Blake Hammond’s back.
As in back in time, in a show that sings “Welcome to the Renaissance.”
As in back to the future, since he plays a prophet named Nostradamus.
Hammond also finds himself back at The Bushnell, where the first national tour of the Broadway hit “Something Rotten!” is stopping Jan. 30 through Feb. 4. A veteran of both Broadway and national tours, the comic actor was in Hartford previously as Uncle Fester in “The Addams Family” in 2011 and as the evil Sebastian in “Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella” in 2014.
“When I first saw it, I said I had to audition for this show,” Hammond says during a recent phone interview. “Something Rotten!” played on Broadway from the spring of 2015 until New Year’s Day 2017. The tour began just over a week later. Several of the stars of the tour were in the final cast of the Broadway production, including Adam Pascal as Shakespeare (portrayed an egotistical rock star) and Rob McClure and Josh Grisetti as the beleaguered Bottom brothers Nick and Nigel, whose theater troupe has been unable to compete against the hit-making bard.
Hammond is one of the players who wasn’t in New York but has been on the entire tour, which has been on the road for a year now and will end in Providence, R.I., on May 20. Maggie Lakis, who plays Nick Bottom’s wife, Bea, is married in real life to Rob McClure, who plays Nick.
So many Broadway musicals are based on familiar books, movies or plays that an original story like “Something Rotten!” can be hard to explain. “I think people just come,” Hammond says. “They don’t know what it’s about, but they very quickly find out that it’s very funny.”
He does allow that “certain jokes play differently in different places. The innuendo stuff didn’t go over as well in Utah.”
Hammond welcomes the challenge.
“I absolutely love touring,” he says. “It’s not for everybody. Some people get homesick. I don’t. I love the change. I love seeing the country. I’ve done Broadway — it’s the same path to the dressing room every night.”
Hammond’s character, Nostradamus, comes on early in the show and takes part in one of the show’s silliest songs.
“It’s so great to play a role where there is no expectation about who you’re playing.” This is not the well-known Nostradamus whose 16th century prophecies, according to some, foretold World Wars I and II, the French Revolution and many other key events in world history. Hammond plays that great seer’s nephew, Thomas Nostradamus, whose predictions are rather less reliable. As Hammond puts it, “He gets great information, but he doesn’t know how to deliver it.”
Among his mangled prophecies is the unknown-in-the-Renaissance concept of a performance where “an actor is saying his lines and then out of nowhere he just starts singing.”
This leads to an elaborate song titled “A Musical,” which weaves clever references to numerous famous Broadway shows into a proclamation that “nothing is as amazing as a musical — with song and dance and sweet romance and happy endings happening by happenstance.”
“It’s this big 10-minute number, so much fun,” Hammond says. “It’s a showstopper. It’s so strange to have a showstopper happen just 30 minutes into the play.” He laughs. “Once that big number’s over, my evening gets much easier. Nick Bottom is onstage constantly, but my character actually sets things in motion.”
“This is one of the funniest things I’ve ever been in,” Hammond says. “People who haven’t seen it yet don’t know that it’s so funny, because it’s not based on anything. You don’t need to know anything about musicals or Shakespeare to enjoy it.”
The actor trained in Shakespeare as a student at the University of Texas at Austin, but hasn’t done any of the bard’s works since: “I’ve been fortunate enough to be employed in these big jobs. I’m very fortunate. Things continue to fall into place.”
Hammond doesn’t know what his next gig might be after the “Something Rotten!” tour ends this spring, but says “there are shows coming out that I’d love to be a part of, like ‘Come From Away.'”
What’s the first thing Blake Hammond does when a tour ends? “I take a vacation. I told you, I love to travel.”
SOMETHING ROTTEN is at The Bushnell, 166 Capitol Ave., Hartford, from Jan. 30 through Feb. 4. Performances are Tuesday through Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 1 and 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $22.50 to $117.50. 860-987-5900 and bushnell.org.
