Ventura drama to feature 'NCIS' star Joe Spano

Actor Joe Spano, known for portraying law enforcement roles on popular television shows like "NCIS" and "Hill Street Blues," will take the stage as a different character in "The Realistic Joneses" at the Rubicon Theatre Company in Ventura.

"What I've been playing in television and film...policemen, cops...that's not this at all," Spano said on Wednesday.

The onstage action consists of mostly dialogue, he said, and the production is not about locking up the bad guy.

Spano will play the character Bob Jones in the modern drama set to run from Jan. 25 to Feb. 12.

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The play is about a suburban couple and their neighbors who discover they have more in common than identical homes and surnames. The work by Will Eno, which ran on Broadway in 2014 and was nominated for three Drama League Awards, is making its Southern California premiere.

The Rubicon production is directed by Judy Hegarty-Lovett and also features Conor Lovett, Faline England and Sorcha Fox as the various Joneses.

Spano, who won an Emmy Award in 1989 as a guest actor on the TV drama "Midnight Caller," has performed at the Rubicon for more than 20 years and considers it his home.

"It’s given me so much that I couldn’t find at other places," said Spano, who has been in at least 10 productions at the Rubicon.

The theater is located at a former church on the edge of downtown and has its own community that allows him to take risks, he said.

"It's a totally different feeling for what we are doing and who we are doing it for and what we are free to do," said the actor, who plays Tobias Fornell on "NCIS," the long-running police procedural.

In film and television, Spano said, an actor is creating material for the director and editor to make their art. In theater, the actor makes the experience for the audience in a given moment.

"There's something that is amazingly human about sitting or performing in a room with other people," Spano said. "It's like a sacrament in a way that film and television can't be for me."

At its core, "The Realistic Joneses" is about the attempt to connect and communicate with others, he said.

"The realization of the difficulty of that, and yet the ongoing attempt to achieve it, is a powerful, powerful thing," said Spano, who also portrayed Lt. Henry Goldblume on "Hill Street Blues," the influential 1980s police drama.

At the Rubicon, Spano is considered a company member, said Karyl Lynn Burns, co-founder and producing artistic director of the theater company.

"He’s an Emmy award-winning television actor, but his first love is the stage," Burns said. "And he is so dynamic on stage."

If you go

What: The Realistic JonesesWhen: Various times on Wednesdays through Sundays from Jan. 25 to Feb. 12Where: Rubicon Theatre Company, 1006 E. Main St., VenturaCost: $35 to $64.50, including feesTickets and information: www.rubicontheatre.org

Wes Woods II covers West County for the Ventura County Star. Reach him at wesley.woodsii@vcstar.com, 805-437-0262 or @JournoWes.

This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: 'NCIS' star Joe Spano to take stage at Rubicon's Ventura theater