GYPSY OF THE MONTH: Brad Bradley of 'Spamalot'

These are some of the things Brad Bradley has done on a stage when he's had the biggest audiences of his life: dressed as a peanut, stood in for a dead guy, prematurely lost his head.

Bradley's first appearance on the nationally televised Tony Awards was in 1997, when he was in the ensemble of Steel Pier, nominated for Best Musical. In a number set on the Atlantic City boardwalk, he played Mr. Peanut. After the broadcast, friends called him to say they'd caught him on TV, thinking he was one of the performers whose face could be seen. Nope, Bradley had to tell them, he was in the peanut costume.

Subbing for a dead guy happened on opening night of Spamalot in March. The five surviving members of Monty Python joined the cast on stage at the curtain call. Eric Idle, the Python who had spearheaded their material's transformation into a Broadway musical, asked Bradley to stand with them and hold up a photo of Graham Chapman (the deceased Python) and an urn containing Chapman's ashes. Or so the audience thought, until John Cleese took what was really an empty prop urn from Bradley and fumbled it.

Losing his head? Actually, he does that every night in Spamalot. He plays Sir Bors, who's decapitated by a killer rabbit in one of the most-anticipated Holy Grail bits. But at one performance during previews, Bradley's "head" popped off too early in the scene. Fortunately, he was standing in the background at the time and was able to adjust the head so the audience wouldn't notice.

Bradley's other roles in Spamalot include a one-armed plague corpse, a mime and a Renaissance minstrel who does the bottle dance from Fiddler on the Roof. For a gypsy like Bradley, being in Spamalot is the equivalent of a star's "making it": With some fun parts in a mega-hit, he has job stability and a good paycheck. And adulation, even if it's not for him personally. "I told my mom, 'I feel like I'm a member of Bon Jovi,'" Bradley says. "I've never been in a show where the audience was this raucous. They're pumped, they love the show before it even starts. They scream like [we were] rock stars. Just the very entrance—once they hear the coconuts coming on. Some of them applaud for the character who's about to come on...they whistle along with 'The Bright Side'..."

Bradley's last long run on Broadway was Annie Get Your Gun in 1999-2001. He's appeared in two other Broadway musicals and the MadisonSquareGardenChristmas Carol four times. Before he even came to New York, he had two television series and a major TV commercial under his belt. So which credits does he boast about in the Spamalot Playbill Who's Who? None of those. Instead: "popcorn vendor (Shamu Stadium, Sea World), Elmo/Power Ranger (Children's birthday parties), valet (House of Blues), ticket taker (Cirque du Soleil)..."

The jokey (but factual) bio "was in the spirit of the show," Bradley says. Comparing that Sea World job to his current one, he says of the headliners: "Tim Curry's a lot nicer than Shamu." He also remembers who he had to work with at the birthday parties, where he portrayed Barney and Aladdin among other characters: "You'd just play with the kids and paint their faces and do balloon animals. When I was a Power Ranger, they were like, 'Flip! Jump off the walls!' I was like, 'Uh...I'll make you a bunny rabbit balloon.'"

Bradley's performing ambitions had been launched by Irish folk dancing at church as a little kid. "My family's very Irish, so it's something we all had to do. I kind of took to it, and from there I went into tap and started getting into theater," says Bradley, who was christened Vincent DePaw Bradley III but called Brad from the day he was born (because his father went by Vince). "The one person who's called me Vincent was the nun who was my First Holy Communion teacher." After going to Catholic grade school, he attended a performing arts school from seventh grade on.

He got his first professional job at age 12, as one of the child dancers in a Michael Jackson commercial for Pepsi. To the prurient but too-obvious-to-resist question one would ask of a boy who's worked with Michael Jackson, Bradley replies: "We were never allowed anywhere near him. Even in rehearsal, he would be up in front and all of us would be in the back and there'd be like 15 feet between us, and bodyguards... We had one session with him where we all got to ask him a question. That was the closest we got. [I asked him] what his favorite drink was. He said cranberry juice."

In his teens, Bradley appeared on two sitcoms. First, he had a recurring role on Day by Day, which was on NBC in 1988 and 1989 and is memorable mostly as Julia Louis-Dreyfus' pre-Seinfeld sitcom. Then he was a regular—"I played the school nerd, Ira"—on the 1990 ABC teen comedy The Marshall Chronicles, which went on the air in April and off in May (but was directed by sitcom legend James Burrows). Bradley performed in his school production of Grease at the same time. "I was playing Danny Zuko in high school because I was so cool," he cracks, "but on television I was playing the nerd."

He also performed regularly from junior high through college at Starlight-San Diego Civic Light Opera, an outdoor summer theater. In about 25 shows there, he played both ensemble and featured roles, including Tulsa in Gypsy, Andy Lee in 42nd Street and Will in Oklahoma. It's also where he got his Equity card.

Bradley moved to New York in late 1995 after receiving his B.A. in theater from the University of Southern California and playing Mike in a tour of A Chorus Line. His only previous visit to the Big Apple had been a day trip several years earlier while visiting family in Philadelphia. "We took the bus up, saw Les Miz, I got to go on a subway that was covered in graffiti—I thought that was the coolest thing ever—and then went back," he says.

Just 10 days after arriving in New York, Bradley auditioned, successfully, for A Christmas Carol. "I just moved here and unpacked and went to that audition," he says. The choreographer of Carol, Susan Stroman, would later cast him in Steel Pier and Thou Shalt Not—and offer him a spot in the upcoming movie of The Producers, which he had to turn down because filming conflicted with Spamalot's schedule. "I give a lot of credit to Susan Stroman for getting my career started," Bradley says. "I can't even explain how incredible she is. Her eye for detail is wonderful. She's also extremely kind and very, very loyal. When I auditioned for The Frogs, I didn't get it, but she wrote me a personal letter saying this is why you didn't get it, I still think you're wonderful, you just weren't right for this project. I couldn't believe that. She's very classy."

He's also thrilled with the choreographer of his current show, Casey Nicholaw. "We were chorus boys together back in Steel Pier. He was the real reason I wanted to do Spamalot. I knew that he's fun and silly and creative." Nicholaw had choreographed Bye Bye Birdie, which Bradley was in last season at City Center Encores! Spamalot has also reunited him with Michael McGrath, with whom he appeared in 1996 in off Broadway's The Cocoanuts—and whose role as Tim Curry's henchman (and "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" soloist) he understudies.

Bradley's in great spirits now that he's in a popular, critically hailed show, but just a few years ago, in 2001, he faced a triple whammy of tumult: 9/11, turning 30 and the failure of Thou Shalt Not. To cope, he altered his priorities and relaxed his outlook. "So often you equate your worth by what your last, or present, job is. Now I'm equating my worth by my relationships and being a good person as opposed to having a good résumé," says Bradley. "I was putting too much pressure on the success of the performer, and I wanted to become successful as a person. I know that sounds really cheesy, but taking time to do that has made my performing better. I used to let this business stress me out a lot, and now I'm learning to enjoy it more. When I see my friends now, we don't talk about show business."

An ensemble member in most of his New York shows, Bradley has had featured roles in regional theater. And a lead too: Three summers ago, he played the title role in George M! at Park Playhouse in Albany, N.Y. In 2003 he was Lucky in Dames at Sea at Maryland's Olney Theatre and Eddie Ryan in Funny Girl in San Jose, Calif. That December he played the last three weeks of A Christmas Carol, replacing an injured performer, during the show's 10th and final season at MadisonSquareGarden. "I was glad to go back for the closing," says Bradley, who had been in the show three years in a row (1995-97) early in its existence.

Even without star status, Bradley has garnered some national media attention. He has performed on the Tonys twice, and presumably will again this June. In addition, he's been in People magazine—a photo of him holding up Graham Chapman's picture ran with the recent story about Spamalot's opening. And he was mentioned on The View. When Reba McEntire guested on The View during her run in Annie Get Your Gun, she said something like: "I love live theater. Last night I flubbed a line and Brad covered for me, and it's so exciting that every performance is different." Yep, he's the Brad she meant.

Photos of Brad in performance, from top: as Sir Robin's drum-playing minstrel, with (from left) Emily Hsu, Greg Reuter and David Hyde Pierce in Spamalot; with Bernadette Peters in Annie Get Your Gun; as the star of George M!; as Eddie Ryan in Funny Girl.

Want to read past Gypsy of the Month stories? Click for Rachelle Rak of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels or T. Oliver Reid of La Cage Aux Folles.