Little Bits of Broadway

When Broadway musical veterans Sandy Duncan, Don Correia and Guy Stroman began touring with their evening of song and dance three years ago, they called their show “Together.”

The title makes sense: It’s just the three of them on stage together, backed by an orchestra. And they’ve certainly been together a long time. Duncan and Correia have been married 21 years, and they have known Stroman since he played Noodler the pirate in the 1980 Broadway revival of “Peter Pan,” which earned Duncan, as the high-flying Peter, the third of her three Tony Award nominations.

But Duncan said their show’s title seemed to confuse some people, so now they get straight to the point.

“It’s now called ‘Sandy Duncan Celebrates Broadway With Don Correia and Guy Stroman,’ the reason being that that pretty much lays it out there,” said Duncan, who will bring her show to the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa tonight and Saturday for a performance with the Pacific Symphony Pops.

The singer-dancer-actress, who first gained national exposure starring in the TV series “Funny Face” in 1971, is looking forward to appearing at the center.

“Is that area next to that really great mall?” Duncan, 55, asked at the outset of a recent interview from her Manhattan home. When told that, yes, the center is near South Coast Plaza, she laughed and said, “Oh, good.”

The first half of the evening will feature Richard Kaufman leading the Pacific Symphony Pops in works such as Mikhail Glinka’s overture to “Russlan and Ludmilla,” Dvorak’s “Slavonic Dance No. 7” and Friedhofer’s “The Proposal,” from the 1957 movie “An Affair to Remember.”

Then Duncan and company take over.

A Story in Show Tunes

Because their experience in musicals is to sing, dance and act with a story and in character, Duncan said, their portion of the evening consists of “show tunes that have a connection to our lives in some way or the other, the premise being that we’re sort of loosely telling a story. So the songs we picked have a connection to that moment in the show.

“The opening song is a pretty clear definition of what we’re doing. It’s called ‘Song and Dance Men.’ The second number is ‘Two Ladies,’ from ‘Cabaret,’ which we’ve adapted to two fellas. So the first two songs tell what we’re up to and who’s doing it.”

Duncan said all three of them do solos--among hers are “All I Need Is a Girl” from “Gypsy,” and “Neverland” from “Peter Pan”--and together she and her partners do a long medley of famous trios, including “Good Morning” from “Singing in the Rain” and “You Gotta Get a Gimmick,” also from “Gypsy.”

But it’s not all singing and dancing. There is conversation throughout the show, Duncan said.

“It’s a very friendly, accessible evening. People kind of feel like they’re included, in that we break the fourth wall in terms of talking to the audience. We tell how we got started and how we met, so there’s a family quality.”

Too Many Revivals

The idea for the show began in Duncan and Correia’s Manhattan living room more than three years ago.

“We were frustrated by the lack of musical material here in New York on Broadway,” recalled Duncan. “The things I’m offered more often than not are revivals, which we’re all sick to death of, no matter how good they are.”

So when one of Stroman’s friends, who was on the creative staff of a new theater that was opening outside San Francisco, asked if they’d do something for the opening, they quickly agreed to put something together, reasoning, Duncan said, that “we can’t just sit around and complain” about the lack of good material.

But while they were working on their show, one of the theater’s board members who knew the Beach Boys said he could get them at the opening for free. Duncan, who said she frequently performs free for charity events, had no intention of doing so here, so she and her partners backed out.

But they liked the way their show was developing and booked it elsewhere within two weeks of having it finished, she said. Since then, they’ve done about 200 performances across the country.

Duncan, Correia and Stroman do the show only sporadically, however, booking it when they can work it into their schedules.

Last year, Duncan starred in “Chicago” on Broadway. Stroman keeps busy directing, and Correia divides his time between show business and what Duncan calls his real job as a Manhattan real estate agent.

Duncan said they book their shows far in advance and can cancel up to 60 days from the performance if a Broadway show or another job comes up. “It gives you, with a business that is fraught with insecurity, a certain autonomy, which is nice,” she said.

The Young Pro

The Texas-born Duncan made her professional theatrical debut in a summer stock production of “The King and I” in Dallas at age 12. She had about 30 musicals to her credit when she moved to New York City at age 19 in 1965. By 1969, she received her first Tony nomination, as best supporting actress in a musical (“Canterbury Tales”).

She was considered a promising new TV star when her series “Funny Face” debuted on CBS in 1971. The show, in which she played a perky small-town girl majoring in education at UCLA and working part-time as an actress in TV commercials, was rated in the top five.

But the series was shut down after a few months when Duncan became ill. She underwent surgery for a brain tumor that caused her to lose the vision in one eye. Within two months of surgery, however, she was guest-starring--and dancing--on “The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour.”

She returned to CBS the next season with “The Sandy Duncan Show,” in which she played a young single girl living alone and working for a small ad agency in Chicago. But in revamping the series, she said, they “fixed what was a hit, and it wasn’t very good.” The show was canceled after one season.

Finding Her Partner

After the series ended, Duncan continued singing and dancing on TV variety shows, on which she invariably found herself dancing with Correia. She later put together a nightclub act, in which she again was partnered with Correia, whom she began dating.

But the theater is her first love, she said. In 1979, she returned to Broadway to star in a revival of “Peter Pan.”

Duncan, the mother of two teenage sons and former commercial spokeswoman for Nabisco’s Wheat Thins and the Sylvan Learning Center, hosts PBS’ annual “Championship Ballroom Dance.”

And while she waits for her next theater job, there’s always “Sandy Duncan Celebrates Broadway With Don Correia and Guy Stroman.”

“It keeps us exercising our craft,” she said. “You can sit around and wait for things and then they come along and you’re creaky. This keeps us in motion and doing what we do.”

SHOW TIMES

Sandy Duncan, Don Correia and Guy Stroman with the Pacific Symphony Pops, Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. 8 p.m. Tonight and Saturday. $72, $56, $46, $33, $23. (714) 755-5799.