Dramatic turn from Prior to Peaches

Stephen SPINELLA won back-to-back Tony Awards for his heartbreaking performance as the AIDS-ravaged Prior Walter in Tony Kushner’s landmark “Angels in America” plays: “Millennium Approaches” and “Perestroika.” But truth be told, he’s really a musical comedy performer at heart.

And he literally gets to kick up his heels -- and in this case, his high heels -- as a drag performer in the comedy “Connie and Carla,” Nia Vardalos’ follow-up to “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.” The plot: Vardalos and Toni Collette play Chicago airport lounge singers who go on the lam after they witness a murder. They end up in Los Angeles, where, disguised as male drag performers, they become the toast of WeHo at a drag club, belting out Broadway show tunes. Think “Some Like It Hot” meets “Sister Act” -- with a touch of “Victor/Victoria” thrown in for good measure.

Spinella’s Robert/Peaches is a bartender at the club who loves to dress like Audrey Hepburn, Jane Fonda and, of course, Doris Day. He befriends Connie and Carla and persuades them to give him and his fellow drag performers parts in their show.

“I always wanted to do musicals,” says the 47-year-old Spinella, who was nominated for a Tony four years ago for the musical version of James Joyce’s “The Dead.” “When I was a kid we had the ‘West Side Story’ movie album. I used to put on that album, move the furniture aside and do ‘West Side Story’ dances around the living room.”

In high school in Glendale, Ariz., “I played Friedrich in ‘The Sound of Music,” he says with a smile. “You know, ‘My name is Friedrich. I’m 14 and I’m a boy.’ I was in the chorus in ‘Oklahoma’ and Available Jones in ‘Li’l Abner.’ The theater students would get together from all the high schools around the area during the summer and we would do a musical.”

But he hung up his dance shoes when he went to the University of Arizona. “I started studying business and just loathed it,” he says. “I called my mother between semesters and said, ‘I really think I can’t do this. I think I will take acting classes. I want to be an actor.’ She said, ‘You were always very good at that. You might as well try to do that.’ ”

-- Susan King