Sandra Bernhard :: Happy, Relaxed and in Ptown

My dream choice to play Dolly Levi in "Hello, Dolly!" has long been Sandra Bernhard. That might seem strange, but think about it. Now that she's eased into middle-age, wouldn't it be great to see the actress, singer and (most notably) acerbic observer of all aspects of contemporary life, carousing around a runway in a musical-comedy turn?

Okay, perhaps that's a bit of an anachronistic concept for Bernhard, who has carved her niche in show business with her unique blend of edge, irony and authenticity. But did you know that it was Carol Channing who inspired Bernhard to want to perform musical-comedy? (This was when she was eight, at five she already told her stepmother she planned on being a comedienne.)

"I saw Carol Channing when I was eight years old in 'Hello, Dolly!'," Bernhard recalled recently via phone from her New York home, "It was at the Fischer Theater in Detroit. (Bernhard spent her childhood in Flint, Michigan.) and I fell in love with the wonderful originality of it and with Channing. I cried all the way home because my parents didn't let me meet her. And at night I fantasized about taking my bows on a Broadway stage."

Her "Dolly" connection didn't stop there. A few years later, she recently told Roseanne Barr in Interview Magazine, she was at her cousin's bat mitzvah in Detroit and the band was playing "Hello, Dolly!" "I thought he was doing a terrible job," she told Roseanne, "so I went up and grabbed the mic and said, "Let me do this for you." He was like, "Beat it, kid." It was like a scene out of a Woody Allen movie. And my cousin Bernice went, "You let her sing this song." So I got up and sang and brought the house down! It was just where I belonged-you know, in front of a big crowd of Jews, performing. I loved being loved, and still do. Who doesn't love being loved?"

"You know," she continued to EDGE, "I might to get to that someday after I do some other things."

Sandyland

One thing she's doing is touring with "Sandyland," her latest show, which she will doing at the Crown and Anchor in Provincetown on August 10 and 11, 2014 - sans her band the Flawless Zircons. "I'll be with Mitch Kaplan, my musical director for this one, so it will be 'Sandyland'-of-sorts. But Ptown is a more intimate venue. And Provincetown has a different vibe anyway. It's so relaxed and comfortable there. I love it."

Asked if she's seen changes in Provincetown over the years, she responded she really hasn't that much. "It has become more gentrified, more like the Hamptons," she said. "But what hasn't become more gentrified?"

"Sandyland" has its roots in what is becoming a New York tradition: her New Year's Eve show at Joe's Pub at New York's Public Theater. She has been doing for a decade now. " I love the Joe's Pub thing, because it's easy. I am close to home - I can hop in a car, go over and come home and be in my own bed at night. Anytime I don't have to travel, can stay at home and make good money. And If I'm performing the last day of the old year, I'll always perform the rest of the New Year. It's my superstition."

Magic carpet ride

The idea for "Sandyland" is to "explore things through my eyes and, musically, take you on a magic carpet ride. That's sort of the idea of it. I write material, try it out, new songs. Sometimes the show I do at Joe's Pub ends up the show I tour with the rest of the year. I have to write a new show for New York City, so I have new material that I can take out on the road."

Her show offers her observations about American culture, celebrity, trends, politics and her career - one that began in the comedy club in Los Angeles in the 1970s (where her day job was as a manicurist on Rodeo Drive). Some her clients told her she was funny, so she started doing stand-up in an industry not known for supporting female comics. Unlike Joan Rivers or Phyllis Diller, Bernhard never indulged in self-deprecating humor. Even then she was empowered. Her break-out role was in Martin Scorsese's "The King of Comedy," where she played the obsessed fan of a talk show host, played by Jerry Lewis. Her performance was so unique that she won the National Society of Film Critics' Award for Best Supporting Actress; but was also so unique it stymied a career in movies.

No worries. Bernhard continued to carve her own path, building an incredibly loyal fan base in the process. This led to "Without You I'm Nothing," her groundbreaking off-Broadway piece in which she mixed songs and monologues into a piece that not only showed her versatility, but also her often scabrous sense of humor.

On ABC Family

The show, which she later filmed, became a template for her career, one that she described to Flavorwire as "a hybrid of all the different things that I loved and influenced me. And I kind of put it together as a postmodern musical. I kept recreating the narratives and music. I never felt the need to identify myself as an artist or as a person. I felt like my work and who I am and what I stand for is all out on the table."

Since then Bernhard has been seen everywhere from intimate supper clubs in San Francisco to LA comedy clubs to Broadway, where her "I'm Still Here, Dammit" ran in 1998. Asked if Broadway was in her immediate future, she replied, "Not right now. I am really concentrating on television and film, and just touring. I really want to get television going, and I don't want to be tied down to something that I will not be able to do it. I thinking of a scripted show on a cable network. I'll be acting. I think cable is the right outlet for me."

One outlet the always-busy Bernhard never expected to be was on ABC Family, but she recently took an ongoing role on the Peabody-award winning "Switched at Birth," where she plays an art teacher and mentor for the show's lead actress, Vanessa Marano. "Can you believe it? I would never has guessed it, but they wrote the part for me. They called and asked if I wanted to do it. I said, by all means."

Stop being depressed

But back to what's going on in "Sandyland," which in this case is politics. She still has unyielding faith in President Obama: "Every president in his second term gets a bad rap, no matter what they're doing. When you consider what he's up against, of course he's good. He's far from perfect, but he's damned good." And has nothing to say about the Republicans: "I don't have any feelings about them. There's nothing to say about it. It's obvious what it all is. That's not a conversation I want to have at this particular point. I mean, we'll be gearing up again in two years, I need a break from talking about it."

Earlier that day, a NBC poll said that America has never been more depressed. When asked about this, Bernhard said: "They should get over it. It's time to stop being self-indulgent. We have a fabulous country and have access to everything imaginable. It's time to stop being depressed."

But could she cite a reason for this malaise? "I just think it is selfishness in general. People think too much about themselves. They need to think a little more about the rest of the world where people don't have anything. Or people in this country who are really struggling. Focus on that. Do something good for somebody else."

Any crushes?

Did she have any crushes?

"No, definitely not. I am in a relationship for 15 years. I have no crushes on anybody. I worked through that. I've far too busy in my life and I a far too happy. I am happy these days, I think so. I am very fortunate and content, about my home life that's for sure. You know, you can always change your career, and that's what I am doing. So, I have no regrets. Am I re-inventing myself? I hate that word. I don't think I think it's silly. Artists don't 're-invent' themselves. As an artist, you keep evolving. I don't want to change my life then, I just want to get more interesting and be who I am in the moment.

"But," she continued, "it's summer, so I am just not in a hyper-mode. I am working at half-pace. I try to detach in the summer from too much, and it's nice because people are away and you can mellow out and relax a little bit."

Sandra Bernhard is at the Crown and Anchor, Commercial Street, Provincetown, MA on August 10 and August 11, 2014, 9pm. For ticket info, visit