A Love Letter

There's an episode of the fantastic Canadian television show SLINGS & ARROWS (a parody of the Stratford Festival), in which the opening night of KING LEAR is cancelled because the actor playing Lear is out, doped up on morphine (details not worth going into here, but watch the show). The Cordelia and one of the other young actors are commiserating at the bar with two of the older character actors in the troupe. One of them says something to the effect of, "You have to have a few horror shows to go along with the good ones. Then, later on, you'll have stories to tell. You'll have had a life!" I remember being so moved by those words (which were more eloquent in actuality than in my recollection), because they attest to the gypsy spirit of theatre people - you go on, you go on, you go on. You measure your life by what role you were playing at the time. As the Brits would say, there is just one thing that should keep you from going to work on a given night: "Only death. Your own."

I'd just gotten back to New York from a really difficult gig when I watched that episode of S&A, and it called to mind what we'd been repeating all summer when something ELSE, so horrible as to be funny, would happen: "One for the memoirs, darling, one for the memoirs!" Let's just say that working with a cow as a scene partner is DEFINITELY going in the autobiography.

Last night, we had a FANTASTIC show. The audience was really with us, and was having a ball (in a comedy - farce, especially - the audience gives you SUCH a boost, and when they're enjoying it, you don't have to work quite so hard). We went back to the cast house, and were all having dinner and our post-show wind-down, still buzzed by how much fun we'd had on stage. I asked Sarah, the actress playing Bertha, to please tell us ANNIE 2 stories. Now, there are certain shows that you hear about, even years later, that have become infamous - CARRIE being the most well-known example. ANNIE 2 (subtitled HANNIGAN'S REVENGE) is one such show. It was amazing to sit around the kitchen table, eyes wide, and listen to her recollect horror story after horror story - how amazing the script was at the first reading to how it was destroyed, lewd things that were said to her, Dorothy Loudon's understudy having to go on without a single rehearsal and her lines written on poster board in the pit, crying children, weeping mothers, one actor who you'd know was about to go up on his lines because he'd sort of twitch by blinking three times - really and truly unbelievable stuff.

I love that I've worked enough to now have some stories of my own to tell - some of them wonderful and fun, some of them hilarious, some of them absolutely AWFUL (Summer of the Cow) - and can't wait to accumulate more. It brings SLINGS & ARROWS to mind...you've had a life! A life in the theatre. Is there any richer kind?

I'm Bringing the Pompadour Back

All my glorious plans of blogging more frequently ended in sleeping instead. Hey, it was a looooooong tech.

The show looks BEAUTIFUL, and we've settled into our run. We were talking backstage last night about how NINE is a really fun show to run, and actually less fun to rehearse. Rehearsals can often be the most exciting part of the process - let's try this, okay, now this, what if I do THIS instead - but NINE is a bit of a beast. It's difficult to get a firm grasp on, and difficult to tell the story well (I know from having seen it several times before). Anyway, now that we're open, we've all just kind of relaxed and started to have fun. Below is a photo of me in full Stephanie Necrophorus regalia, singing about why I loathe our leading man:


I look ridiculous walking about the streets of Boston with poofy hair, but I got over that really quickly. If anything, most people are a little deferential when I have the pompadour happening, I suppose because it makes me look really intense. Yep. I frighten people. This is what I have discovered.

Okay, people, PIMP YOUR FRIENDS time! My lovely marvelous wonderful BATS are all involved in this amazing new project called #serialsattheflea. Late night episodic theatre. I'm grumpy about not being able to see them because I'm in Boston, so I'm trying to send everyone else to see them so that I can live vicariously, stage-mom style. Basically, there are five plays, and every week, the audience votes for what they want to see the next installment of. Only three make it. They'll return the next week with the next "episode" of their play, if you will, and the other two teams have to completely regroup and devise an entirely new premise for the following week. I freaking love The Flea. Two of the Bats, Stephen Stout & Dominic Spillaine, are the evil geniuses behind this whole thing. Go!

With regards to BE CREATIVE EVERY DAY, I have actually been succeeding, and not just because I'm in a run. I've been doing a lot of writing, as well as working on new material for a class I'll be taking soon. It's interesting challenging yourself to something like this, but not being a visual artist - I know I have something to show for it, but I can't just take a photograph of it and post it.

However, I CAN post videos, and I have done so for A MARGINALLY CHRISTMAS CABARET! There are four of them, and they all came out really well - my friend Alesia's brother David Lawson and a couple of his friends did all the video and editing for us.
Here is Colored Lights, from THE RINK. I call it the Liza Minnelli Special.
Next, we have River in the Rain, from BIG RIVER, featuring my marvelous brother Aaron! A few of his improv friends have watched and been impressed, as he only really sings when I force him to.
Then, there's the ridiculous Diamonds Are Forever.
And finally, the video that has unsurprisingly turned out to be everyone's favorite, I Will Never Leave You, from SIDE SHOW, featuring my friend Hernando Umana. He was my Riff Raff in ROCKY HORROR, and he sings like a beautiful woman. Seriously. It's actually not my favorite video for how I sound, but it's so preposterous that I can't help loving it.

I'm not very good at summing up with a grand, sweeping statement

I did it last year, and I'll do it again! A summing up of my year in the way that most makes sense to me - in shows! I'm including whatever workshops and readings I remember as well.

2010
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (workshop)
Dash Dexter (reading at MTC)
Don't Tell Mama's Cabaret
What Would Woody Do? (reading at The Flea with Tony Shalhoub)
A Tipsy Cabaret (at The Sonnet Theatre/The Producer's Club)
Stop the World - I Want to Get Off (with Musicals Tonight!)
Romeo & Hamlet (with GayfestNYC at The June Havoc/Abingdon)
Una, La Whore Del Mundo (reading at The Flea)
Office Hours (reading at The Flea with AR Gurney)
Scam (reading at Random House)
Unlawful Gatherings (at TAI, with my Sunday Playtime crew)
As Bees in Honey Drown (with Twin Tiers Theater Festival)
Boeing Boeing (with Twin Tiers)
Into the Woods (with Twin Tiers)
The Rocky Horror Show (with ReVision Theatre)
Scam (reading at New York Theatre Workshop)
Looking at Christmas (dialect coach - The Flea)
All Our Best for the Holidays (with Cape Rep)
A Marginally Christmas Cabaret (at the Royal Theatre/The Producer's Club)

And, as I began rehearsals for it in 2010...
Nine (with SpeakEasy Stage)

I'm missing a couple of readings in there from February. Can't remember project titles. Old age. It comes so quickly.

Wow, looking back on that, I was really fortunate this year. I met some crazy awesome people, and got to play two bucket list roles within the space of a month (Gretchen in BOEING and The Baker's Wife in WOODS).

Dialects I was hired to use in performance this year: Russian (2x), RP, Cockney, German, and Faux-Russian (hello, Magenta).

Favorite piece of theatre I saw is probably JERUSALEM in London with Mark Rylance - and it's coming to Broadway, folks!!! I also loved BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON at The Public and LA CAGE AUX FOLLES on the BroadWAY.

Other marvelousness with regards to my friends includes my brother performing regularly and hilariously with his Harold team Sandino at UCB, Hannah performing at The National Theatre in London with THE WHITE GUARD, Nick Adams booking a big ol' Broadway lead in PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT, and Nikka Lanzarone making her Broadway debut in WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN!

Ten points to anyone who knows what the title of this post references.

I'm starting the new year by seeing a show at SpeakEasy, then coming home to do some work on NINE on my own. We've worked through all of the music in the past few days, and have our first read through/sing through tomorrow! Huzzah! Onward.

Mele Kalikimaka

I have been grossly negligent of late with regards to posting. This can be readily explained in three words: I'm in Hawaii.

Before I go on to anything else, I want to do a PIMP YOUR FRIENDS segment. The pimping, in this case, is of Croft and Pearce, a British comedy duo. They are gorgeous, hilarious, and also happen to be dear friends of mine. They've been gigging around London, and have just released their first YouTube video, which I think you should watch. It's the first in a series regarding Prince William's engagement. I think it gets even funnier with every repeated viewing.

I want to do a fairly epic blog post a'la Krakow (see Feb or March if you don't know what I'm talking about and care to read about my all-too brief travels to Poland), so I'll save that for a few days from now, when I'm in Boston, freezing and unwilling to do much aside from rehearse and hibernate. Oh, that's right, kids. Starting December 27th, I will be in snowy, slushy Boston, in rehearsals for NINE. I've been reading the script, and I'm SO excited!!! Not for the brutal weather, obviously, but singing this incredible music will more than make up for it.

The Marginally Christmas Cabaret went smashingly well! Thanks to all who came out to see us! Videos are currently being edited, and will hopefully be posted to my YouTube channel within the next few weeks.

So, tomorrow, I'll wake up in Honolulu for the last time. We'll see Pearl Harbor, my parents will go to the Baylor basketball game, and then we'll fly to Breckenridge, Colorado, for a family Christmas. December 26th, I catch a flight that puts me into Newark at midnight. I'll get home, unpack, REPACK, and catch a bus to Boston first thing in the morning for a 5pm rehearsal. Mercifully, I can sleep the entire next day. Then I'm in Boston through February 27th! Trident Booksellers & Cafe, here I come!

Some pics of The Big Island posted below!

A Holiday Cabaret, You Say?

Is it a shameless plug if it's on your own blog? I didn't think so.

Next Wednesday night, the 15th of December in the year of 2010, I'm singing in a cabaret show I put together with my dear friends Alesia Lawson and Sarah Randall Hunt. If you're in the area and free that night, I suggest you check us out, because it's gonna be a grand old time.

A MARGINALLY CHRISTMAS CABARET!
We know what you boys and girls want this holiday season - SINGIN'! LOTS OF IT! Well, Santa ain't gonna let you down, kiddies. He's sending a magnificent triumvirate of funny ladies (and a couple of funny lads!) your way this December 15th! We will occasionally be embracing the fact that this cabaret show is mid-December, and throwing something Christmasy your way. However, as we really can't be bothered to Fa La La La La our way through an entire 90 minutes, the majority of the evening will be free of elves, trees, dreidels, reindeer, nativities, and references to the Claus family.

Vaguely holiday-related. Absolutely hilarious.

Suggested donation of $10. Anything we make over the first $200 is going to The New York City Coalition Against Hunger.

Featuring the glorious talents of:
Sarah Randall Hunt
Amy Jackson
Alesia Lawson

With guest performers:
Aaron Jackson
Hernando Umana
Kenneth Kyle Senn

Aaaaand the marvelous Michael Hopewell on piano!

Wednesday, December 15th, 2010 @ 7:00pm
The Producers Club - Royale Theatre
358 W. 44th St, just off 9th Avenue

Coffeeshop Reflections

I'm sitting in RBC NYC, a coffeeshop in TriBeCa that I'd never been to before. This is a shame, as my cappuccino was excellent, there is WiFi, and it's SO near The Flea! I'm better informed now! I needs must know where every blessed non-Starbucks establishment is in this city. I NEEDS MUST KNOW!!!

Well, it was a doozie of a week, but in all ways wonderful! I had a couple of rehearsals for this concert I’m singing in next week for the 99th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire (March 25th, 1911). The text of the song in which I have the lead vocal is from a famous speech Rosie Schniederman gave a couple of weeks after the incident at a memorial service held at the Met Opera House. I’ll include the text here, as it’s very powerful:

"I would be a traitor to these poor burned bodies if I came here to talk good fellowship. We have tried you good people of the public and we have found you wanting. The old Inquisition had its rack and its thumbscrews and its instruments of torture with iron teeth. We know what these things are today; the iron teeth are our necessities, the thumbscrews are the high-powered and swift machinery close to which we must work, and the rack is here in the firetrap structures that will destroy us the minute they catch on fire.
This is not the first time girls have been burned alive in the city. Every week I must learn of the untimely death of one of my sister workers. Every year thousands of us are maimed. The life of men and women is so cheap and poverty is so sacred. There are so many of us for one job it matters little if 146 of us are burned to death.
We have tried you citizens; we are trying you now, and you have a couple of dollars for the sorrowing mothers, brothers and sisters by way of a charity gift. But every time the workers come out in the only way they know to protest against conditions which are unbearable the strong hand of the law is allowed to press down heavily upon us.
Public officials have only words of warning to us – warning that we must be intensely peaceable, and they have the workhouse just back of all their warnings. The strong hand of the law beats us back, when we rise, into the conditions that make life unbearable.
I can't talk fellowship to you who are gathered here. Too much blood has been spilled. I know from my experience it is up to the working people to save themselves. The only way they can save themselves is by a strong working-class movement."
– Rose Schneiderman, The Triangle Fire(April 2nd, 1911)

She’s a major figure in the first wave of feminism, as well as in reform for women’s labor laws in the early part of the twentieth century. Apparently, Schneiderman’s granddaughter will be at the concert, which is really exciting. The concert is on Thursday evening!

I went to Boston on Wednesday (St. Patrick's Day...in BOSTON...all of the bars were packed with college students sporting green, green, green) to see my acting teacher (Karl Bury) in PARADISE LOST at the ART. I’ve hitherto only seen him on film or television, so this was grand! He was excellent, as expected. I can’t say I loved the production, though most of the actors were fantastic, and the play is great (it’s Odets, c’mon!). I had a few quibbles, shall we say, with the direction. He made some choices I felt were arbitrary and detracted from the telling of the story. The trip was well worth it, though, not just to see Karl, but also to spend the entire day walking around the city. The weather was glorious, and perfect for being outside…I would love to go back to Boston for a gig. I wouldn’t want to live there permanently, and certainly not in January, but during the spring and summer, it’s a gorgeous place to be.

On Friday, I performed in A TIPSY CABARET, a show I set up with some girls from my acting class and various gigs. We rented a space, hired my friend Michael to play for us, and invited our friends to come watch us perform - for free! Too often do we have to pay something like $25 to see our peers perform, and it adds up. So delightful to be able to offer the opportunity to watch us with no charge.

I opened the show with “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” preceding it with, “In the spirit of performing things we probably shouldn’t be doing at auditions…” It got a nice big laugh when the vamp began, and everyone recognized it. Later on, I sang "Moments in the Woods" from INTO THE WOODS, "So Far Away," from Carole King's album TAPESTRY, and "Class," from Chicago, with my amazing friend Melissa Dowty, who just returned from a 9-week gig in TN. SO good to have her back, and to get to sing such a ridiculous song with a comedic genius like her. All in all, the evening was a success, and a nice reminder for all of us that it's good for the soul and the creative spirit to sing for yourself sometimes, and perform for an audience, rather than a bunch of people behind a table who are reading your resume. Woo!

I've also begun work again on my own cabaret show for the character of Lady Jo...so far, I have a very (VERY) rough draft, and am excited to meet with my friend Phillip to discuss where we can go with it. YES for taking initiative and creating projects and jobs for ourselves! Actor Empowerment. Let's get with it.

I Hear In My Mind All of This Music

The gig at Don't Tell Mama's ended up being really fun! I was getting over a cold, but my voice decided to hang in there, and I was able to belt enough of my face off to make it through both songs unscathed. We each also had to do a bit of patter in between, and I was pretty pleased with how mine came off, considering I'd never really done patter before. Performing on the bill with four other people (I went last, shaZAM!) really made me realize how much I wanted to put together my own cabaret show. I've been talking about doing one for seriously like three years. I had several ideas - all Beatles songs, all Regina Spektor songs, all female pop & folk singers, all old broad showtunes (that was was going to be entitled, "Life Begins at Forty, But I'm Only 23!")...I still like the idea of the Regina Spektor cabaret. One friend also suggested I do a cabaret show in character as "Lady Jo," which is, of course, the title of this blog! Lady Jo is really just a slightly more outlandish version of myself. She's me with my hostess hat on! She calls everyone "Cherub" and "Honeypot." I think it'd be grand to bring her out in full force onstage. We shall see. That's gonna take some serious work.

Had rehearsal for DASH DEXTER all day today. I'm pooped! It was great to see a lot of friends I've worked with in past, and get to sing with them again!

Miss Jo is off to put on A BIT OF FRY & LAURIE while she tidies her room before crashing, face first, into the 854 pillows she has on her bed. That sounds like hyperbole, I know. Maybe it is...but I still got me a lotta pillows!