Peter Gallagher is prepared to share a bit of his life with Chicago audiences.

The acclaimed film, television and stage actor brings his one-man show "Peter Gallagher, Don't Give Up On Me" to Drury Lane Water Tower Place in Chicago today for performances through mid-December. The show runs Sunday and Monday nights.

"Don't Give Up On Me" gives audiences a personal look into Gallagher's life, career, and his work with famous friends and legends such as Jack Lemmon, James Cagney, Gregory Peck and other Hollywood greats.

"This is sort of storytelling and song in the simplest most immediate kind of way and the audience is as important to it as the cast," said Gallagher, by phone recently.

"It's essentially the "Dean Martin Show" and I get to be Dino and the guests," he joked, adding he loves performing the self-penned one-man production.

"I feel really lucky to have spent as much time with these guys that I have because I do believe it gives me a point of view that I'll never lose. And it makes you feel like you're part of a tribe of some very cool elders that you want to be like. These are backstage kinds of tales you don't hear much," Gallagher said.

In addition to stories about Hollywood's elite and what he learned from them, the actor said the show also features talk of his marriage, children (his son attends Northwestern University) his father, (a graduate of Notre Dame's Class of '35) and his mother, who battled Alzheimer's disease for 20 years. Tunes from the Great American Songbook, including "Fly Me To The Moon," and "The Best Is Yet To Come," are also featured.

The show was first performed in 2006 in Los Angeles as a benefit for The Actor's Fund.

"I put together the first incarnation of the show. Then I worked on it and debuted it in front of a paying audience at Feinstein's in New York. That was the first time I put it in front of the public and it was very nerve-racking but it worked," he said.

"I had always wanted to do a show like this," he said. "But the challenge for me was not to do it with 'And then I did' and "I also','' he said. It had to be much more than just a run-down of his life.

Between the show's stint in New York to its debut in Chicago, Gallagher said he's tweaked it.

"I've shifted the focus a bit. There are similar stories but I've distilled it a bit, tried to talk a little less and sing a little more," he said. Gallagher added more stories about Lemmon and Cagney as well. "I sat down (and focused) on what and who inspired me."

Gallagher said it's definitely tough to do a one-man show.

"It was, without a doubt, and I'm not exaggerating, the most terrifying thing I've ever done in my life. I'd never done anything that I'd written and I'd never spoken about these things. I think what draws me to acting is the opportunity to not necessarily be me," he said.

Gallagher, known for a variety of works, including films such as "Sex, Lies and Videotape," "American Beauty," and "To Gillian On Her 37th Birthday," as well as television roles in "An Inconvenient Woman," "The Murder of Mary Phagen," and "The OC" actually broke into show business via musicals.

"Singing was how I got my first jobs," Gallagher said. In the beginning of his career he performed in New York shows such as "Hair" and "Grease."

Gallagher said the theater community in New York is used to his stage work so it's not too much of a "leap" to see his name attached to a play or musical there.

"But, I'm sure, for a lot of people, they are surprised that I sing at all," he said.

After his extensive experience in the entertainment field, Gallagher said it's still something he enjoys.

"I've done all these things -- movies, television shows, Broadway performances, records and so on and after doing them all in each of the last four decades, I still love what I do. And I think it has a lot to do with who I've been lucky enough to do it with," Gallagher said.

"Peter Gallagher, Don't Give Up On Me," 7 p.m. Nov. 22 and 29 and Dec. 13; and 8 p.m. Nov. 23 and 30 and Dec. 14

WHERE: Drury Lane Water Tower Place, 175 E. Chestnut St., Chicago

COST: $55

FYI: (312) 642-2000