Chappell’s Next Vehicle Off-Road

Some actresses get their act together and take it on the road. Kandis Chappell has been acting on the road, and now she’s content to be home.

For the past two years, Chappell has been involved in “Rumors,” Neil Simon’s comedy hit currently at the Ahmanson at the Doolittle through Sept. 23. In the knock-down, drag-out farce, Chappell steals the show as Chris Gorman, a neurotic chain smoker who arrives with her husband at a party only to discover their friend has shot himself in the earlobe and his wife has disappeared. The national tour has taken her to more than 13 cities.

“We did five weeks in Washington, D.C.,” says Chappell. “But usually we did a week at a time. It was exhausting. The play is exhausting. I found it physically wearing. The bus-and-truck tour going out now does five weeks of one-night stands. I would be hospitalized if I did that.”

But touring did have its plus side. “It was a great chance to see places I hadn’t seen before,” says Chappell. “After the show, a lot of actors sit around and socialize. I would go home and go to bed and get up in the morning and play tourist.”

Until now, Chappell has concentrated on a life in the theater. An associate artist at San Diego’s Old Globe, she has worked with repertory companies throughout the United States. She made her L.A. stage debut three years ago in the Pasadena Playhouse production of “Breaking the Silence” and received the 1988 L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award for her performance in South Coast Repertory’s production of “The Crucible.”

Chappell feels confident enough now to try her luck at film and television. “I don’t know how long I will last here (in L.A.),” she says. “I don’t even audition well in the theater. I am not good with rejection. In New York, I went out on commercial auditions and after three I said to my agent, ‘Don’t send me on those. I can’t do it.’ It’s taken me years to build up my career, and suddenly to start back at square one where you walk in a room and they have no idea who you are and they don’t care. I can’t do that to myself.”