Alum member of ‘Full Monty’ ensemble

PTTP alumnus Troy Scarborough (left) plays one of six unemployed steelworkers in The Full Monty.

10:53 a.m., Nov. 30, 2004--Actor Troy Scarborough, a 1999 graduate of UD’s Professional Theatre Training Program (PTTP), plays a depressed 50-year-old who loses his inhibitions and his clothes in The Full Monty at the DuPont Theatre in Wilmington beginning Friday, Dec. 3.

The play centers on six unemployed and mostly unfit steelworkers who think they can make money to support their families if they start a strip show that goes one step beyond a popular G-string-clad male revue. “The Full Monty” is British shorthand similar to the American idiom, “the whole nine yards.’’

The Cockney accents that confounded many in the audiences who saw The Full Monty movie are gone because the road show version is set in Buffalo, N.Y., instead of Sheffield, England.

Scarborough, who said he wanted to be an actor since he was 6 and his father took him to see The Wiz, has packed and unpacked 22 times since the tour began in York, Pa., on Oct. 1. He’ll do it 59 more times before the tour ends in Myrtle Beach, S.C. in May. He says he’s learned to pack efficiently.

“It’s been exciting. I think people don’t know quite what to make of it at first. They don’t know whether to expect a bawdy strip show or something more like the movie,’’ Scarborough said.

Scarborough said the show is tastefully done, and viewers see about as much as they saw in the film version. He advised against bringing children younger than 13 to the show, though, because the language and plot are geared to adults.

Scarborough said he expects a cheering section for several of the 12 performances from Dec. 3-12, because friends from UD and family from Charlotte, N.C., have purchased tickets.

He jokes that he uses the shows as reunions. His mom saw the show four times.

Nadine Howatt, PTTP coordinator, said Scarborough ‘s voice makes him a natural for musical theater.

Scarborough, whose list of degrees is too long to put up in lights, has played Shakespeare, comedy, the Ghost of Christmas Past and the cowardly lion in The Wizard of Oz.

He said people have asked him how his classical training at UD helped him create the role of Horace, a cranky 50ish member of the male revue who favors doing the Funky Chicken.

“The answer is that Sandy Robbins taught me to have attention to detail and specificity, so the work that I learned at the University of Delaware is applicable to all of my work but specifically to The Full Monty,’’ Scarborough, who attended the program on a full scholarship plus stipend, said. He said members of his UD class have steered him toward jobs and one let him sleep on his couch in Manhattan for months.

For ticket information call (302) 656-4401 or (800) 338- 0881 or visit [www.duponttheatre.com].

Article by Kathy Canavan

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