Mark Linn-Baker
by Cara Joy David

It has been over a decade since new episodes of Perfect Strangers aired and it is doubtful that many in the "under-seven set," as Mark Linn-Baker refers to A Year with Frog and Toad's core audience, have ever danced the "Dance of Joy" or know where Meepos is. So, even though Linn-Baker's face may bring back such memories to ticketbuyers of a certain age, the kids packed into the Cort Theatre for the 3:30pm matinee don't applaud for Cousin Larry--they applaud for Toad. And that is just the way Linn-Baker likes it. He has worked hard in the last ten years to establish himself as a presence in the theater--both as an actor and a director. Now he returns to Broadway (for the first time since 1996's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum revival) as an amphibian in wife Adrianne Lobel's brainchild, A Year with Frog and Toad, a musical based on her late father Arnold Lobel's Frog and Toad book series.

How are things going so far at the Cort?
So far, so good. We had a very exciting night last night--it was a hot show. The audience seemed to really respond.

I saw the show during its run at the New Victory Theatre, but I've been told that there is a special added surprise added for Broadway.
Wow! That sounds exciting! It is actually just a small addition--a snow ballet. In the first act there is the underwater ballet and now in the second act there is a little snow ballet. But it really is very much the same show.

Has the show really stayed the same? Even from when you started in Minneapolis?
It has really been solid. I think we just very strongly hit the tone and the shape of the show right from the get-go. So it has only been a matter of making sure it lives in the new space.

I think people were surprised when they heard that Frog and Toad might move to Broadway. Were you?
I am surprised when anything moves. Whenever you work on a show, all you can do is the best work you know how to do. You hope that it will be received well and you hope, if it is received well, it will have a further life. The best place you can wind up doing a theater piece is in a Broadway house, so I am thrilled that we made it. The hope is always that is where you go down the line and it just rarely actually happens.

Has the audience changed at all from the Children's Theater in Minneapolis where you started to your current Broadway crowds?
The Children's Theater in Minneapolis is a subscription house for children. Of course their parents come, but it is largely children. The New Victory is also a children's theater subscription house, but I think there were more adults per child there than we had in Minneapolis. And now the audience varies greatly. Yesterday afternoon we had a lot of kids and they really went for it. Last night there were a surprising number of adults and they really went for it. It just seems to be a very enjoyable show for everybody. Which is great, because that's what we need. You can't get by on just the kids!

I went with my mother to the New Victory, sans children. I really enjoyed the show, but I think half the joy was watching the little children run around the theater.
I think a large part of it is that there is such a great innocence and openness to the kids when they come to see the show. I think it is contagious. A lot of the adults come not expecting anything and are just caught up in the open-heartedness of the audience.

You're playing such an odd schedule.
We wanted to do it at a time that children could come. So we have an unusual schedule--four evening shows and four matinees. So it is very unusual, but a great schedule for our audience.

Is it more tiring for you to do it that way? On Saturdays you have three performances!
But, at the same time, we have three days off a week, which is unheard of. So it is offset. The many days off make it easier but the many matinees make it harder--I am just hoping it will balance out.

You are married to Adrianne Lobel and obviously this has been her baby from the beginning.
This is something she really, really followed through on with passion and commitment. She thought there was a musical in these books and she put together the team who made it happen. She has just been relentless. All along the way I kept saying to her: "You know, this could be as far as we go. You just have to be happy with that." Fortunately she never listened to me!

How involved were you from the beginning? Were you always Toad?
Yes--my wife looked at me and knew I should be a toad.

Now, she is the set designer, but she is also one of the producers. Has she cracked the whip?
It has been fine, but I don't know why. I think it is because as a producer you don't need to deal with the actors really. There is so much else for her to worry about that I didn't become the focus of any of the wrath.

You two have a daughter, right?
We have one daughter, Ruby, who is 13 months old.

Has she gotten a load of Toad just yet?
Her entire life has been growing up watching the show be put together. She has learned to sit, walk and talk while watching this show happen. She loves the music. She has her little boom box, we have the CD in there and she turns it on herself.

It is such a great score. My favorite song is "Getta Loada Toad"--though someone said to me the other day that it is basically teaching you to make fun of people.
I hope that is not what it is teaching you! Actually, if you look at it, Toad doesn't look any funnier than anyone else on the stage. But it is his own feeling about himself, his own creation…

According to the song, Toad looks funny in a bathing suit. Do you?
Gosh, I hope not!

Obviously most people out there know you best from Perfect Strangers. But I can't imagine the target audience of Frog and Toad would know you from there.
Parents know Perfect Strangers. The kids know only what happened in the last five years though some of them see reruns. A lot of people also know My Favorite Year, a movie from 1983. In New York, a lot of people know the theater work. But certainly in the middle of the country everyone knows Perfect Strangers.

You went back to theater soon after that went off the air. Why?
It is real simple--it is live. It is actually happening right in the moment. As an actor, you are the medium, to get high falutin about it. In film and television, when it happens, you are not there. It is either a film medium or a tape medium, but in theater you are physically the medium of communication.

Speaking of communication--I heard that at the stage door yesterday kids were chanting "Toad" until you came out. That's very Beatles-esque.
We are worshipped by the under-seven set!

I wonder if they get how neurotic Toad is. Do you? Are there things in yourself that you channel through him?
I think both of those characters are very human and very accessible. There is certainly nothing in Toad that I don't have with me.

What do you think the message of the show is?
I think it is very clearly about friendship and what it is to have a really good friend. Sometimes it is easy and sometimes it is hard, but it is always a wonderful thing.

Are you all friends behind-the-scenes?
When you do a show, you always create a family. We've lived together doing this show since last July and that feeds into the work.

Has there been any part in the experience that has been particularly hard for you? I mean thankfully you don't have to wear a toad suit, but…
It is hard work all along the way. It is not digging ditches, but it is demanding work. If it wasn't, everybody would do it. So you just work as hard as you can, you do the best job you know how to do and sometimes you come up with something great and sometimes you don't. This time I think we've come up with something that is really appealing to people and very gratifying to work on.

I think it is cute no matter what age you are.
The sensibility of the books and the show is both warm and sophisticated. The kids get it right away and the adults figure it out about half way in.

Snagged from:
Broadway.com