PHOTOS BY GLENN TR IEST

A Dan

Fine Actor

D

"I hate bald guys who have long sides, but I have to keep my hair long to pin the wig
to it. So I'm stuck having to wear a hat the rest of the year," says Dan Sklar.

fessional role in Don Quixote —
an Sklar's had a patent lawyer. The family still as Sancho Panza this time --
beauty of a time lives in Northbrook where with the White Water Opera
on his road to Sklar didn't get into acting un- Company in Indiana and then
musical thea- til high school. He played Barn- a move to New York in the
aby in Hello Dolly, an altar boy
terdom.
summer of '94.
And the in The Sound of Music and Don
"I had friends of the family
Man
of
La
Mancha.
Quixote
in
road's getting
who tried to discourage me
even longer as he gets ready in Not Sancho Panza?
"Believe it or not, it was the from going, because everyone
16 days to load the trunk of his
had a starving friend in New
just purchased Acura Legend only time a short Jew would York," Sklar remembers. "But
play
Don
Quixote,"
Sklar
jokes.
with his home recording and
With a desire to pursue mu- my dad said, 'Either you'll be
stereo equipment, four baseball
sical
theater, Sklar planned to successful enough to make a liv-
caps (his newest one from Pat-
ing, or find out when it's time
ti Smith in Royal Oak) and a attend the University of Miami
to call it quits.' "
in
Coral
Gables.
Two
weeks
be-
few duffel bags, and head out
Well, Dan Sklar wasn't phon-
to the fourth stop on the tour, fore Sklar had to make his final ing-home yet during his first
decision,
his
mom
encouraged
the Kennedy Center in Wash-
him to check out Oberlin Col- few months of unemployment
ington, D.C.
in the Big Apple. And then he
That's the national tour of lege in Ohio.
Three-and-a-half years later, got a job working as a personal
Disney's Beauty and the Beast,
assistant for Broadway direc-
which has brought its 70-plus Sklar graduated from Oberlin tor and producer Hal Prince. In
with a dual major in voice and
cast and crew members and
between auditions, Sklar did
award-winning magic to Detroit electronic music; he spent the freelance digital audio work —
summer
of
his
junior
year
in
Is-
for a two-month run at the Ma-
rael on a land and underwater but never had to take the un-
sonic Temple.
employed actor/waiter route.
At 24, Skiar's a thankful dig, earning him extra credits
"I had a very atypical time in
to
graduate
early.
His
parents
camper to be playing one of the
and brother joined him for the New York. I was very lucky,"
comedic leads in his first na-
says Sklar, who's subletting his
tional tour. Beneath his signa- last two weeks of his trip.
"It was always my mom's Upper East Side apartment
ture wig with the perky
dream that we'd all go to Israel while he's on tour with Beauty.
ponytail and yellow bow, and a
Sklar said his turning-point
lifetime supply of padding, and be together at the Wall," he show was Kander and Ebb's
says.
Sklar sings, dances, bops and
Post-college brought a pro- The Rink, a Black Box theater
flops — a lot — in eight shows
a week as Lefou, the
lovable, toothless side-
kick to the pecs-of-steel
Gaston.
"I'm the black sheep
of the family," says the
Northbrook, Ill., native.
"They've been very
supportive. I never
would have made it
through New York
without them, and
they've always been
there for me."
"They" are his dad,
Stanley, a real estate
lawyer; his mom, San-
dra, a former Hebrew
school teacher and now
an employee of the
Union of American He-
brew Congregations
(UAHC); and older Friends and roomier Chris Monteleone, left, and Dan Sklar spent some non-show time at
brother Steven, a Decades and Mongolian Barbeque in Royal Oak.

T H E DETR O IT J E WI S H N E WS

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88

He rockin' and floppin'
across the country as Lefou in
Beauty and the Beast.

JULIE YOLLES ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR

