Sara Ramirez emerges from the goofiness of Spamalot as someone to watch

Sara Ramirez plays the Lady of the Lake in the Broadway musical Monty Python's Spamalot. (AP Photo/Stuart Ramson)

MARK KENNEDY

NEW YORK (AP) - Sara Ramirez sure doesn't look like a criminal.

Dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt with her hair swept up in a ponytail, the 29-year-old actress and singer resembles more a laid-back beauty pageant contestant than a woman capable of theft.

But according to the buzz around Monty Python's Spamalot, Ramirez has committed grand larceny, stealing the show from David Hyde Pierce, Tim Curry and Hank Azaria.

Ramirez insists she's not guilty.

"I'm kind of like the filler in between the Monty Python bits," she says in her small Shubert Theatre dressing room, still piled with moving boxes. "I'm just sort of filling in the gaps."

Never has mere filling been so praised. Reviewers have left the theatre raving about Ramirez: "Smashing," the New York Daily News cheered, while The New York Times hailed her as "a toothsome devourer of scenery" who "knows how to send up vintage performance styles until they go into orbit." There's talk about a Tony nod.

Ramirez has been in the vortex of hype before. Her Broadway debut came in 1998 with a part in The Capeman, Paul Simon's $11-million US musical bomb.

This time, Ramirez's role as Lady of the Lake is pure goofball, a part substantially enhanced from the character in the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, from which the show is "lovingly ripped off."

As envisioned by Python veteran Eric Idle, who also co-wrote the music with John Du Prez, Ramirez's character has morphed from a strange woman lying in ponds to the love interest of King Arthur.

One of her big numbers is The Song That Goes Like This - a gorgeous parody of a saccharine Andrew Lloyd-Webber ballad from Phantom of the Opera that she shares with Christopher Sieber, complete with oversized chandelier.

"It's very cool to see somebody on the verge of quite possibly being one of the biggest Broadway stars in history. After the critics and the audiences see her, she's going to explode," Sieber says.

"People are going to be knocking on her door left and right. She's going to be the next biggest, bona fide, huge Broadway smash star that everybody is going to want for every show they ever produce."

In the musical's second half, Ramirez returns for another star turn, this time with The Diva's Lament, in which she loudly complains about her diminished stage role. "What happened to my part?" she sings plaintively.

"I have a very fun, silly job," Ramirez says. "People would kill to be doing this."

Born in Mexico and brought to San Diego by her Mexican-American mother after her parents divorced, Ramirez won her role in The Capeman before even graduating from The Juilliard School's drama department. She followed with two more short-lived Broadway shows - A Class Act and The Gershwins' Fascinating Rhythm. Her TV credits include NYPD Blue, Law & Order: SVU, Third Watch, Spin City and As the World Turns.

After her agent called her in Los Angeles about a potential role in Spamalot, Ramirez's friends were shocked to learn that she hadn't actually ever seen a Monty Python skit. They arranged an intervention, plundering a local Blockbuster for available tapes.

Even so, she didn't really realize what she'd signed on for until the show premiered in Chicago earlier this year - when she noticed that some audience members were dressed as medieval knights.

"I think that's when I realized just how big Monty Python is. I knew it intellectually, but that's when I got it," she says. "I thought, 'Oh my God, there are people out there who cannot wait for their bit to come up.' You think, 'How blessed are we? We get to do this material that people are dying to see."'

One of the added benefits of the show hangs in her dressing room: Long, clingy, low-cut gowns and several bustiers that enhance her curves. "The way they make me look is just crazy," she says. "I'm thinking to my self, 'If I ever have to go to a party, I've got to work something out.' "

While her acting and comic timing - not to mention the aforementioned curves - are being cheered, it's her singing that shines in Spamalot. Her voice doesn't wash over you, but smacks you in the solar plexus when uncoiled, demanding attention.

Having never formally trained her voice, Ramirez chalks it up to genetics. "It was something that's been passed along. It's not something I worked at growing up. It was just there," she says. "My shows never lasted long enough for me to need a vocal coach."

That voice might one day be heard further than a New York stage. Besides contributing to the cast album, Ramirez hopes to release a CD of her own - but it won't be typical.

"I don't want to do the whole, 'I was just in a Broadway musical and here's my pop-rock album, everybody!' " she says. "I just don't want to do that. I'd be more inclined to do an album that makes fun of that."