Tom Pelphrey (ex-Jonathan, GUIDING LIGHT) recently returned to New York from California to star in An Evening of Don Nigro, a collection of four short plays exploring the crazy, the sexy and the dead. Here, Pelphrey tells Soap Opera Weekly about his love of theater, and why he doesn't plan on going back to the small screen.

Soap Opera Weekly: How did you get involved with this play?
Tom Pelphrey: I'm one of the 12 founding members of the Apothecary Theatre Company. We're all Rutgers graduates. We became an official company a few years ago, and this will be our first production.

Weekly: Why did the company choose these particular plays?
Pelphrey: Don Nigro is a playwright who we were all familiar with, because we worked on his stuff in school. The plays are awesome. They almost feel like ghost stories. They're kind of creepy. They have minimal sets, cool costumes and cool lighting, and they are sexy, dark comedies. It's good entertainment.

Weekly: Tell us about the two plays you star in.
Pelphrey: Fair Rosamund and her Murderer is this really weird fairy tale. It's just me and Rosamund, and we tell the story of our epic romance. It's delirious and really funny — like a fairy tale on acid. It's fun. In Wonders of the Invisible World Revealed, I play the Invisible Man, so actually, you don't see me! I'm onstage, but I'm entirely wrapped in bandages, with sunglasses, a wig and gloves. The story is about an encounter with a man and his servant in this hotel in England. It's got moving and beautiful language. It's also scary and intense.

Weekly: Was it tough acting behind all of the bandages?
Pelphrey: The first time we tried to do "Wonders" with me wrapped up, it was a complete and utter disaster. Everyone was laughing, and we had to stop in the middle [because] the bandages started falling off. Plus, I was wrapped too tight around my nose, so I sounded like a child holding his nose and pretending to be annoying. You had to be there.

Weekly: Do you prefer doing theater over filming for television?
Pelphrey: I always prefer plays. It's such a different experience. I love being in rehearsal when you are sitting there and you think, "This isn't working right now. How do we make this work?" You sit there, and you can be creative and also be intelligent, and feel like you are contributing to the process. I'm sure you get to do that with TV sometimes, but it's so fast. In the theater, you feel like you are on a team working on a project. When all of the discoveries you make and the things you figure out finally come together in the performance, it's like the icing on the cake. It's so cool to be in front of a live audience. It really feeds you.

Weekly: Is there any chance that you'd consider returning to soaps?
Pelphrey: I'm trying to do different things. I moved out to California, and I miss New York, but I'm finally starting to like it out there. For now, I want to keep exploring these other opportunities.