The play on words Working the Engels — the title of the new sitcom starring Andrea Martin —couldn’t better describe the comedy legend’s approach to her career.
With an upcoming show on Broadway, a book set to launch this fall and the aforementioned TV show, Martin certainly is working all the angles and doesn’t appear to be slowing down any time soon.
Having recently finished shooting season one of Working the Engels, a half-hour sitcom created by Toronto natives Katie Ford and Jane Ford set to debut on Global TV this March, Martin says she revelled in returning to her comedy roots in the city where her career took off. “I had a ball,” she says. “I loved doing it — it was shot in Toronto, which is where everything started for me.”
Martin plays Ceil Engel, an overprotective and self-involved mother of three adult children who have decided to keep their deceased father’s law practice alive to pay off family debt, even though only one of them is a lawyer.
A mom to two adult sons, Martin says she relates to the overbearing love her character has for her kids. “I like that she’s a real mother. She represents all aspects of me and how I parented,” Martin says. “It’s genuine.”
Known for such quirky characters as the leopard-print-loving station manager Edith Prickley and sexologist Dr. Cheryl Kinsey on the beloved Canadian comedy series SCTV (1976–1984), Martin says she likes that the humour in her new show is character driven. “I love that the writing is not all dirty words and shock value.”
Working the Engels will also be a bit of an SCTV reunion, with Canadian comedians Martin Short and Eugene Levy set to appear in guest-starring roles. Short plays Chuck Pastry, a former lover of Martin’s character Ceil and the head of a baking corporation. Levy plays Arthur Horowitz, a lawyer and neighbour to the Engels who has his eye on Ceil. “It’s like being with family,” Martin says about working with Short and Levy again.
The show brings together a mix of new and familiar Canadian talent. Up-and-comer Kacey Rohl plays the only Engel family lawyer, and Benjamin Arthur plays Ceil’s ex-con son who is still her golden boy. Funnyman Colin Mochrie guest stars as Ceil’s long-suffering accountant, and Canadian actor Jason Priestley (of Beverly Hills, 90210 fame) took the helm as director of four episodes.
It was an ideal shoot for Martin who calls Toronto home though she frequently lives and works in the U.S. “[Living here] always brings me back to my roots, fills my soul and makes me calm,” she says. The Canuck at heart was born in Portland, Maine. From the age of nine, she says she knew she wanted to act.
She started performing in drama clubs and high school musicals and gradually started earning professional roles. Her first paid gig was as a singing chicken on the Captain Kangaroo TV show. She says, at the time, she didn’t have any professional goals, she simply wanted to perform. “One job led to another, and it didn’t make a difference to me what I was acting in. It just mattered that I was acting,” she says.
When Martin played Lucy in an American touring production of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, she performed here in Toronto where she met and started dating a local actor. After a few visits she decided to stay, and shortly after her move, she landed a role in the now legendary 1972 production of Godspell. “[Godspell] was the beginning of my career,” she says.
“Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Gilda Radner, Paul Shaffer — none of us had done anything significant before, so it launched our careers and our friendships.” Martin continued many of those friendships on the Second City stage where she honed her comedy chops performing improv nightly for about five years, which continued later with SCTV.
“[Second City] informed so much of my comedy,” she says. “It allows you to develop your particular brand of comedy. When you look at work by Tina Fey, John Candy, Gilda Radner and Dan Aykroyd, you know immediately who those people are. “It allowed me to be as funny as I was as a person,” she adds.
Her Second City training, she says, has come back to help her throughout her career, especially for her roles in such films as My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Night at the Museum 3. “In film, they really improvise — it’s the Judd Apatow school of comedy,” she says. “Improv has really served me.”
Though comedy has often been thought of as Martin’s niche, the Emmy-winning actress has branched out into more dramatic work to great critical acclaim. Her recent turn as Berthe, the feisty grandmother in the 2013 Broadway revival of Pippin, won her a Tony Award for best featured actress in a musical. For the circus-themed production, Martin, 67, dazzled audience members by swinging high above the stage on a trapeze.
She says it was a role that’s been a highlight in her career and one that she felt close to. “It was meaningful to me because I was able to talk about getting older in a positive, inspirational way,” she says.
She also won a Tony Award for her Broadway debut in the musical comedy My Favorite Year and has garnered Tony nominations for her work in the popular musicals Candide, Oklahoma! and Young Frankenstein.
This month, Martin is scheduled to perform multiple parts in Act One on Broadway.
Martin credits time and age with her move toward more dramatic work and her ability to dig deeper into her roles. “The older I got, the more comfortable I was with me and the more depth I had as a person,” she says. “It interested me more in being able to utilize all of who I am — maybe parts of me I would have hidden before.”
It makes sense then that Martin is opening up about her life and career through a collection of stories entitled Andrea Martin’s Lady Parts, to be published by HarperCollins in September. For someone whose eclectic work has spanned decades, expect a lot of angles.
Working the Engels airs on Global Television.
