Nancy Travis in Santa Barbara

TV and movie star to perform in ‘Lillian’ at the New Vic

The timing couldn’t have been better.

Stage and screen star Nancy Travis was hoping to perform a one-woman show when, by sheer coincidence, the Ensemble Theatre Company came calling.

“I was thinking about creating my own one-woman show, writing down ideas and plot points and themes,” Ms. Travis told the News-Press this week by phone from her Los Angeles home. 

Then Ms. Travis’ friend, who works with Santa Barbara-based Ensemble Theatre Company, contacted her about starring in “Lillian,” a one-woman drama in which Ms. Travis would play a half-dozen or so characters, women and men. 

“I read it. I felt it resonated, not just with me as a middle-aged woman but generally for people at any point of their lives when they’re searching, trying to figure out who they are and who they belong with,” said the star of the sitcom “Last Man Standing.” 

“I also loved the humor,” Ms. Travis, 60, said. “It has a lot of humor and is down to Earth.”

Ms. Travis, a former Carpinteria resident, plans to use a variety of British accents to play Lillian, who’s British, and the people in the character’s life when she takes the Ensemble Theatre Company stage in March at The New Vic, 33 W. Victoria St.

The production will begin with preview shows March 3, then open officially at 8 p.m. March 5 for a run through March 13.

Ensemble Theatre Company is presenting “Lillian” instead of its previously announced production of the musical “Carmen,” which is now set for the fall.

“Lillian” was written by British playwright David Cale and is directed by Jonathan Fox, the Ensemble Theatre Company artistic director.

“We are thrilled to have Nancy Travis bring her extraordinary talent to the New Vic stage,” Mr. Fox said in a statement. “This wonderful play by David Cale about love, life and loss is the perfect vehicle for an actress of her immeasurable talent. I am certain our audiences will fall in love with both Nancy and Lillian.” 

Ms. Travis expects she will be sitting on a chair or a stool on stage as she relies on her acting and variety of voices/accents to lead the audience’s imagination into the world of “Lillian.”

“It’s really a one-on-one between me and the audience,” Ms. Travis said.

Lillian is a bookish middle-aged British woman who falls for Jimmy, a man almost half her age. 

“What’s beautiful about the writing of this piece is that not only is it fun, poignant, but it’s also very personal,” Ms. Travis said. “I think everyone watching it will feel something that resonates with them.

“I think Lillian is a person who’s at the point in her life when she’s just waiting for the moment to happen, looking for the thing that makes her excited about her life,” Ms. Travis said. 

“I think what draws her to Jimmy is there’s something so raw and exciting and different and risk-taking about him. It’s thrilling,” Ms. Travis said. “She says, ‘He’s the kind of person I always wanted to be with when I was his age.’ There’s something wild about him.”

Ms. Travis said she has had fun playing with the accents in creating the characters. She demonstrated for the News-Press by briefly using a very effective, cockney accent for Jimmy.

“Playing with accents is fun,” Ms. Travis said, adding that the dialogue is well-written. “The rhythm of the way these people speak is in the words. It’s not that hard. I can almost hear the different voices in my head.”

Ms. Travis said that for the character of Donna, she imagined how British star Emma Thompson would sound as the character.

“I love being on stage,” Ms. Travis said. “I’m always searching for an opportunity to go on there. I love the intimacy of people watching you, listening to you, discovering things with you. It ends up being a different ‘story’ every single night.”

Ms. Travis said she found sitcoms such as “Last Man Standing,” which wrapped up its nine-season run last year, to be an unusual hybrid between stage and screen. Like most sitcoms, it was filmed before a studio audience with the multi-camera method that goes all the way back to “I Love Lucy.”

“You have the audience right there. You have the four cameras moving across the different sets,” said Ms. Travis, who played Nancy Baxter in the sitcom’s TV family. “Either the jokes work, or the writers are scrambling to rewrite the jokes if they don’t land.”

“It was exciting on show night. You would go out there, and you don’t know what you’ll find,” she said.

Ms. Travis co-starred in the series with Tim Allen (“Home Improvement”), who played Nancy’s husband, Mike Baxter, in the series, which was first on ABC, then Fox.

She said acting with Mr. Allen was great. “He really is a person who loves that (sitcom) form, loves the intimacy of having an audience, loves the four cameras, loves going out on stage. He’s so wonderful with his timing and comedy. I did learn a lot from him.”

Ms. Travis said she and her castmates became like a family. “A lot of the cast is coming to see the play.”
Will Mr. Allen be at the New Vic?

“He’d better!” Ms. Travis said, laughing.

In addition to “Last Man Standing,” Ms. Travis has acted with Michael Douglas in “The Kominsky Method” on Netflix. Ms. Travis plays Lisa, one of the students of acting teacher Sandy Kominsky (Mr. Douglas).

“When I read the script that (series creator) Chuck Lorrie wrote, I laughed aloud,” Ms. Travis said about the single-camera (i.e. no studio audience) comedy.

Ms. Travis, a New York City native, discussed how her career started.

“My parents insisted I was definitely going to college,” she said. “I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to be a teacher or an actress.”

A teacher encouraged Ms. Travis to go into acting, which Ms. Travis knew wasn’t a fool-proof career. “I got into NYU, studied acting and hit the streets finding work. For an actor, that sense of hitting the street, pounding the pavement, never goes away. Every time a job ends, that’s where you are.”

Her big break came with the 1987 movie “Three Men and A Baby,” which starred Ted Danson, Tom Selleck and Steve Guttenberg. Ms. Travis auditioned with an English accent, got the role of Sylvia Bennington and liked working with director Leonard Nimoy, well-known for playing the original Mr. Spock (and directing a couple “Star Trek” movies).

While not a “Star Trek” fan, Ms. Travis praised Mr. Nimoy for being a “wonderful director, just a really warm man. We stayed close until he passed (in 2015).”

Ms. Travis’ movies also included starring with Mike Myers in “So I Married An Axe Murderer,” a 1993 comedy.

“A lot of it was inspired by the comedy of Mike Myers, who stepped in, once he got the role, and brought ingenuity to the film,” Ms. Travis said. “It ended up being this iconic movie.  People come up to me and say lines from this movie. It’s become a cult favorite.”

Ms. Travis started dating the movie’s producer, Robert Fried, and they got married. Today they have two sons, ages 20 and 24, and she loves spending time with the terrier-heeler mix her family got during the pandemic, Josie.

“It’s a white dog with black spots. This dog looks like a cow,” she said, chuckling. 

For her current projects, Ms. Travis has written a TV pilot that she hopes to sell and star in.

“And once I’m through with ‘Lillian,’ I’d like to return to creating my own one-woman show,” she said.

“Lillian” gives her an excuse to come to Santa Barbara, an area that she loves. She and Mr. Fried lived in Carpinteria more than 20 years ago.

“I love the drive. I love that feeling, that as soon as you get off the 101, you roll down the windows and breathe in the paradise that is Santa Barbara,” Ms. Travis said. “It’s one of the most idyllic places in the world.”

email: dmason@newspress.com

IF YOU GO

Ensemble Theatre Company will present Nancy Travis in “Lillian” in March at the New Vic, 33  Ensemble Theatre Company stage in March at The New Vic, 33 W. Victoria St.

The production will begin with preview shows March 3, then open officially at 8 p.m. March 5 for a run through March 13. Curtain rises at 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 2 p.m. Sundays. Additional performances will take place at 7 p.m. March 6 and 7:30 p.m March 8.

Tickets cost $47 to $65. To purchase, call the ETC office at 805-965-5400 or go to etcsb.org.