious about Western culture, she said, and her parents would put on summer stock productions in their living room for their Japanese neighbors and expats.

We had a pretty big house growing up but, at the time, we had plenty of guest rooms and a lot of people would stay at the house," she said. "You kind of never knew who was going to show up for breakfast."

The first role she can remember playing was as a bunny hopping across the stage at around age 4. She trained as an actress in Japanese schools and had her first lead role on stage, as Helen Keller in "The Miracle Worker," at age 11.

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She's since been in dozens of movies, TV shows and stage productions. Working live in front of an audience is still a special thrill, she said.

"I think if I absolutely had to choose between one or the other, theater is where I started and it is the actors’ medium," she said. "It’s so exciting and often terrifying."

Purl has also had a successful career as a jazz singer and has released four albums. She said there is a direct correlation between improvising in jazz and in theater.

"What is improv when you’re doing a straight play are the emotions of it. You have to be very much in the moment and feel what your fellow actors are feeling," she said. "In jazz, you are solidly within the structure of the song, hardwired to the lyric of the song, but with room for improvisation."

Purl is no stranger to Jacksonville, having performed at Theatre Jacksonville several times over the years. She said she won't have a lot of time to rehearse for "Mame" when she gets into town, but she has faith that everything will be ready when the curtain rises. "You get there, they strap rockets on your back and away you go."

Next up for Purl is a play in North Carolina, an independent film and a few jazz shows. She's also working with her partner, actor Patrick Duffy, on a new all-in-one sourdough bread kit, Duffy's Dough, with profits going to help food scarcity projects.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Linda Purl leading staged reading of 'Mame' in Jacksonville