Maplewood Matters

Double Billing
Michelle Pawk & John Dossett
by Sheryl O'Connell

"Watch the ball, Jack!" The woman calling to her son on the T-ball field has a voice that is beautiful. You can't help but think that the golden, reverberant sounds don't belong to just anyone. It's not that she's trying to call attention to herself; the voice is what it is - well trained, distinctive. You might correctly guess that she is an actress; after all, Maplewood and South Orange are home to plenty of professional actors. At the local baseball diamond, it is both natural and thrilling to have a Tony Award winner here.

Now if it weren't delightful enough to have Broadway star Michelle Pawk show up at all your kid's T-ball games, the pleasure is doubled since Pawk's husband, who also attends the games, is the Broadway star and Tony- nominee John Dossett. Like Pawk, he is warm, gregarious and the ideal neighbor. Dossett knows everybody by name, loves to get on the T-ball field to pitch, and enjoys getting to know people in his new community.

As it turns out, it is unusual for Dossett to be at the T-ball field. He is one of the leads in the Broadway production Mamma Mia; his performance schedule would not normally have allowed it. "Well, I was doing Mamma Mia but I tore my meniscus," he explains. "So I had an operation." Recovery from the knee surgery has provided him the rare opportunity to enjoy this slice of life and he's grateful not to be working. "I was so happy to have the time just to participate. I would have missed all of the T-ball season. And boy, it's so much fun to watch the progress."

Dossett is a full-fledged leading man in musical theater; with well-received turns in shows like Ragtime and Gypsy he's been a regular fixture in the New York theater scene since the early 1980s. He starred in Lincoln Center Theater's production of Dinner at Eight and opposite Bernadette Peters in Gypsy, earning a Tony nomination. On screen Dossett has been seen in Nick and Jane, Longtime Companion, Law & Order, Sex & the City, Cracker Man and Big Eden among others. Currently, he is gearing up for a new comedy at Lincoln Center called The Clean House that will run from October 5 to December 17.

Pawk, who has had a successful and varied career in theater, TV and film has received Drama Desk Nominations for such shows as Cabaret and Crazy For You and won the Tony Award in 2003 for her performance in Hollywood Arms. She is in rehearsals for Losing Louie, a new Broadway play at the Biltmore Theatre. Previews for her show begin on September 21.

In late 2005, she and her husband joined the cast of Mamma Mia, in which she had the lead role of Donna Sheridan and he played Sam Carmichael. The press made much of this pairing, calling them the new "Lunts" of Broadway.

It's rather rich that two stars from Mamma Mia moved to South Orange, where a poster for the show has long been a prominent feature on the train station platform. It played, however, no part in their decision to move here; indeed, the suggestion draws a big laugh from them. "We moved for our son, specifically. And schools," Dossett states firmly. "We didn't want to get caught up in the rat race of testing him to get into [a] specific program. We had friends and neighbors who would literally take their kids to school on a crowded subway at rush hour in the morning." He mimes incredulity: "So you're spending two hours a day of your life on the subway?!"

"We had no desire to put Jack through that whole testing-pass-fail-acceptance thing," Dossett continues. "And that's why we moved when we did, so Jack would be starting kindergarten with everyone else. That's very important."

As with many in the area, it was friends who led the couple here. "People had talked about Maplewood," says Dossett. "We went to friends of ours who were selling a place in Leonia and it was a nice house. But we said, 'We're not doing anything until we go [to Maplewood and South Orange],' because so many people had talked about it."

They came out here every chance they could, fell in love with the area, and then just waited for a house. They found a gorgeous one with a lovely park across the street where Dossett has led the neighborhood kids in games of softball. "We were told that when you walk into a house you'd know. We walked into this one and that was it!"

Jack's new school, Seth Boyden, also felt just right, which made the couple ecstatic. "He just loves going to school. Oh, we got a great teacher," says Dossett enthusiastically. "She was fantastic!"

Pawk was able to settle the family into its new surroundings after she dropped out of Mamma Mia in February. "John and I took [the job] so we could be together. We hadn't worked together since we [first] met."

She is referring to their initial meeting in 1994, when they were hired for a Michael John LaChiusa musical called Hello Again. Just as they knew their house when they found it, they knew this was it when they met. "We really, truly, had a blast," says Pawk.

When asked about working together again in the future, a dialogue starts between them:

PAWK: I'd like to work with him again.
DOSSETT: Oh, gosh, . . .
PAWK: (Stepping on his line.) Tomorrow! Maybe we could get a job at Paper Mill Playhouse together! We must know somebody over there.
DOSSETT: We'd be the resident couple. (Sounding like an old man.) You need a couple?
PAWK: The old and geriatric…
(DOSSETT laughs.)

The lights begin to fade. The two actors continue to joke and laugh together. From the sound of it, they may stay in the area for a long, long while. (Blackout; end of scene.)

Sheryl O'Connell writes from her home in Maplewood. This is her second profile for Matters Magazine. \

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