Michael Urie doesn’t sleep.

Just kidding. That’s his favorite thing to do right now. The New York-based actor-producer-director of Ugly Betty fame is involved in two major shows in D.C. this month. He’ll show D.C. audiences his stage directing chops when Drew Droege’s Bright Colors And Bold Patterns opens today at Studio Theatre (it follows a successful run of the one-man show at New York’s SoHo Playhouse). And beginning Wednesday, he’s back in the shoes of Danish prince Hamlet at Shakespeare Theatre Company. Originally directed by his former Juilliard professor Michael Kahn, the production is being remounted as part of STC’s annual Free For All series.

Between the two gigs, Urie is constantly scooting from one thing to the next. But he’s pretty excited about it, and told DCist in a phone interview that he’s not stressed. Really! Read on to learn why Urie will proudly stan for D.C.’s theater scene. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

You’ve performed at Shakespeare Theatre Company, which welcomes you back to the stage this month for Hamlet. You’re directing at Studio Theatre. You also starred in How to Succeed in Business at The Kennedy Center. So you’re, like, a D.C. fan now! What keeps you coming back to D.C.’s stages?

I also played Mercutio at the Folger Theatre a long time ago, and it was then that I realized that D.C. had such incredibly smart audiences, especially when you’re doing something like Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet, or even when I did Buyer & Cellar here, the Barbra Streisand play that I did, which is very much a language play. They just listen. People in Washington are willing and game to leave their lives at the door and take a little magical journey and really invest in listening to the play and watching the play. They’re intelligent and they’re eager, and I think that makes a huge difference.

A lot of times, there’s so much theater in New York, and theatergoers in New York see so much, that there’s a cynicism to play-going that is nice to get away from. I mean, it’s exciting, because if you do capture something in New York that really sizzles, there’s nothing quite like it. But to do a play like Hamlet in the way that we’re doing it, on the scale that we’re doing it, in New York, would be a huge risk. Here, it’s embraced, and that’s an exciting thing.

On the other hand, you can bring something like Bright Colors And Bold Patterns, which was just that in New York. It really captured something special in New York that is new and fresh and original. D.C. will embrace something like that too. It’s just a kind of a place that you can do all kinds of theater and be welcomed.

It probably comes as no surprise that we have a bit of middle child syndrome here. What is your impression of D.C.’s theater scene?

It really runs the gamut from the Shakespeare Theatre, which is so grand and does such big works and puts on these huge, beautiful shows. How to Succeed at The Kennedy Center was a wonderful presentation of an old musical with a huge orchestra and a big, great cast. But then, there are also places like the Studio Theatre, which has four venues, none of them over 200 seats. They’re doing great American plays. They’re doing avant garde stuff. They’re taking major risks, but they’re still a major regional theater.

And there are these exciting smaller theater companies like Woolly Mammoth and Taffety Punk that are doing exciting new work. They’re taking even bigger risks. I feel like that is what makes a great theater scene. It’s having big, grand, classic works, and then also having people that are in the mud, taking risks and doing exciting, cool things. Ultimately, you can’t really have one without the other.

Chicago has a great theater scene. Dallas, where I’m from, has a great theater scene. But Washington has the patrons to match. There’s something about the audiences here that feed both sides of what makes great theater, both the looking back and the looking forward. This town has that.

You’re starring in Hamlet as part of Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Free For All series [which runs July 10-21], so you’re performing for an audience that didn’t pay to see the show. How does that feel as someone who acts for a living?

When I was Michael Kahn’s student at Juilliard, every year, they would bring us to D.C. to see a show. We would all get on a bus and go down and see a matinee. It was amazing. In the lobby, the walls were all lined with these big photo collages from each season. I was a big nerd, and I would always wander the lobby looking at them. I realized that every year, they would bring back a show from the previous year, and do it as a Free For All. I always thought, not only do I want to do a show at the Shakespeare Theatre, I want to do something that gets selected for the Free For All.

To return to a role a year later was something that was really exciting to me. I’ve now gotten to do that a few times, and it is so exciting to go back to a part after stepping away for a year. With Shakespeare, it’s even more so. With Shakespeare, every time we look at something, it’s deepened.

And the idea that we could do Shakespeare for a non-paying audience, who are maybe coming on a lark, who are maybe coming because they see one Shakespeare play a year–and it’s the free one–or who are maybe giving it a try for the first time ever, is really cool.

Shakespeare is scary to people. They’re really trusting us when they sit down for three hours or two-and-a-half, or whatever it is. They’re really trusting us to tell them a full story, and they’re afraid they’re not going to get it.

Something that I’ve always really fought for is clarity, not just in making sure that the most complicated things in Shakespeare are understood, but the simple things too. I think that Michael Kahn and I were very much on the same page that he really led the way in making a Hamlet that was real and naturalistic and extremely clear. And I heard from a lot of people that it was clear and that they were able to follow it, and they heard things they’d never heard before. There’s no greater compliment to me.

Bright Colors And Bold Patterns runs this month. Why did you decide to try your hand at directing for a D.C. audience?

I have directed a little bit on camera, which I’ve loved doing. It’s a lot of work, and on a low budget you have to be a producer and a director. Because I just love acting so much and I love being on stage, directing for the theater hasn’t really been a calling for me. But Drew Droege, who wrote Bright Colors And Bold Patterns, is an old friend of mine and my partner’s. He came to New York and he slept in our guest room and he was doing a show at Ars Nova and he said, “come see it.” Because he does so much sketch comedy and improv comedy, I assumed it would be something along those lines.

What I didn’t expect was for him to put on this whole play with only a couple of chairs and a beach towel. I didn’t expect him to bring to life four characters, while only playing one. There’s only one character that you hear and see, but there are three others that you glean from what that one character says and does. And Drew was able to create this whole world with just himself and these chairs. When I saw it, I said, “oh my gosh. This is a play.”  This is not just monologue. This is a whole play. And I could see the whole production. The whole thing came to life before my eyes, and I said I can work with designers and a producer and I could help you create more of a structure, and a beginning, middle, and end.

This was the thing that I felt like my expertise could be. I know some one-man shows. I did 600 performances of Buyer & Cellar. I know how to keep it alive and fresh, and how to take care of yourself and keep something like this alive and exciting. So I asked if I could help make this into a full production.

There was a producer at that Ars Nova production named Zach Laks who felt the same thing, that this is a show. So while I wasn’t part of the development of the play, with Drew and Zach and our designers, we were able to create a whole play. And it was a big hit in New York, and it ran for a long time. Then Drew had to go on and do other things. Jeff Hiller took over. When Studio Theatre was interested in bringing our production down and Drew wasn’t available, we were very glad that Jeff was.

Studio Theatre is a great place for it because of its intimacy. They have a great reputation for doing LGBTQ works, and I think that this space that they have, the Milton, is prime for a show like this. So it just made sense. It all worked out. It was a total coincidence that I was here playing Hamlet at the same time, and it felt right.

You’re both directing Bright Colors and Bold Patterns this month and you’re acting in Hamlet. How are you managing that? I do hope you’re taking time for yourself, in which case, what are you doing for you? What are your favorite D.C. spots or things to do for fun around here?

I’m a big fan of Busboys & Poets, and luckily, when we were rehearsing Hamlet there was one by our rehearsal hall, and there’s one where they put me up.

I love scooting around on these scooters that are everywhere. We don’t have those in New York, which is a good thing, because everyone would die. I love a scoot. I love taking a scoot.

Otherwise, sleeping! That’s what I’m doing for myself between Hamlet and Bright Colors and Bold Patterns. Luckily, they’re both remounts. That’s the way I think this is possible is I don’t have homework. That’s the good news. So I can go home and just veg when I’m done for the day, and cuddle on the couch with my dog and really recuperate and sleep and relax and have a scotch. I think if either of these were new, that would not be possible. But the fact that they’re both remounts, and that I’m so confident in Jeff and that Studio has been so welcoming and the infrastructure here is so terrific that I’m just not worried at all. It’s the same with Hamlet. The cast is just terrific and the Shakespeare Theatre has taken such good care of us. I actually feel very relaxed doing all of this.

Bright Colors And Bold Patterns is playing through July 28 at Studio Theatre ($45). 

Hamlet is playing July 10-21 at Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Sidney Harman Hall. The limit for free tickets is two per person, with the online Free For All Lottery open between 12:01 a.m. – 8 p.m. the day before the performance you wish to attend. For day-of tickets, go in person to the Hall. Tickets will be released two hours before curtain, but folks start lining up much earlier. 

Want more theater? 
8 Plays And Musicals To Catch On D.C.-Area Stages This July