A Gateway conversation with Sally

Two-time Emmy Award-winner, stage and screen actress Sally Struthers, scheduled to perform a four-week Gateway run in “The Full Monty,” spoke recently to the Advance, with executive artistic director Paul Allan, between rehearsals.

Struthers is candid and funny. Known for engaging with Gateway staff regularly, having coffee and discussing work and life, she greeted Baxter, company manager Christopher Smith’s Boston terrier and Gateway’s informal mascot, as he nosed in Allan’s office to greet her.

Were there similarities between her character Jeanette Burmeister, the sassy, wise-cracking piano player who pushes six unemployed Buffalo steelworkers desperate for work to support themselves and their families to perform?

“Yes, I’m wise-cracking and I’m old enough to say what I think,” she answered. “I did take piano lessons when I was young, but got out of it. Jeanette’s married. I married once and that was enough.”

But wait. “Jeanette’s kind of done with her career,” said Allan. “Sally isn’t.”

Struthers has starred in at least 80 Broadway and regional theater productions, then five at Gateway, she said. Many have been at the Ogunquit Playhouse in Maine. And a recent show, “An Old-Fashioned Family Murder” by Joe DiPietro, was performed last fall at New Jersey’s George Street Playhouse.

(This lady works. Her prestigious list of film and television roles includes Gloria, of the hit show “All In the Family”; a recurring role in the CBS show “Still Standing”; Netflix’s acclaimed “Gilmore Girls”; and 2024’s “A Man on the Inside.”)

“Jeanette is an optimist,” Struthers said.  “She tries to teach the men when they’re trying to copy a hot dance. (Think Chippendales. Sort of.) They’re all stripped down in their underwear and have to get used to it, and I have to be unfazed as Jeanette.”

Struthers pointed out a current-day similarity. “People have lost their jobs and have to pay their bills,” she said. “It’s interesting how these six guys come to be and you’re with them. Three are married and three are not. You get to meet their wives and there’s a child in there. There’s enough pathos and heart in this show.”

The breakout numbers include the end of Act One. “The men get together to learn their choreography in a funny number,” Allan said.

That’s the ode to Michael Jordan in “Michael Jordan’s Ball,” where the men emulate his basketball moves. Watch out for that one.

The actress had already performed during Gateway’s Cabaret Night recently, shortly after flying in from Los Angeles, singing a couple of outrageous, funny songs taught by her parents.

“My mother taught me silly songs and my father taught me dirty songs he sang in medical school with his colleagues,” she said of her doctor dad. Struthers has carried a dead body on her back in “Clue” and swung from a chandelier in “Nice Work If You Can Get It.” She gets laughs with a raised eyebrow, an emphasized inflection and a quavering voice. Not everyone has an intrinsic comedic talent, so when did it start?

“I started entertaining when I was 2,” she said of her initial Portland, Ore., upbringing. “I’d knock on my neighbors’ doors and sing to them on their porch. I’d come home from school with a note pinned to my outfit with a note from the teacher: ‘Please tell Sally she’s very entertaining, but it isn’t her responsibility to get up on her desk and sing while I’m out of the room.’”

Struthers was asked about her affection for The Gateway. (Allan has noted on the theater website that she’s the most requested performer.)

“It’s ‘Oh God’ I’ve got a job!’, and I get to go to summer camp again,” she said. “What happens in rehearsal, it’s who’s up for the game and what lines they play, but the person-to-person bonding takes place here. It’s like the sleepaway camp I attended in Oregon. It makes me feel young again and part of the group. It’s hard to get older and to remind people that you’re fun.”

The actors sleep on the premises, so there’s plenty of time for get-togethers.

Does she go into Bellport Village?

“Oh yes,” she said of visiting the shops and restaurants. “At almost every regional theater I’ve worked at, I love it. You get to know the local people in the stores, you get familiar with the streets.” When there’s time off, she goes antiquing with Christopher Smith, who she calls her son—they have serendipitous connections. “We go to grocery stores, and I love to have Chris find out where the antique shops are, even though my L.A. house is stuffed to the ceiling.” She pointed to a necklace with a brass heart she was wearing, one of her finds.

In 1997, “The Full Monty” British film sparked the creation of the 2000 Broadway play, with a book by Terrence McNally and lyrics by David Yazbek placing it in Buffalo. “You can see a great musical, but maybe the dialogue isn’t so great,” Struthers said. “But every once in a while, the book is as good as the songs. This is one of them.”

“The Full Monty” is playing March 13 to April 12.

Get your tickets at www.thegateway.org, or call 631-286-1133.