Joseph Siravo (left) , Tom Wopat (right)

One of the more popular and well-received shows this summer at the New York Fringe Festival was “Big Trouble in Little Hazzard,” a collegiate spoof of the long-running comedy adventure TV series “The Dukes of Hazzard” (1977 – 1984). Tom Wopat, who is starring in “Last of the Boys,” a new play by Steven Dietz at the McCarter Theater, is probably best known for playing Luke Duke in that corny TV series for seven years during which he got to direct five episodes. In our phone chat during rehearsals, he admits that he didn’t go to see the Fringe spoof. One can surmise that it may represent a part of Wopat’s theatrical life that he has put behind him.

Indeed, the role he is playing in “Last of the Boys,” under the direction of Emily Mann, represents a significant dramatic step for the performer who is mostly known on Broadway as a musical theater performer. “ ;The Last of the Boys” are two Vietnam vets, Ben and Jeeter, who shared a tour of duty and have continued a friendship over the years. Wopat plays Jeeter, whom he characterizes in contrast to Ben as “more of a gadfly and social butterfly.” In the play, about the continuing casualties of a war that will not end, Jeeter visits Ben, who lives in a trailer in the middle of nowhere. He explains that “Jeeter visits Ben every summer to rumple his feathers.” One wonders if Wopat, more famously known as a fine musician and singer, rumpled any feathers when, appearing recently as Julian Marsh in “42^nd Street on Broadway, he grabbed his trombone after the curtain calls and raced down to the pit to play the last few bars of the exit music.

Although Wopat’s musical appearances have outnumbered his dramatic roles, he recently showed his dramatic heft in the post 9/11 dramatic reading of “ ;The Guys,” for six weeks with Amy Irving at the Flea Theater. “That was a really tough piece with a big emotional impact. So that’s why I am excited about doing this play by Dietz, whom I think is quite brilliant. It’s a play that needs to be done, especially in the situation we are in today,” says Wopat, who will be the first person to admit that he has been cast against type from roles he usually plays. “Unlike me,” he says, “Jeeter is an associate professor at a liberal arts college on the west coast who teaches a course on the ‘60s, a garrulous guy who likes to hear himself talk. It wasn’t hard for me, however, to understand Jeeter. I grew up in that era and knew guys who went to Viet Nam. What I notice is that they don’t talk about it much.”

Wopat believes that playing the role of Jeeter gives him his first opportunity to create a dramatic role from scratch. “Except for the role I played this summer in the new Michael John LaChiusa musical ‘R Shomon,’ at the Williamstown Theater Festival, I guess I’ve always been a replacement before.” Wopat says that he has been making a concerted effort to stretch out beyond musical theater. “I’ve made it clear to my agents that I want more interesting stuff. My agents have been aggressively pursuing more interesting pieces like the LaChiusa musical and the Dietz play.”

Although Wopat’s last Broadway appearance was as Julian Marsh in “42 ^nd Street,” it was playing the role of Frank Butler in the 1999 revival of “Annie Get Your Gun” (opposite Bernadette Peters) that provided him for the first time with the chance to open a show on Broadway as its leading man. The New York Times made a point of complimenting Wopat for his “ effortless low-key presence,” in “Annie Get Your Gun,” a performance that earned him a Tony nomination. “Working with Bernadette for almost two years was the most rewarding experience I’ve ever had. I keep trying to convince her to do ‘Sweeney Todd with me,” he says with cautious optimism.

You could say that Wopat, up until that time, was generally considered an A list replacement in such Broadway shows as “I Love My Wife” (1977), “City of Angels” (1989) and “Guys and Dolls” (1992). When I remind Wopat that he seemed to be most often replacing James Naughton in such shows as “I Love My Wife,” “City of Angels,” and most recently in “Chicago,” he answers, with a hearty laugh, “I’ m the Naughton clone, baby…Naughton lite.”

Wopat had another success on TV in 1995 when he appeared as the rugged, handsome stuntman ex-husband #1 on “Cybill, the hit CBS sitcom starring Cybill Shepherd. But it is Wopat’s impressive Baritone singing voice that has been backed up on occasion by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, as well as his virile personality that has been a major factor in establishing him as an exceptional and appealing talent.

This is undoubtedly the reason why modernist theater composer Michael John LaChiusa cast him in his musical “R Shomon” (a musical version of the classic Japanese film classic “Rashomon”). Wopat’s debut album for Angel Records “The Still of the Night” was also a way for Wopat to bring a new edge to the standards in the great American Songbook, and, as Variety reported of his cabaret act, “(Wopat)… has an appealingly robust and easy going style.”

Born on September 9, 1951 and raised on a small dairy farm in Lodi, Wisconsin, the musically gifted Wopat says he got the bug to sing and dance at the age of twelve when he started appearing in the high school musicals. At the University of Wisconsin, he studied music and voice and performed in campus musicals – “West Side Story,” “Jesus Christ Superstar,” and “South Pacific” – but didn’t stick around to graduate, instead taking off to sing and play trombone in a rock band. Two seasons of summer stock at the Barn theatre in Michigan followed before he headed for New York in 1977 where he was cast within weeks in an off-Broadway musical “A Bistro Car in the CNR.” Other off-Broadway productions included “ Olympus on My Mind,” and more recently “The Guys.”

As Wopat is making his McCarter debut as a dramatic actor, he is quick to alert me about his return to McCarter this December with “my little jazz trio.” Next month Wopat will be recording songs from the Harold Arlen canon. “I’ll be going on a concert tour of the Arlen songs with my “Guys and Dolls” co-star Faith Prince in January,” says Wopat, not forgetting to mention their concert at Carnegie Hall on Valentine’s Day. And speaking of a full schedule, W opat will be the next Billy Flynn in the “Chicago” tour beginning at Seattle’s Paramount Theater on January 27.

While we don’t expect Wopat to grab his trombone after the curtain calls of “Last of the Boys,” it might not be a bad move for Duke Luke to bring out his guitar…that way we could end the evening with a big gig in little Princeton.

“The Last of the Boys” (September 7 – October 17)

The Berlind Theater

Princeton, New Jersey.