KC actor enters ‘a whole new world’ with big part in Broadway tour of ‘Funny Girl’

Walter Coppage, one of Kansas City’s most enduring and respected stage actors, likely is best known in these parts for the Kansas City Repertory Theatre’s annual production of “A Christmas Carol.”

“I tell you what, people still come up to me and talk to me about Bob Cratchit, and it’s been years since I played that role,” said Coppage, who has portrayed four “A Christmas Carol” characters over the past 14 years.

Unfortunately for local Coppage fans, that streak will end this year because of another thing he is known for — his mellifluous, resonating, almost James Earl Jones-like voice.

He said that’s what landed him the choice role of Florenz Ziegfeld in the first national tour of the Broadway show “Funny Girl,” which will open Sept. 9 in Providence, Rhode Island.

The opportunity to audition for the role caught Coppage by surprise. He’s not only never done a musical, but he’s also never appeared on Broadway or in a Broadway touring show.

“My first response was, ‘Do you have the right guy?’” he said by phone from New York, where the “Funny Girl” cast is rehearsing.

“Next thing I know, I was in the room here just off of Broadway on 42nd Street doing an audition. And it was one of those, ‘This is great. I can check it off my bucket list. I went to New York and did a Broadway callback.’ And all of a sudden they made the offer. I still am just pinching myself that I’m here. I’m just in amazement. It’s a whole new world for me.”

Not so new that he has to sing or dance, because Florenz Ziegfeld does neither in the play. He does speak with authority, however.

Coppage said associate director Johanna McKeon confided in him how he won over the “Funny Girl” brain trust.

“She goes, ‘I heard your voice, and thought, oh yes,’” he said.

“When I look at the description of the role, it was like ‘graceful, imposing.’ I thought, you know, I’m a tiny little guy. But it was the voice.”

Walter Pidgeon portrayed the man behind the Ziegfeld Follies in the 1968 movie featuring Barbra Streisand’s Oscar-winning portrayal of early-20th-century entertainer Fanny Brice. Other than the first name, the booming voice is about all Coppage has in common with Pidgeon.

“He’s 6-foot-whatever, and I’m a little shy of 5-8,” Coppage said.

Pidgeon, like the actual Ziegfeld, also was white. Coppage is the son of a Black father and a Japanese mother.

Playing roles that traditionally are reserved for white actors is nothing new for Coppage, however. In addition to Bob Cratchit and other characters in “A Christmas Carol” (most recently the Dickensian narrator last year) he portrayed the father of Helen Keller in “The Miracle Worker” at the Coterie in 2015 and Emperor Joseph II in “Amadeus” for the Spinning Tree Theatre in 2016.

When “Funny Girl” opened on Broadway in the spring of 2022 for the first time since the original production closed in 1967, Black actor Peter Francis James played Ziegfeld. Filipino native Paolo Montalban took over the role earlier this year

Coppage said race wasn’t a major consideration in the casting of the national tour.

“It’s one of those things where they were open,” he said. “It’s a very diverse cast. … I don’t believe it was one of those things where ‘We want an African American in this role.’”

The Broadway revival at the August Wilson Theatre first starred Beanie Feldstein as Fanny Brice, and soon famously dropped her for “Glee” star Lea Michele to belt out such Streisand standards as “Don’t Rain on My Parade” and “People.” It closes Sept. 3, and the touring version then will take over.

Coppage is committed to “Funny Girl” for its run through Aug. 25, with a few weeks off here and there. It is not scheduled to play in Kansas City, the closest stops being St. Louis (Jan. 23-Feb. 4) and Des Moines (March 12-17).

This will be the first time Coppage, 63, has toured since he and Paul Orwick did so for more than a decade as the comedy team Electric Zoot Suit in the 1980s and early 1990s

“It was a completely different kind of touring,” he said. “It was two guys in a van.

“This group I’m doing it with now, they know what they’re doing. … It’s almost like joining the circus. It’s a very well-organized machine.”

After leaving comedy behind, Coppage worked for KCUR radio while dipping his toe into local theater work. He transitioned into full-time acting in the mid-1990s, and he’s remained busy on stages in Kansas City and elsewhere ever since.

Too busy, as it turns out.

Although Coppage made occasional appearances on TV and in movies, his many stage roles limited his availability. When he passed on a plum TV part in late 2019 because of the theater, his agent provided a “come-to-Jesus moment,” telling him he needed to lighten his schedule if he wanted to get TV work.

He accepted the challenge, but then came the pandemic, which wiped out every actor’s schedule.

“But by that fall, I started getting auditions,” he said. “She was right, by opening up the time, the work surely comes. It just took off. It’s been really, really great.”

Coppage has been all over the small screen the past couple of years.

Just this year, his credits include three appearances on “Chicago Med” as Dr. Mark Cameron, two on comedian Bridget Everett’s Kansas-based HBO hit “Somebody Somewhere” and several other shows, including the action series “Leverage: Redemption.”

Of course, this summer’s strikes by writers and actors have shut down TV productions (Coppage was slated to return to “Chicago Med”), but along came a year’s work on “Funny Girl.”

Coppage said the scheduling development was pure luck.

“This is not planned. Everything just fell into place.”

Another bit of luck is that he has two weeks off from “Funny Girl” in December, just as “A Christmas Carol” will be running. His agent wondered whether he wanted her to talk to KC Rep about working out some sort of arrangement.

Coppage had a better idea.

“I want to see ‘A Christmas Carol,’” he said. “I’ve done it for 14 years … but I have not seen ‘A Christmas Carol.’ I look forward to this.”