Nyack's Bill Irwin talks 'Old Hats'

Bill Irwin has a secret.

Irwin — an actor known to the “Sesame Street” generation as Mr. Noodle — emerges from backstage at the Signature Theatre Company in Manhattan with a huge smile on his face.

He’s carrying a container of soup and being trailed by an assistant with a toasted sandwich oozing melted cheese onto a paper plate.

It’s lunchtime on Day Two of rehearsals for “Old Hats,” the musical clown revue he created and performs with longtime collaborator David Shiner.

The impishly handsome 65-year-old Nyack man is wearing slouchy, heather gray sweatpants and a tan zippered cardigan topped with a navy blazer.

Once settled at a table, Irwin bubbles over with childlike glee.

“They’ve tried very hard to disguise the fact that I’m in drag,” he tells The Journal News, waving his hands over his attire before launching into a serious discussion of the show between bites of his meal.

The second coming of “Old Hats” begins Tuesday at Signature, where the good-hearted baggy pants clown show had its world premiere in 2013.

It continues a magical collaboration Irwin and began with “Fool Moon,” first staged on Broadway in 1993.

Frank Rich captured the essence of their partnership in his “Fool Moon” review for The New York Times: “To that short list of unbeatable combinations that includes bacon and eggs, bourbon and soda, and Laurel and Hardy, you can now add Shiner and Irwin.” http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/26/theater/review-theater-freewheeling-brothers-in-vaudeville.html

“We’re always arguing about who is which — who’s bacon and who’s eggs,” says Irwin.

In “Old Hats,” the characters, like the creators, are older, but not always wiser.

“We did a bit in ‘Fool Moon’ — a routine I just loved doing — where he [Shiner] invites somebody from the audience to go on a date with him. And then they show up at my nightclub, and I’m the lascivious maître de who’s making eyes at his date.” says Irwin.

“It was a wonderful bit… We called it ‘Big Night Out.’

Now that both men are in their 60s, such a romantic element would feel “icky,” Irwin says. “So now he’s a lecherous, sort of mature, magician who’s a wolf. But we don’t ask the audience to believe that there really could be a relationship.”

The new production plays out on the same stage with “exactly the same” script as the world premiere. But the audience won’t see the same show, he says. This is “Old Hats, Version 3.0” he says, incorporating things discovered in the original production and a 2014 San Francisco follow-up.

It will “allow us to complete things,” Irwin explains, pausing for a beat before adding, “like this,” as he teasingly unzips his cardigan to reveal a jewel-toned, V-neck dress he’s been dying to flash.

The show is also different because “incredible” Shaina Taub has taken over the musical duties originated by quirky songstress Nellie McKay.

“It’s totally different with Shaina onstage,” Irwin says, explaining that the Vermont-born, Brooklyn-based singer joined the show after McKay left on good terms to work on her own projects.

“The clowns come and go, but Shaina is with the audience always,” Irwin explains. “She’s the host presence.”

Irwin, who earned his baggy pants from the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Clown College in 1974, says great clowning looks easy — and that takes lots of rehearsal.

“What we will do is sweat and argue and curse our way, we hope, to something that looks totally effortless,” he explains. “You gotta do all your sweating and your fretting upfront so that it looks like what you’re doing is the idea that occurred to you at that moment.”

While he’s known for his clowning, Irwin isn’t limited to the funny stuff. He’s performed onstage in Shakespeare’s “King Lear” and Samuel Beckett’s absurdist “Waiting for Godot” and in movies such as Upper Nyack neighbor Jonathan Demme’s “Ricki and the Flash” and “Rachel Getting Married,” and Christopher Nolan’s 2014 “Interstellar,” which featured him as the robot TARS.

He’s also a familiar face in guest roles on TV shows such as “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” and “Sleepy Hollow.”

Irwin grins when talking about “Sleepy Hollow,” the supernatural Fox show set in the Lower Hudson Valley where he and wife Martha Roth, a home-birth midwife, have lived since moving from Manhattan in 1995.

He calls it “a hoot” — “I was playing a villain with a capital V” — but refuses to pick it, or anything he’s done, as a favorite job.

“I’m a little childish, I can’t make up my mind,” he says. “Whatever one is doing at the moment is fully engaging, although the others call to you. Like when I’m in a really dramatic role, I’m thinking, hmmm, the next time I get in baggy pants… But then, doing a baggy pants role, I think, wow, KING LEAR!“

Whatever he’s doing, Irwin says, it’s important to have fun — while always keeping the audience in mind.

“That is the key, to have fun,” he says. “There’s a certain pressure, too, if they’re going to pay you to do these things.

“Your own fun is important as a way of making it fun for those watching. If you lose sight of that, you’re in danger.”

New City-based journalist Steven P. Marsh blogs about the performing arts atwww.willyoumissme.com.

IF YOU GO

What: “Old Hats,” a clowning revue with music, created and performed by Bill Irwin and David Shiner; music and lyrics by and featuring Shaina Taub; directed by Tina Landau

When: Jan. 26-April 3

Where: Irene Diamond Stage, Signature Theatre Company, http://www.signaturetheatre.org/index.aspx The Pershing Square Signature Center, 480 West 42nd Street, Manhattan.

Tickets: $45-$95, available at the box office, by phone at 212-244-7529, and online http://www.signaturetheatre.org/tickets/production.aspx?pid=4307