Barr Hopper
After A Hiatus Of Many Years, AMC’s Julia Barr (ex-Brooke) Returns To The Stage — With Walt Willey (Jack)!
Just a few months after her latest Pine Valley check-out as Brooke, Julia Barr is reteaming with one of her AMC cronies, Walt Willey (Jack), in Arsenic and Old Lace, which they are performing on July 23, 24 and 25 at the Ottawa High School Auditorium (Willey’s alma mater) in Ottawa, IL. “It’s very meaningful to him,” smiles Barr. “It’s his old high school and Jill [Larson, Opal], who did The Odd Couple with him there last year, said that it was just an all-around lovely experience. So I’m very much looking forward to it! Except for being nervous, but I think I’ll get over that. I know that no matter what, we will have a good time and it’s certainly for a good cause.”
Her involvement came about when she was shooting her return stint to the show. “When I was out in L.A., Walt, who I’ve known, obviously, for a long, long time, asked me if I would be interested,” she reports. “Jill had gone out there last year and had a great time, but I haven’t done theater in a long, long time, and so I said, ‘Oh, well, I don’t know,’ but he kept bringing it up. He’d see me in the makeup room and go, ‘So, I’ll see you in Ottawa in July?’ And I finally just thought, ‘You know, he has this production company out there to help out his high school, to help them become a self-sustaining theater, and it’s just two weeks, it’ll be fun, and I like Walt, so why wouldn’t I do it?’ “
As for the play itself, “It’s very funny, very broad and slapstick, in a way,” says Barr. “It’s a madcap comedy with two crazy aunts, their crazy brother and the nephew who discovers that he’s in a lot of trouble a a result of it.” Willey’s son, Chance, “is playing one of the policemen that comes in. I think it’s so great that Walt is involving him in this,” the actress beams. “He’s very creative and very handsome. He had brought him to the studio in L.A. and I was like, ‘Wow!’ He’s tall like Walt and just a perfect mix of Walt and Marie [Willey‘s wife]. He’s very charming and really smart.”
For more information, call 888.688.2924 or visit www.experienceottawa.com.
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