Jane Kaczmarek became well known for playing Lois, the harried mom of three boys at home and a fourth off on other misadventures, on "Malcolm in the Middle." She followed that up by playing a hardened judge on the legal drama "Raising the Bar." This month, you can see her up close at the 60-seat Deaf West Theater during the Antaeus Company's performance of "The Autumn Garden."

The NoHo theater group boasts many celebrity members, as well as a company of trained performers you might not know by name. For Kaczmarek, it is her first gig since "Raising the Bar." The play, by Lillian Hellman, is about an annual end of summer gathering for a group of friends. The 1949-set reunion creates drama between the 12 characters.

Kaczmarek plays Nina Denery, sharing the role with Kitty Swink. All Antaeus productions feature two casts alternating performances. In the lobby of the Deaf West theater, Kaczmarek sipped a tea from the nearby Starbucks as a Saturday afternoon rehearsal continued on stage.

PATCH: Is this your first show with Antaeus?

JANE KACZMAREK: Yes. I know these people though for a long time. Jeannie Hackett I've known since 1980, so 30 years. We met back in Williamstown when we were young…er. And I've always loved this company. I know many, many of the actors here very well. So I've just been friends with them and have helped them with some fundraising and I thought this would be an interesting play to join them in.

PATCH: Why was "The Autumn Garden" a good choice to dive into a full performance?

KACZMAREK: Well, it's kind of perfect for where I am in my life for one thing. They had asked me originally to look at a different character but this one appealed to me. I thought she was interesting and I could understand why a lot of the things were happening. I thought it would be an interesting character to pursue. It's also not the lead. It's a smaller part and I have three small children. I'm taking care of them full time these days so I didn't want to be doing something that would be overwhelming. It was just perfect. This was easy to memorize. It was easy to rehearse. It just worked out well for my life.

PATCH: What do you get out of playing a 60-seat space?

KACZMAREK: Well, it's back in those days of why you got into this in the first place. It's fun storytelling and it's fun that it's a real labor of love. We're bringing in parts of our costumes from home, we're doing our own hair, our own makeup. This is why I got into theater in the first place and it's so much fun to be in a cramped little dressing room with all the ladies and a curtain separating us from the guys. You get very, very close doing theater this way which is very different than most television experiences.

PATCH: It seemed so casual with each cast swapping in and out. Are rehearsals always this casual?

KACZMAREK: Yes, the double casting makes it. I've never seen a company that is quite as hospitable and generous and accommodating. You kind of swap out. You perform at different times. You rehearse with all the other actors and then they put the cast together last week of who was going to be with whom. Then that cast sets in but up to that point, it's really like playing and you have to really listen because how another actor is doing something varies from the other actor who's doing it. So you really have to not take anything for granted.

PATCH: What other activities have you participated in with Antaeus?

KACZMAREK: Oh, I was so impressed with a group of one acts they did a while ago called "Tonight at 8:30." It was Noel Coward one acts and I thought how great to have a party for them. So I had a party at my house in Pasadena. I've just sold that house but it was a magnificent estate and we had a Noel Coward party where it was a fundraiser for them. It was champagne and everyone dressed in the 1920s and 30s and walked around these beautiful gardens drinking champagne and singing Noel Coward songs. They put on a show as we just did with Shakespeare for this last fundraiser and I was so happy to have them in my house. It was a perfect house for this kind of event.  I just M.C.'ed the fundraiser they had this year and I'm really proud to support this theater. I think they're the best company of actors in Los Angeles and it's really great to be doing a play with them.

PATCH: Have you done readings and workshops with them?

KACZMAREK: I did a reading of "Cousin Bette" with them and did a reading of this play also but doing a different character.

PATCH: What have been your favorite North Hollywood haunts as you've worked here?

KACZMAREK: Oh, we ate at a great Indian restaurant up here on Lankershim. We went to the Pitfire but it was too crowded so we went to this Indian place next door that was fabulous. Eclectic is right here so we go and we love the Starbucks on the corner because someone's always going to Starbucks. There's a constant pilgrimage up there and coming back, but this is an exciting place. There's a theater right next door, you see theaters all around here. They have the whole great things over the streets now with NoHo. It's really being established as a true center for theater in Los Angeles. It's exciting to come down here.

PATCH: Do you see any other productions in the district?

KACZMAREK: I'm curious to see this one that's next door that's called "The Butcher of Baraboo." I'm from Wisconsin and Baraboo is a town in Wisconsin so that's caught my eye.

PATCH: You shot "Malcolm in the Middle" at CBS Radford. Where were your favorite places in Studio City?

KACZMAREK: You know, I would always sleep during lunch and they would bring me a sandwich. We would eat at a sushi place a lot though. They would bring a menu for lunch and I'd just pick something, then go to bed and bring it back. It was a little different than this now.

PATCH: The house was in Studio City for location shoots, right?

KACZMAREK: Oh yeah, we were on Cantura St. and it always surprised me that they would make that house look so horrible when we filmed there and I drove by it, someone was visiting and I said, "Do you want to see our house on Malcolm?" and I drove up and down Cantura St., I thought, "Where is that house?" because every house looked so nice and realized that when we worked there, they literally rolled out a dead lawn. They put dead bushes in. They put leaves on the roof. They made that house look so badly maintained that I guess I didn't realize that. They did a good job of making it look real.

PATCH: Once the show was a hit, would neighbors come and watch you film?

KACZMAREK: The most embarrassing thing was I always shopped at Fashion Square, the mall on Woodman. It was just the mall I went to. One of the episodes I was pregnant now for the second time on Malcolm with my daughter and I'm supposed to be running through the mall. I was too pregnant to run and they were still trying to hide the pregnancy. So they made a kind of cart for me and they had guys pull it through the mall with me going like this [mimicking running] and all these people from stores I went to came out and I was like, "Hi, hi." The clerks I knew. This is something I wish people who didn't know me were watching, but we filmed that show for 7 years. It was always fun at night, night shoots because all the neighbors would come out and mill about on the neighborhoods.

PATCH: Have you kept in touch with the boys?

KACZMAREK: I keep in touch with Brian Cranston. We just had coffee last week at Aroma Café. That's the place that Brian and I always meet. It was very funny because David Higgins came up who played Craig, the fellow at the drugstore I worked with, so all three of us were there and I think anyone who loved Malcolm would've walked by and thought, "Oh my God, here's half the cast." I talked to Frankie Muniz about a year ago. I think he's in Arizona or New Mexico. He's a race car driver. I know Justin [Berfield] is a producer and Eric Per Sullivan is at USC.

PATCH: What did having a hit TV show at that point do for you?

KACZMAREK: Well, as Brian Cranston always said, you now know exactly what the first line of your obituary is going to read. It's going to say, "The loudmouth mother from the Fox hit 'Malcolm in the Middle' died today at the Woodland Hills Home for Actors." You will always be remembered first and foremost for this show that was such a big hit, which is a funny thing to think of, but that was just a blessing for seven years to have steady work.  You always knew when your vacations were. You always knew where you were going to be in the fall and knew that you could kind of have a career that allowed you to just take whatever jobs you wanted to do from now on. That's really been the best thing about it is I can work, I did a TV movie for Lifetime this summer but I hadn't worked in a year. I just don't have the desire I once did. 'Malcolm' took it out of me. I had two pregnancies during the show, I had three tiny children at home and doing 14-hour days and raising a family was a lot.

PATCH: I was hoping 'Raising the Bar' might be a candidate for the obituary, too.

KACZMAREK: I know, it was disappointing. It had great numbers in the beginning and didn't last too long. It was hard not to smile. That character was so stern and I'm so used to at least goofing around in between takes so that was a stern part.

PATCH: I wanted to tell Kellerman (Mark Paul Goselaar) to stop pushing her and just play diplomatically.

KACZMAREK: I know, he was asking for it. We filmed that up in Sylmar. That was right around here too, just straight up the 210, but I hadn't worked since then until this summer. You know, my husband filed for divorce and the marriage ended so that was a tough year. That's why getting back into this was just what the doctor ordered.

PATCH: How grueling is the theater schedule?

KACZMAREK: Oh, this is easy. I told them, because there's another cast, if I can't come, the other girl comes. So I told them I really don't like to work after 3. I'll work from 9 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon because my kids come home at 3 and I like to be around. So they were able to really juggle things and now once we start performing, we really only work Thursday through Sunday and only half the shows because the other cast does it. It's just right.

PATCH: You also got to be on classic '80s TV shows. What are your memories of "St. Elsewhere" and "Hill Street Blues?"

KACZMAREK: I came out here in '82 from drama school. I was at Yale Drama School and at the time, you're supposed to stay back there and do theater. I just wanted to be Mary Tyler Moore. I thought, "I want to come out here and do television." I was really lucky. I got the first job the first day I was here. And always was lucky enough to find work. You know "The Paper Chase," and I left "The Paper Chase" to do "St. Elsewhere" and left "St. Elsewhere" to do 'Hill Street.' One thing led to another and then it stopped the way everyone's career goes through ups and downs. Then I missed the east coast and I missed theater so I went back but I would always come out here to do television to pay for the life that I wanted to lead on the east coast. I remember being killed on 'Hill Street,' I was going off to do a movie and I guess I didn't tell my mother that I was going to be shot in the face. She would always watch it with her bridge club so they stopped their cards to have lemon meringue pie and watch Janie on "Hill Street Blues." It was this BOOM, I got shot through a window and glass was flying. My mother said, "Why didn't you tell me you were going to get shot? It was so upsetting for the bridge club."

PATCH: Was the bridge club still around to see 'Malcolm' and 'Raising the Bar?'

KACZMAREK: Yes, oh yes. 'Malcolm' was never their cup of tea. My mother never thought people should be spitting pizza on television and my mother was horrified that people thought it was modeled on her since she was my mother. But they watch 'Malcolm' in reruns now and they think it's very funny.

PATCH: A lot of actors famous for playing mean characters are actually sweethearts.

KACZMAREK: Oh, that's interesting. I never thought of that. Well, maybe that is because I know that when I was playing Lois, I was playing a character. And she was very easy for me to play. I don't think she ever did anything that I thought was that over the top. My children, I have very nice kids and I think maybe they watch 'Malcolm' and they know that if they're not good, that's the wrath that's going to come down on them.

PATCH: Do you ever catch a rerun and go, "I don't remember that one?"

KACZMAREK: No. I catch reruns, they gave me all my clothes afterwards, which were khakis and jeans and shirts. Once I was walking through the room and my kids were watching it and I stopped and I looked at Lois and I looked at me. I was wearing exactly the same outfit I was in the show.

PATCH: You also got to be in some classic '80s movies. How about "The Heavenly Kid?"

KACZMAREK: "Heavenly Kid," I remember how long ago that was, some of those kids were talking about Madonna. I remember saying, "Who's Madonna?" That's what I really remember about that. It was that long ago that Madonna was not yet a household word.  That whole idea of someone dying and coming back and having a final goodbye. "Our Town," it happens, "Carousel," it happens. It's kind of just a great dramatic story.

PATCH: And "Vice Versa," in that great body swapping craze.

KACZMAREK: There's a new one coming out where two friends, they're just making it now. It's Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds. I just read the script and I thought, "Oh my gosh, everything old is new again." But it's two friends. One's a happily married guy and one's a bachelor and they flip. That's coming out this year, I don't remember what the name of it is so they love that format.