Nestled in the foothills of the Appalachians, the tiny Barter Theatre of Abingdon, Va., could never house the great audiences that actor-opera singer Damon Evans once knew in the U.S. and Britain. But he's still thrilled to be onstage. "People look at me and say, 'This is a long way from Carnegie Hall, a long way from London, a long way from The Jeffersons,' " says Evans, 51, recalling the Top 10 CBS sitcom on which he played George and Louise's son Lionel in the mid to late '70s. "I say it's a long way from a lot of things. People don't know how grateful I am just to be here. I shouldn't be here."

Four years ago a depressed and unemployed Evans came close to ending his own life. High on crack cocaine and crystal methamphetamine, he walked from his upper Manhattan apartment to the George Washington Bridge and contemplated leaping into the Hudson River 250 feet below. "I thought, 'I can't go on like this anymore,' " Evans recalls. Luckily a lack of nerve—and one nagging thought—kept his feet on the ground. "I was thinking, 'How am I going to kill myself when I don't even know myself?' " he says.

The next day Damon Evans started getting to know Damon Evans. He admitted his drug addiction to his therapist and joined Narcotics Anonymous. To support himself, he took a job in the mail room of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, where he gamely replied "Yes" whenever coworkers asked, "Weren't you Lionel?" Evans also joined a church and began taking singing lessons.

Gradually, with prodding from Jerry Hogan, the manager who has worked with him since the '80s, producers started calling again. In 1998 he got a small role in a local production of Tin Pan Alley in Connecticut. The following year a British producer for whom Evans had once sung called out of the blue and tapped him for an opera in London. Working regularly in small theaters across the U.S. ever since, he's now at Barter acting in Neil Simon's Proposals and in Eleanor: An American Love Story, a play about Eleanor Roosevelt. Says actress Maria Gibbs, who took Evans under her wing on the set of The Jeffersons: "I'm happy to hear he's gotten himself back together."

The only child of Baltimore lab technician Richard Evans (who died in 1989) and secretary Berteal Matthews, 75, Damon studied music and voice at Michigan's Interlochen Arts Academy. After graduating in 1967, Evans fine-tuned that voice in Broadway musicals. In 1975, at age 25, he landed the part of Lionel Jefferson, replacing Mike Evans (no relation), who had originated the role. The classically trained actor found the work less than satisfying—and acted out. "I'd be late a lot. Sometimes I wouldn't show up at all," Evans recalls. "I had a really bad attitude."

He left the show in 1978 to pursue his first love, opera. Jobs led him to London, where in 1992 he was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award (the British equivalent of a Tony) for his performance as Joe in Carmen Jones. He also garnered raves for his turn as Sportin' Life in the Royal Opera House's production of Porgy and Bess. "He's riveting onstage," says Harolyn Blackwell, 45, a friend and singer who has worked with Evans. "He reaches across the footlights and grabs the audience."

After his permit to work in the U.K. expired, Evans returned to New York—where he still keeps a one-bedroom apartment—hoping to capitalize on his successes. But he was continually offered the same role: Sportin' Life. "I was despondent," he says. "I could do more than Sportin' Life, but no one wanted to hear that." Evans went jobless for three years and turned to drugs to numb his frustration. "Getting high was all that mattered," he says. "I didn't have any pride."

Today Evans, still single and childless, loves it when thespians at Barter ask for his advice. One of them needed help hitting certain notes. "He didn't trust his voice," says Evans. "He'll get that confidence. It takes time." More than most, Evans knows how true that is.

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