Green Makes Good 'Match'

"Actors, please remember this is a comedy," reads a sign next to the sign-in sheet at the casting office for "Miss Match," NBC's new one-hour single-camera dramedy.

It's that one-hour single-camera thing that must throw some actors, since there aren't many comedies in that format ("Gilmore Girls" is the only other one that comes to mind). That well-placed sign might have helped the versatile Laurel Green land a recent guest star part on the show (her episode airs Nov. 7), as she recalled: She went in the room on a callback with casting directors Gayle Pillsbury and Bonnie Zane and producer Dennis Erdman with this mantra in her head: "Keep it real, but keep it light."

She was called back for a bigger part than she'd initially been called in for, which was for "a girl who's at one of those 12-step sexaholics meetings. They all laughed at my reading, and as I was leaving, Dennis came running after me and said, 'Would you read for this other part?' " Given just 15 minutes to prepare, she thought she blew the audition for the bigger part of a mousy homemaker whose husband is divorcing her. Indeed, while she read, she said producer Darren Star came in. Star and Erdman had seen Green onstage in her glory days with Justin Tanner in such plays as "Pot Mom" and "Teen Girl," but this previous assocation only made it worse, Green said: "If they've seen you in the theatre, they expect you to be brilliant."

Apparently she didn't blow it -- she booked the part. The shoot went smoothly, but compared to doing stage and sitcom work, Green did confess, "The weird thing is, you go, 'Is it going to be funny? Are they going to laugh?' There's no way to gauge it." Except perhaps by feedback from series regular Ryan O'Neal, who took Green aside and told her, "You're very talented, and you better get used to hearing that." She's heard it from her theatre fans for years, of course -- but it's nice to know that others are catching on.