BROADWAY Brady: For 'Chicago' script, I draw the line at improv

The Emmy winner can think fast on his feet, but he's sticking to the script.
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
NEW YORK -- Wayne Brady is famous for razzle-dazzling audiences with his stellar, often stupefying, improvisational skills.
But when the Emmy-winning former talk-show host and "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" star performs in "Chicago" as slick lawyer Billy Flynn, he's doing things by the book.
"I know people will wonder, 'Is he going to make something up?'" says Brady, who headlines the John Kander and Fred Ebb musical through Nov. 28.
"No. It's not going to happen. There's a script, and I'm following it."
Which means Brady won't be bursting into a mile-a-minute ad-lib or moonwalking & agrave; la Michael Jackson -- to name a couple of Brady boob-tube antics to which viewers are accustomed.
"The person on-camera is different from the person off-camera," says Brady, who is married with a young daughter. "It's my job and one I love doing. But no one would want to be around someone who is 'on' 24 hours a day."
Still, dealing with Brady when he is in the "off" position can be somewhat unsettling.
"I never expected Wayne to be so shy and reserved and polite," says "Chicago" director Walter Bobbie, who rehearsed the actor for his Broadway debut. "It completely surprised me.
"But it was refreshing to meet the person and not the performer," Bobbie adds. "Sometimes a great star like Wayne feels freer in front of 2,000 strangers than one-on-one."
His background
Born and raised in Orlando, Fla., Brady has entertained audiences since he was 16 -- in high school plays and community theater. His first paying gig was playing Tigger at Disney World, "just up the road" from his home.
By 1995 he'd moved to Los Angeles and paid the bills rock 'n' rolling just slightly more humanoid as the Wolfman at Universal Studios.
Three years later, he broke away from theme parks when he got his big break on "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" The show, which ran twice a week on ABC with host Drew Carey, spotlighted his quick wit, great voice and fleet feet.
Brady left the show when he got his own daytime talk show, which debuted in 2002. Despite winning three Emmys, the show was canceled this spring (but aired through the summer).
"I got two great seasons and a lot of love from the man on the street," says Brady. "In the second year, I won the Emmy for best host. The show didn't win. I won. I look at it as a life victory and as a steppingstone."
Brady has two TV shows in the works: one that lampoons the "perfect sitcom dad," the other about an undercover cop. This summer Brady performed in Las Vegas and made a movie in Chicago (he plays a deejay who sports satin suits and a supersize Afro) and prepared for his Broadway debut.