Phylicia Rashad Rings in With the Old

When Phylicia Rashad steps on stage at Odessa in Laguna Beach tonight, will it be as Clair Huxtable, Ruth Lucas or as a Broadway songstress?

Rashad, whose warm, dark-toned voice is as serene and centered on the phone as it is in her well-known television characterizations, responds with a throaty laugh.

“All of the above,” she said. “The characters I’ve played on the two Cosby shows, characters that I’m most identified with, are characters that are pretty close to me--in temperament, in speech patterns, in thinking and style. My acting instructors always told me that the most difficult human being to play is your own self. So I don’t have a ‘character’ when I perform, whether I’m acting or singing.”

Rashad’s appearance at the club--which is owned by her sister, dancer-choreographer Debbie Allen and Allen’s husband, former NBA star Norm Nixon--marks her Orange County debut. It also will be a rare nightclub performance for an artist best known for her work in television and on Broadway. In addition to long runs on “The Cosby Show” (as Clair Huxtable) and “Cosby” (as Ruth Lucas), she has performed in “Jelly’s Last Jam,” “Into the Woods” and other Broadway musicals.

She looks forward to working in a venue that brings her in close contact with her audience.

“I was always groomed,” Rashad said, “to feel that the performance area is my living room and that my guests have arrived. I enjoy interacting with people, as one should.

“My first real show performance was opening for Bill in Las Vegas, directly after the end of the first television series. And what I appreciated most about those performances--my first extended personal appearances--was the honesty involved. I found in Las Vegas that when you were not trying to ‘perform’ was when the audience was happiest. Because they didn’t come to see a ‘character,’ they came to see me.”

Despite the obvious differences between working in television, films, musicals and nightclubs, she sees a link.

“I’m always trying to connect everything that I do,” Rashad said. “Singing and acting are very much the same to me--the honesty, finding the truth in what you do. And when all of the ‘acting’ disappears, that’s when I’m most happiest, whether I’m singing, doing a musical or working in television.”

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Rashad’s approach to her art traces to a childhood in Houston, where she was exposed to a wide variety of cultural experiences.

“I grew up listening to Duke Ellington, Dakota Staton, Shorty Rogers, Count Basie and Lionel Hampton,” she said, “to Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Bach, Chopin and Brahms. So the impact of music upon me was broad, from a very young age.”

She studied piano and viola in junior high and high school and classical guitar in college--”on my own time because I liked the instrument and the way its sound made me feel”--on her way to graduating magna cum laude from Howard University in Washington, D.C., with a degree in fine arts.

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Despite her success as an actress (she’s receive two Emmy nominations, a People’s Choice Award and an NAACP Image Award) and her belief in the connectedness of her work, her affection and involvement with music have always been at the foundation of her creative overview.

“Musical training preceded my theatrical training,” Rashad said. “My orientation is musical, and it impacts what I do.

“Take the rhythm of emotion, for example. When you’re in a conversation with someone, whether it’s a heated or a loving conversation, there’s a rhythm. And, however unconsciously, we flow into those rhythms, we create them out of gestures, feelings and thoughts,” she said. “An actor, without being contrived or manipulative, must be aware of that as part of the craft of acting.”

Rashad said she’ll bring all those elements to bear in her performance at Odessa--as a subtext to her singing.

“It’s not something that’s cerebral,” she said. “It’s a combination of spontaneity, skill and training.

“Once I heard Aretha Franklin say, ‘I don’t sing anything that I don’t know something about.’ And that always stuck in my mind. For me, I don’t sing anything I don’t like--musically or lyrically.

“It wouldn’t occur to me to sing something that didn’t touch me that way,” she said. “As an actress I don’t choose a role that I don’t want to play, and the same thing holds true with a song.”

Expect her Odessa performance to be rich with songs that she knows something about. And expect it to be a performance by an artist who clearly enjoys what she is doing.

“I’ve always enjoyed music,” she said, “and my greatest hope is to share that enjoyment with every member of the audience.”

* Phylicia Rashad performs tonight at Odessa, 680 S. Coast Highway, Laguna Beach. 7:30 p.m. $295, includes four-course dinner, concert, dancing and midnight toast. $150 without dinner. Also Thursday at 8:30 p.m. $150, includes hors d’oeuvres, champagne. (714) 376-8792.