Winter in Toronto

If my mother didn’t get such enjoyment out of correcting other people’s grammar, she might’ve majored in meteorology instead of English.

I never realized how much my mother’s obsession with weather influenced my life until I spent this winter in Toronto. The climate there is similar to northern Ohio, where I spent the bulk of my childhood.   Before we even got to Toronto, my husband and I began to have conversations like this:

“It’s gonna be cold in Canada,” he warned.  He had spent January and February there while on tour with Color Purple.  ”You better prepare yourself.”

“Prepare myself?”  I was offended.  ”I right near Canada.”  (Ashtabula is across the lake from Ontario.  I resisted the urge to tell him, a la Palin, that I could see Canada from my house.  Which wouldn’t have been true, anyway.  But almost true.)  ”The weather’s practically the same.”

“It is not as cold as Canada.”

“Yes, it is.  In fact, it’s worse because we get lake effect.  Do you know what lake effect snow is?”

“Yes,” he replied.  ”It’s when you get snow because you live near a lake.”

“Not quite.  It’s when the cool winds from the north blow over the warmer waters of Lake Erie, creating major storm patterns leading to snow squalls and ice.”

I hadn’t learned that on weather.com, which, incidentally, is my computer’s home page.  I learned that from my mother, who was constantly peering out the window at the clouds over Lake Erie to predict if we had enough time to get to the store and back before a storm hit.  She can predict when it will hit, how long it will last, and approximately how many feet of snow we’d have on the ground from simply looking at the sky.  This isn’t necessarily because she’s obsessed with weather, although she is.  (She becomes particularly unbearable around 4th of July, Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends.)  But reading the clouds is a major part of survival in an area termed “The Snow Belt.”

I thought everybody was raised like this.  But it turns out they weren’t.  Just me and my sisters, apparently.  Toronto has given me the chance to show off a little.

“Dammit, it’s snowing,” my husband will say in the morning.  He’s from the South and hates snow.

Quick glance out the window.  ”It’ll stop.”

“The Weather Channel says it’ll snow all day.”  André has begun to adopt the family habit of obsessing over weather channel.com.

“We’ll see.”  I don’t like to disparage the Weather Channel.  ”It definitely won’t stick, though.  The ground’s too warm.”

“It’s freezing out!”

“The temperature has to be lower than 30 for at least a week for snow to stick.  Probably longer in the city due to the effect of urban heat.”

“What are you talking about? “

Except for UHI, which I learned about when I moved to the City, I am simply parroting my mother. Or turning into her, however you want to look at it.  But I’m okay with it.  I’m glad she taught me which clouds mean snow and which clouds mean flurries.  In the spring I’m happy to know the exact shade of green the sky will turn when a tornado is on its way.  And in the summer I learned that a red sky at night really would mean a sailor’s delight… doesn’t everybody know that rhyme?

 

Finding a (Spiritual) Home for Christmas

Sunday morning marked my second attempt to go to church in Canada.  With the birth of Jesus looming, I need to find someplace to go Christmas Eve, or else come Saturday I know I will be overwhelmed with feelings of not just homesickness, but seasonal impropriety.

The first church I stumbled upon in Toronto was St. Thomas, an old parish adjacent to the University of Toronto.  I discovered it when I googled “Best Church Choirs Toronto.”  I figured if the preaching sucked, at least the choir would be good.  I was right on both counts.

I am not in any position to tell someone how to give a good sermon. But I can pontificate, if you will, on how not to give a sermon.   One should not summarize the Gospel and the readings, paraphrasing the main points and coming to an obvious moral conclusion while utilizing banal phrases such as “clothed in righteousness” and “in anticipation of God’s grace.”  (Which doesn’t even make sense.  The very concept of grace is that we’re blessed– or graced– with it every day.  But never mind.)  The choir was decent, but the congregation was old and unwelcoming.  They chanted most of the responses, so I couldn’t participate and felt lost.  I didn’t fit in there.  I left between the Liturgy of the Word and the Eucharist, which happened to be right before the collection plate was passed.  Oops.  Octogenarians glared at me as I snuck guiltily out the side door.  But I just couldn’t take it anymore.

The following week the Cathedral of St. James proved to be just as bad.  Not only did the preacher, to so-called Primate of Canada– whatever that is– preach an uninspiring sermon, but he did so in a voice that could only be intended to put us to sleep.  As if in divinity school he’d been told, “What the congregation really wants is a nap right now, so could you drone with a little less enthusiasm, please?  They’ll be sure to promote you to Primate.”

To make matters worse, his subject matter this fourth week of Advent was Gabriel’s announcement to Mary.  Prior to the sermon the service had been better than St. Thomas.  The fully professional choir reminded me of home.  There were people in the pews, and at least ten of them were under the age of 92.  I even counted six black people among the congregation– a rarity in any Anglican church, let alone one in the heart of Canada.   But then the Primate ascended the pulpit and ruined everything.

He had such rich material!  The virgin birth has always bugged me.  I think it bugs any honest modern person.  We’ve all read The Davinci Code and know that the virgin birth issue was either completely invented or at least revitalized in the Middle Ages to enforce a patriarchal system of rule.  I personally believe that the Virgin Mother thing got blown out of proportion by some gossip-y disciples.  I think it went like this:

Disciple 1:  Isn’t Jesus smart?

Disciple 2: Mmm-hmm.  And his mama a virgin, too.

Disciple 1:  (eyes widening) Really?!

Disciple 2:  Mmm-hmmm.  Her Baby Daddy is God.

And thus a religion is born.  In none of the Gospels does Jesus say “The meek shall inherit the earth.  And by the way, Mom was a virgin.”  It just isn’t important, the same way it’s not important if a priest is a woman or if a child has two daddies.

However, I don’t think that a Bible story has to be factual to be true.  The truth of the Anunciation is that Mary bent to the will of God, through whose power nothing is impossible, a concept that is even harder to grasp than a virgin birth, although I’m working hard on it.  Which is why I go to church in the first place, I guess.  I don’t go to hear the Gospel paraphrased and regurgitated.  Why would anyone go for that?  If there’s no insight to be gained spiritually or intellectually, why make time every Sunday to go?  And if there’s no nourishment offered, what future does the church– any church– actually have?

Once again I left out the side door before the service ended.  I asked myself why I care so much.  Most people show up someplace on Christmas, snooze through the service, and leave.  But I don’t want to be like that.  I don’t want to be someone who goes through the motions, especially when it comes to God.  I feel like there is a yearning among people of my generation to glean some sort of spiritual meaning from life.  I happen to believe that Jesus had some insight into this and am happy to call myself a Christian in that regard.  But the people who are seeking God, who are seeking meaning, aren’t finding it in mundane services intended for the elderly.

I don’t know where I’m going to go on Christmas.  My husband and I will have to improvise.  Maybe we’ll have to suffer through a lousy service in an unfamiliar space.  Or maybe we’ll just stay home and create our own little tradition or ritual, something meaningful to us.  Something that will most likely involve a celebratory glass of  wine.

 

Thanksgiving in Canada

The phone rang at 8:42 AM.  ”This is Jerry from Grocery Gateway.  I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Grocery Gateway is Toronto’s version of Fresh Direct.  I had placed an order the day before that was scheduled to show up between 7:30 and 9.  I dashed out of bed, turned on the coffee pot, and several minutes later heard a knock on my door.  It was Jerry, who is quite possibly the loudest person in Canada.

“Your first time ordering with us?” he blared.  I winced, knowing my roommate was still asleep.

“Yep.”

“You really went all out.”

“What do you mean?”

I peered into the box Jerry held in his arms.  It contained orange juice, turkey bacon, and a can of soup.

“Where’s the turkey?”  I cried.

“Oh…”  Jerry checked the receipt.  ”It says here ‘frozen butterball turkey, quantity: zero.’  They must not have had it.  They didn’t charge you, ma’am.”

“Why?  Why didn’t they have it?”

“I don’t know, ma’am.  I’m just the delivery person.”

Great.  Effing wonderful.  My family was set to arrive in two days and the only place that sold turkey in seemingly all of Ontario had dropped the ball.

“I guess that was the whole reason for your order, huh?”  Jerry said, more a statement of fact than of sympathy.

It wasn’t my idea to have Thanksgiving in Toronto.  In fact, I thought it was a horrible idea.  When my mother suggested the family come see the show in Toronto over Thanksgiving weekend, I told her not to.  ”Come see it in Chicago.”

“But I want everybody to be together over Thanksgiving.”

“Mom, they won’t even be celebrating Thanksgiving in Canada.  Not on that day, anyway.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she told me.  ”I’m sure that over the holiday weekend, lots of Americans will be visiting Canada.  And I’m sure they [the Canadians] know that and we’ll be able to find a Thanksgiving dinner somewhere.”

I can’t even write here that her logic eluded me because she wasn’t using any logic.  She was using wishful thinking.

“Mom, no we won’t!  IF you can find a restaurant serving Thanksgiving dinner– and that’s big if– it’s certain to be expensive! ”  I cried.  ”And I’ll be in a hotel room somewhere.  We won’t be able to cook a turkey.”

But I got an apartment, and Mom got her way.  Before I knew it, my mother, three sisters, one niece, one nephew, one brother in law, one future brother in law and one spouse had purchased tickets and passports and were headed north.  They then proceeded to do all in their power to drive me crazy in a way that only family can.

Since the beginning of November, I have received a total of not ten, not 20, but 66 emails asking questions ranging from “Which hotel have you booked us at?” to “What size tablecloth do we bring?” to “Do you have an electric mixer?” to “Do you need fresh cranberries or can we eat the glop in a can?” to “Who’s bringing the wine?” to “Do I need to bring plastic cups?” to “Are you SURE the hotel is $65?” to “Where can we park?” to “Can I bring crushed red pepper on a plane?” and so forth.

The turkey, or lack thereof, was just the icing on the cake.  The cast Thanksgiving–the calm, sensible meal that would have been planned for me had my family not been coming– would not feature turkey this year either.  Apparently no one in Canada could provide turkey for a cast and crew of 40.  Apparently Canada couldn’t even cough up a goddamn frozen Butterball for eight.  My husband didn’t understand why I didn’t call up Grocery Gateway and scream.  I didn’t know how to explain that Canada is a place of contradictions: a place where the trains come every two minutes, but they still use antiquated tokens.   A place where one smells pot everywhere, but can’t find a decent bottle of Bordeaux.  A place where it makes sense that one would be sold a turkey that is not actually in stock.

Plus I didn’t have the strength or the sanity left to make the call.  I had gone insane that Sunday afternoon precisely at 1:40 when my mother tried to call me during a matinee at the rate of $.20/minute.  I then got an email entitled “Why Won’t You Call” that begged an answer to the perilously important question of “Where will we make tetrazini on Friday night” and “Will the boys [husbands] be babysitting the kids at the hotel on Thursday night or at your apartment?”   Definitely worth the $40 it would have come to if I’d been able to pick up the phone.

So when Jerry’s loud ass showed up sans turkey, I did what I had to do to stay sane.  I ushered him out as quickly as possible, then went across the street and bought two frozen Butterball turkey breasts.  As I plopped them into my cart, I could hear my mother’s voice in my head, “But I always have a drumstick…”  So I swung over to the meat aisle, which, while devoid of whole turkeys, did in fact have turkey in chunks.  I picked up wings, thighs and drumsticks and prayed it would be enough.

When you have Thanksgiving in a new place, you have to let go of some traditions.  You have to improvise.  We may ending up eating off plates in our laps, making my mother’s concern over what size tablecloth to bring entirely irrelevant.  There will most likely not be a centerpiece.  And I for one won’t be able to drink any wine (although I sense I will desperately need it) because I have a show that night.

But my mother is right about one thing:  we will all be together.  And 30 years from now, when I’m wreaking similar havoc on my own children, maybe we’ll all be able to look back on this and laugh.

 

 

First African Baptist Church: Savannah, Part 2

I sat in a church pew handcrafted 200 years ago by African slaves, wishing that my husband were with me.

My solo vacation in Savannah, Georgia had been going well thus far.  I hadn’t missed anyone for the 24 hours I’d been in town.  I had been practicing the art of self-indulgence and was on my way to mastering it.  But within the first few minutes of my tour of the First African Baptist Church, I thought to myself, “Andre ought to be here.”

We were sitting in the Fellowship Hall beneath the main sanctuary of the church.  Our tour guide was pointing out the ventilation holes in the floor, which hid the 4 foot high crawl space underneath us that had been used to hide up to 200 slaves at a time in the days of the Underground Railroad.

“They managed to get food and water through the holes to the people below,” our guide, Johnny, was saying.  ”The pattern of the holes is an ancient African symbol of…” I don’t remember what the pattern meant.  I was overwhelmed by history and missing my spouse.

I was also overwhelmed by Johnny.  He was a neat, 22-year-old grad student, a member of the church who had been giving tours for eight years.  Johnny couldn’t be stumped.  ”When were the chairs on the pulpit covered with velvet?”  ”1901.”  But Johnny’s particular talent lay in his ability to handle eight of the most obnoxious Southern white people I had ever experienced.

Which is the other reason I was wishing Andre were with me.  I may have been mastering the art of self-indulgence, but Johnny and Andre are both masters of the art of Suffering Insensitive White People, a skill that is seemingly honed by black men growing up in the South.  My husband has demonstrated this on more than one occasion, particularly when dealing with my family, whom he has described several times as “good white folk.”

“Andre, you must come meet [family friends] the Gotwalds.  They can’t believe my daughter married a black man.”

“Andre, you’d love  Santa Fe.  You’d be the only black person there.”

These are examples from last year’s Christmas visit home, where Andre nodded and smiled, and I covered my face in embarrassment.  ”Mom, you can’t trot Andre out like he’s your black show pony!” I cried.  Andre was nonplussed.  He was happy to have married into a family that was loud and proud about his presence, as opposed to shocked and horrified.

Likewise, Johnny seemed to be pleased that these Eight Obnoxious White People were interested in his church, even if their questions were tactless and condescending.  ”Are these pews insured?”  asked one man upon learning their $20,000 price tag.  I doubted he had asked the same question at the Gordon-Lowe House.  ”How’s your choir?” shouted a 72-year-old white woman in spangled shants.  (Shants= shorts+pants.) “They have great choirs,” she informed the rest of us, as if she didn’t know that referring to an entire race of people in the third person when a member of said race was present was unacceptable behavior.

Johnny seemed to understand that their intentions were good, even if the execution fell short.  ”If the church is producing young men like you, it must be doing something right,” said one octogenarian.  Johnny took this compliment graciously, and the woman was right.  Until she followed it up with, “Keeps ‘em out of trouble.”  As if it were first nature for black men to be populating city jails, if it weren’t for the civilizing influence of Jesus Christ.

Overall I was amazed by the First African Baptist Church.  I was floored by the history:  the property was purchased by slaves for $1,500 in the early 1800s.  Where did slaves get $1,500?  Turns out slaves worked day jobs if their masters approved it, digging ditches and such, making small but significant wages.  Possibly you’ve heard that slaves could buy their freedom?  In the years prior to the Civil War, those slaves pooled their pathetic wages not to buy their freedom, but instead to purchase a church of their own and, some years later, to rebuild it when the original wooden structure began to break down.  They worked on it at night because during the day they were, well, enslaved.  (We can rest assured these people got into heaven.)    In 1860 the church was consecrated, and in 1863 Lincoln declared the Emancipation Proclamation.  The congregation must have felt the declaration to be a direct result of the steadfastness of their faith.  Meanwhile, white people never suspected that the church on the corner was harboring escaped slaves.  The church never even bothered to cover up the ventilation holes in the floor.

“You mean it never occurred to them that the church might be a stop on the Underground Railroad?”  I asked.  ”Or did they not conceive of an Underground Railroad in the first place?”

Johnny smiled.  ”They knew about the Underground Railroad.  They just never suspected the church.  If they suspected it, you wouldn’t be touring it right now.  It would’ve been burned down, no question.”  Damn.

At this point, Dunking Booth felt the need to educate me.  Dunking Booth was an older man from South Carolina who kept making the same joke about dunking booths.  ”Where’s the dunking booth?” he crowed as the tour began.  I had no idea what he was talking about, but Johnny tried to set him straight.  ”We used to have baptisms in the Savannah River,” he explained.  ”But now we have a baptismal pool upstairs.”

“I know it’s here somewhere!” Dunking Booth cried, oblivious.

Once Johnny answered my question, Dunking Booth went on to illuminate further.  ”The Underground Railroad had a stop every five to eight miles,”  he said to me.  ”They had to travel by night and could only get so far in a day.”

“No shit, Dunking Booth,” I wanted to say.  ”My mother’s house is across the street from one of the last stops on the Underground Railroad.  You know why?  Because it’s on Lake Erie.  Which borders Canada.  And I spent my childhood in the Ohio town where Sherman was born.  So you don’t need to school me on the Civil War.  Why don’t you shut up and let Johnny give the tour?”  Jerk.

But I didn’t.  While in the South I am polite.  But I was being tested.  I had to bite my tongue again when halfway through the tour Spangleshants asked, “Is this church Baptist?”

“Spangleshants!”  I wanted to shout.  ”Do you know even know what day it is?”  The church was locked, you see.  The only reason we could get inside is because we had specifically signed up to take a tour.  A tour of the First African Baptist Church.  Where did she think she was, St. Pat’s?

“Yes.”  Johnny replied calmly.  This perturbed Dunking Booth.

“Southern Baptist?”

“No, sir.  We’re part of the Greater  Missionary Convention.”

“AMC?”

“No.”  Once again I had no idea what they were talking about.  But Johnny took it in stride.  He took it all in stride.  Forty-five minutes, three dunking booth jokes and a ton of history later, Johnny let loose with a zinger.

“If you’re here on Sunday, you’re all welcome to come worship with us.  Bring as many guests as you like.”

This concept of radical welcome– that is, welcoming everybody into the church, regardless of race, etc– is one of Christianity’s founding principles, and one with which modern Christianity struggles the most.  Jesus preached that everybody should be welcome into God’s House, but I must admit that if I had a church, I may not want certain people in it because certain people are a pain in the ass.  But there was Johnny, inviting us to come worship with him and his congregation.  Maybe this is just how he wraps up his tours, but I couldn’t help but admire him for doing what the church ultimately wants us to do:  accept each other in our ignorance and inconsistencies, and join together in our search to better understand God and each other.

 

Solo Vacation in Savannah

I did not stay at the Foley House, but just about all of Savannah looks like this.

When one of my castmates suggested I take a vacation all by myself, I chose Savannah almost at random.  ”Go someplace you’ve never gone before,” she advised.  ”Someplace you’ve always wanted to go.”  I considered the places I had yet to visit:  Yellowstone would be too far, New Orleans would be too lonely.  So Savannah was it.

I had two free nights at any Marriott property, and the company would reimburse me for my plane ticket.  So at 4 AM I found myself in the lobby of the San Antonio Residence Inn, waiting to split a cab with Mary Poppins [Rachel Wallace].  She and I were both catching pre-dawn flights out of Texas– me to Atlanta, where I would rent a car and drive the rest of the way, and she to LA, where she would rendezvous with Mr. Poppins.

Airports are particularly hellish at 5 in the morning.  We barely made it through with in time, and as I sat waiting for the plane to depart, I ruminated on why I’d chosen Savannah.  I had always been fascinated by the Old South.  As a child I spent some serious time trying to decide whether I wanted to be more like Scarlett or Melanie.  I wanted to indulge my history-geek impulses, visiting restored period houses and famous literary birthplaces.  My husband has limited patience for such things.  (Although overall let it be known that he is a great travel partner.)

But as soon as the plane touched down, I didn’t find myself contemplating cinematic heroines or literary greats.  I was overwhelmed with the most incredible sense of freedom.  I have always traveled with a large group of people– an entourage, if you will, ranging from my mom and three sisters to a cast of 40.  When I got off the plane, I needed to pee, put in my contacts, collect my luggage and claim my rental car.  But I was on no one’s schedule.  If I wanted to sit and have an omelet before moseying down to the baggage terminal, I could do that.  If I wanted to poke around the airport till noon, I wouldn’t inconvenience anybody.  I could do whatever the hell I wanted.

Such is the genius of the solo vacation.  ”You’re going on a loser vacation,” my friend Lisa teased days before she was to jet off to London with her brother, husband and both parents.

“Yep,” I said proudly.  And when I finally made it to Hertz and met Shelby, my lime green rental car, I felt certain I had made the right choice.

As a devoted Steel Magnolias fan, I about freaked when I saw that the car I had rented for my southern vacation was from Shelby County.

After a four-hour joyride through Georgia, I arrived in Savannah looking a total mess.  The city, however, was undeniably gorgeous.  Rain fell softly through the Spanish moss that canopies the city’s old homes.  (The humidity, however, was not so kind to my hair.)  I checked into the hotel and was elated when I discovered a Jacuzzi tub in my wallpapered boudoir.  I was too wired to nap.  I didn’t even check my email.  I burst onto the streets of Savannah and began taking photos of everything.  Within 30 minutes I had dropped hundreds at the irresistible boutique The Red Clover.   Within 60 minutes I was wolfing down both the pumpkin spice AND the honey almond ice cream at Leopold’s.   The town made me giddy and carefree.   A longer stay there would have definitely made me fat.

On the way back to my Jacuzzi tub, I picked up a copy of the local real estate listings.  I had only fallen this hard for a city once before, when I had been on tour and embarked on a full day of “to-hell-with-everyone-else-I’m-going-to-do-what-I-want-t0-do” in Traverse City, Michigan.  (Go there.)  In both places, I discovered communities chock full of independent cafes and arty boutiques.  Each city took pride in its beautiful homes and (sensational) past.  Each city thrilled me.

For dinner I headed to Lady and Sons, Paula Deen’s delicious, not-even-remotely-overrated restaurant in Savannah’s downtown district.  My somewhat reserved demeanor fell away as I conversed voluntarily with the tattooed bartender and the agricultural chemist seated beside me.  The bartender turned out not to be a fan of his hometown, and the chemist clearly preferred other states to Georgia.  But as I stumbled out into the pouring rain, stuffed to the gills with fried chicken and hoecakes, I couldn’t help but fantasize about what Savannah still had in store for me.

The trees

The doorways

 

While I struggled to pursue a career in New York, my mother has emerged as a hot commodity in the Ashtabula County community theatre scene.  Known for portraying a range of characters, including, but not limited to, Clairee in Steel Magnolias, Vi in Footloose, and (in sari and full body makeup) the Ayah in Secret Garden.  Twice.  My mother has fully reclaimed my old stomping grounds, and she relates the latest news more diligently than I maintain this blog.

I am frequently reminded of my humble beginnings.  And as I traverse the nation with a Disney mega-musical,  I am struck by both the similarities and the differences between the two stages.

1.  Call times.  In Ashtabula I arrived at the theatre roughly an hour before the show began.  I have no idea what I did with my time.  Oh, wait, yes, I do.  We would have enormous cast volleyball games that would end when the stage manager called half hour.  Then presumably I would chew the fat with my friends while “getting ready.”  I would have had one costume that most likely belonged either to me or one of my sisters.  My makeup would have been an exaggeration of my street makeup.  The show always started on the stroke of eight.

At Mary Poppins I roll in approximately three seconds before half hour, which is absolutely the latest I can get to the theatre without being fined by Actors’ Equity.  Even though I have a full makeup plot, 2 layers of costumes, a corset, a microphone and a wig to put on, I rarely start actually getting ready until 15 minutes before curtain.  Which brings me to my next point:

2.  Places.  In Ashtabula stage managers called places by physically announcing entering the dressing room and bellowing “Places!”  Maybe my memory fails me and they called it through a closed door… was there a speaker system?  Anyway, we got an inordinate amount of calls.  They would call half hour, then 15, then 10, then 5, then places.  Each time everyone in the dressing room would respond in unison:  “Thank you, ten” or “Thank you, five,” et cetera.  This was to assure the SM that we had heard the call.

At Poppins we get 15, then 5, then places.  The announcements are made over a loudspeaker, so nobody calls out “Thank you, five!”  If only we did.  Every night at least one person will go, “Did we get 15?”  At five minutes I throw on my robe, wander into wigs to get my hair on, then meander backstage, where my dresser zips, latches and prods me into costume.  Places is usually called as I’m throwing my second skirt over my head.  I pin on my hat, grab my flask (it’s a prop, people), and join the other actors onstage.  Without fail we are left to chat for several minutes until stage management is sure we’re all there.  Most Broadway shows start a healthy six minutes past the hour.

3.  The cast.  Once the show is underway, the basic experience is the same.  Doing a musical in the summer at 16 is more fun, of course, than doing a musical as a job.  But there’s a similar amount of onstage flubs and backstage tomfoolery.   It’s got to be one of the most fun jobs in the world, even if I literally have to don a monkey suit to do it.   But whether you’re doing it for a paycheck or doing it for fun, the people are the same.

When I was considering/trying to leave the business, a friend of mine said that I belong among literary people.  When she said it I agreed with her.  But as the days went on, her comment  stuck in my head.  It didn’t sit well with me.  I knew in my soul that I belonged with theatre people.  I belong to a tribe of loud, irreverent, emotional, playful, whimsical people.  They speak a language I have always understood, embodying a type of craziness that to me needs no explanation.  We’re a lovable, free-spirited, and slightly obnoxious breed.  Most of the time, we’re damn funny.   And just as Penny was Desmond’s “constant” on Lost, keeping him tethered no matter what the year or place, theeatre people are my constant, whether I’m on stage in Portland, Costa Mesa, or Ashtabula, Ohio.

 

New Member of the Family

“I’m thinking about buying a Mac,” I announced to my roommate, Eric Coles, over dinner.  That afternoon my Lenovo Thinkpad T61 had refused to upload photos from my digital camera.  I could no longer download music.  Every two minutes a bubble popped up on my screen imploring me to free up space on my hard drive.  I had removed every program I didn’t regularly use.  My clunky, old computer was not only an embarrassment, but it was practically inoperable.

My husband thought the problem could be resolved with an external hard drive.  And in a way he was right.  I could have transferred some jpegs and the errant album or two.  Or I could take advantage of the fact that for the first time in my life I have a well-paying job and just buy a computer that would suit my needs.  I could buy the Mac I always wanted.

Back in Costa Mesa, my roommate was playing it cool.  Theatre guys are a little too socially aware to be true computer geeks, but this guy comes close.  ”You should look into it,” he replied.

The next morning I had barely finished journaling when he bounced into my line of vision.  ”Let’s go to the Mac store!!  Can you be ready in a half an hour?”

After some brief negotiating– I believe spontaneity is overrated, plus I’ve never gotten ready to go anywhere in a half an hour– I found myself at the Apple store at the South Coast Plaza Mall, squirming as I toyed with various computers in front of an Asian sales girl named Catalina.  (“I just went to Catalina Island!” I cried, desperate to change the subject.  Or to leave.)

The truth was that while the thought “I should get a Mac” had gone through my head, I had done absolutely no research.  This is because researching computers is boring.  Obviously.  I had no idea what I was looking at, and I was beginning to feel guilty about spending money on a computer before my old one officially hit the bottom of the trash heap.  I am not one to go out and buy the latest technology.  I had a Blackberry for a week before I returned it.  I couldn’t get used to it.  And computers in particular don’t like me.  They never do what they’re supposed to do when I’m seated in front of them, only to course-correct when someone competent like my roommate walks in.  (“I tried that a million times!”  I’ve been heard to cry.)

“You need to join the Mac family,” Coles counseled on the way over.  ”Everyone on tour has a Mac.”

“I don’t buy that,” I said in a petulant, derisive tone.  ”If everyone else were jumping off a cliff, would I do that, too?”

“That depends.  Would jumping off a cliff kill you?  Maybe it’s fun to jump off a cliff.  Maybe everyone’s jumping off a cliff for a very good reason,” Coles responded.  ”There’s a difference between doing something because everyone’s doing it and doing something because it’s smarter.”

I couldn’t come up with a  response for that, so five minutes later I found myself planted in front of a 13-inch MacBook Pro, giving Catalina the Face.   I wanted a disc drive, so we had narrowed it down to the MacBook Pro– that is, if choosing between a MacBook Pro and a MacBook Air counts as “narrowing it down.”  I knew I was about to make a big purchase, and I had no idea what kind of questions I should be asking.  I tentatively opened Safari on the floor model.

“Where’s the thing where you type in the website?” I asked.

“The toolbar?” Catalina countered patiently.  (Subtext:  ”Idiot.”)  ”Oh, it usually comes up automatically.”  Of course I had chosen the one computer with a  hidden toolbar.  Tangent:  why would you hide the toolbar in the first place, ever?  Why?)  Catalina performed a brief spell over the keyboard and the toolbar appeared.

“Oh.  Okay.”

“Do you want it?”  Coles cut to the chase.  (Note to reader:  there are too many Erics on our cast to keep them straight, so we call them by their last names.)

“Jesus, Coles.  Can’t I take it for a test drive or something?”

“You can play with it now.”

I opened iPhoto.  I closed iPhoto.  ”Okay, I’ll take it.”  My roommate was overjoyed.  He had the look of a man who was physically restraining himself from doing a cartwheel.

“Would you like to set up your account now?” asked Catalina.

“Sure.”

“And would you like a case for it?”

“Um… okay.”  I had given up all defenses against her.  Then I thought of something.

“I work for Disney.  Does that get me a discount?”

“The education discount is bigger.  Are you a student?”

“…I can cough up a college ID.”

“That works.”  I was starting to like Catalina.  She led me over to the wall of computer bags.  Coles wandered off to look at underwater headphones or something.  I listlessly picked up one or two dork-certified travel cases.  By now Catalina could read my face.  ”You can get cheaper ones online,” she whispered.  I perked up immediately.

She went off to fetch my Mac and Coles returned to give me a brief lecture on being nice to Catalina.  (“It’s not like she makes commission or anything.”)  I explained that we had bonded.

Catalina returned with my brand new Mac.  Coles literally clapped his hands as I opened it.  ”Would you like to do it?” I asked.

“No, you can.”

I removed the shrink wrap.  ”It’s just so exciting!” he burst out.

I shot him a look suggesting his murder was imminent.  ”Will you calm down?  You’re starting to piss me off.”

Catalina laughed awkwardly.  ”Okay, what would you like to name it?”

“Excuse me?”

“Your account.  You have to name it, and you can’t change it, ever.”

“Well, shit, Catalina.  No pressure.”  This was the sort of decision I would have spent weeks agonizing over.

“You could just call it Molly Garner,” Catalina suggested.

“That’s brilliant, Catalina.  Let’s do it.”

On the way home I ruminated on the amalgamation of forces that led me to spend the equivalent of one month’s mortgage on a piece of technology I didn’t really know how to use.  I felt, oddly, like I was cheating on my old computer, which had served me so valiantly until it all but petered out.  ”That thing’s about to crash,” Coles pointed out, which made me feel better.  I let him carry the Mac bag part of the way home.  Firefox stopped working the very next day.

The scary Mac sat on the coffee table for two days straight as I wrestled with my guilty conscience and with my husband, who took the opportunity to remind me of my sizable credit card debt.  I reminded him that while on tour he had bought a Mac, headphones, an enormous television and an apartment.  ”I have no debt,” he responded.  I reminded him about the winter coat that he discouraged me to buy which turned out to be the best purchase I made in 2010 BECAUSE I NEEDED IT.

We are a society that blurs wants and needs.  It’s a line that constantly needs to be re-negotiated.  Did I need a Mac?  Technically, no.  Could I use it?  Yes, every day.  While on tour, a computer is your link to the world outside the show bubble.  I have since opened it  It’s the first computer that’s ever been mine and mine alone.  I’m being very selective about what albums and photos I transfer onto it, having inherited a slew of files from Andre when I took over ownership of the Lenovo.  (He had originally bought it, then hated it so much he bought a Mac weeks later.)  Little by little I am making the switch.  And I’m sort of falling in love with my Mac.  It’s something I need, something I’ve earned, something I can afford.  (Barely.)  And this is the first blog posted via my Mac… who still needs a name…and I’m taking suggestions.

 

Choices

The question actors frequently get when cast in a long-running show is “Don’t you get tired of doing the same thing every night?”
“Yes, we do,” we reply.
“That would drive me crazy,” says the person, smugly returning to his or her life as a librarian, trash collector, housewife or accountant.
Well, it does drive us crazy. Easily half my cast is certifiable.  (Granted, they were that way before their hundredth performance of “Jolly Holiday.”) However, to keep things interesting, actors try to find ways of spicing up our mundane crosses and routine choreography. I like to make choices about my characters, giving them names, back stories, and outlandish relationships with other people. Does this help feed and inform the world of the play? Well, yes. But mostly it just keeps me from going completely off the rails. The following is a scene-by-scene breakdown of my ensemble track:
1. Prologue/Opening Scene
The nanny Katie Nana is, pathetically, my biggest feature. I have three lines. Yay! At the top of the play, I am storming out of the house, pausing only to take a nip from the flask I keep concealed in my cape. (Insert joke about typecasting here.) Katie Nana is Scottish. I chose to make her Scottish because my Scottish friend Frasier McPhie lives in Mexico City, and the tour’s going there, and I thought Frasier, if he came, would get a kick out of it. It turns out that Frasier has since moved to Venezuela. Oh, well. The dialect stuck.
In her flask Katie Nana keeps gin distilled in Jane and Michael’s bathtub. The housekeeper Mrs. Brill has just found out about this. That fight took place the Moment Before. (The Moment Before the scene opens is very important to actors, even ones in harebrained mega-musicals.)
2. Grey Park
This scene refers to a series of crosses taking place before Jolly Holiday, the musical number where everyone jumps into a chalk painting. (Well, at least that’s what they did in the movie.) The scenery and costumes are drab and dreary, and the ensemble members have been instructed to mill about the stage as if they were “underwater.”
I’m still in the Katie Nana costume, and in this scene I’m contemplating suicide. This is because I had to rehearse this stupid cross for weeks by myself with no one to interact with, during which time I actually did contemplate suicide. Now I have other people to play with, and some of the actors whisper various forms of encouragement ranging from “Go ahead, off yourself” to “Don’t do it.” Regardless, Katie Nana is startled into believing she hears the voice of God.
3. Jolly Holiday
Katie Nana quick changes in the wings and emerges to dance with the gardener. It is her Lady Chatterley moment.
4. Rainy Cross
For a matter of minutes poor Katie Nana has been acting out her fantasy life, but one clap of thunder and a quick change later, she’s back into her nanny gear again. But somehow life isn’t as bleak as it once was… and who’s that cute policeman?
5. Bank
In the bank scene we are encouraged to make extreme physical choices to create caricatures of office drones. I’m still working this one out. I’m inspired by the secretary in Monsters, Inc.

But she doesn’t seem like a soprano. Also my shirt doesn’t fit properly and tends to come unsnapped at the top, forcing me to glue my chin to my chest to hold it in place. Therefore my character must be trying to conceal a horrible birthmark. She has never married and lives with her crippled mother. She goes to work during the day, obsesses over her porcelain doll collection at night.
6. Supercal

You can only see the start of the ponytail in this picture. It goes on for a while.

In the Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious scene, my character, Annie Corry, has one line: “Yes, Mother!” From this I infer that Annie Corry is kept locked up at night by her domineering mother. She is growing an enormous green ponytail in hopes of being able to one day escape down her own hair, although the logistics of this plan continue to baffle her. She is, naturally, a virgin, and is absolutely smitten with Bert. When he touches her ponytail at one point, she has a slightly vocal orgasmic reaction. Secretly, she likes to be dominated.

7. Monkey
In a particularly laborious rehearsal, the cast had to improvise a tea party as our toy characters from the number “Playing the Game.” I hate Playing the Game. I’m in a hellish monkey costume with this ridiculous drum that refuses to remain attached to my person. It’s easily 970 degrees inside the costume, and most of my choreo is upstage and obscured by smoke. I am miserable, therefore my monkey is miserable.
During the improv exercise the dance captain tried to encourage me to interact with the other toys. “And here comes the mischievous monkey!” he cried.
“My monkey’s not mischievous!” I snapped somewhat rudely. “Stop dictating my choices!”
I gallumphed over to the “tea party.” I stared at a couple of dolls, then did what any miserable monkey would do: I started throwing my poo.
The monkey does have one friend, though. There is another toy monkey with cymbals for hands. Our names are Hear No and Speak No. Our brother, See No, has been buried in the backyard.
8. Step in Time
My last character is Tyrone, my gay, male, white, English chimney sweep. This is a stretch for me. First, the sweeps are meant to be male, but I have the tendency to swing my hips during one particular section, so I decided Tyrone was fancy. He’s closeted, though, and extremely shy, which is why he spends so much time upstage tapping instead of down in front. He actually comes from a slightly higher class than everyone else. He purposely chose this profession because he thought it would be a good opportunity to meet men in the dark at night. (This is Edwardian England, after all.) This greatly disappointed his father, the vicar. Again.

The great thing about making choices in the ensemble is that I can change them at any time and no one’s the worse for it. If I decide Annie Corry secretly believes she’s Katherine Hepburn, that’s fine. If Katie Nana discovers Jesus instead of contemplating death, that’s all right, too, as long as I make my entrance. I love the art of creating characters, no matter how inane the circumstances. In fact, the zanier, the better. So long as I keep my sanity.

 

Nothing in Particular… Literally

“I used to know what was going on in your life from reading your blog,” my mother said disapprovingly yesterday afternoon.

“I know, I know.”  This was not the first time people had chided me for not updating my blog.  “I don’t have anything to write about,” I had complained to my husband the day before.

He looked at me, shocked.  “You just started a major national tour.”

“I think that’s the problem.  I’m actually pretty happy.”

And I am.  So many of my posts have revolved around some complaint or another: audition bullshit, wedding etiquette, Williamsburg hipsters.  Right now I am perfectly content and haven’t a thing to say.  I’m sure this will change, but at the moment I somehow don’t feel the  creative urge.

To my husband, this was unacceptable.  “You’re a good writer.  You ought to be writing.”

So we did a little brainstorming and here are the subjects we came up that I could write about regarding life on tour:

1.  Yoga between shows.  Between matinee and evening performances a group of us like to do yoga together, next to the pool if possible.  We use yoga podcasts I’ve downloaded.  It’s turning into a lovely, refreshing cast tradition, and I love that I had a hand in starting it.

2.  I hate people on Sewgways.  I think everybody does.  I also hate the misappropriation of the word ‘segue,’ which taints an otherwise useful and poetic word.

3.  People in Sacramento dress like they’re going out in the Meatpacking District circa 1997.

That’s it.  See?  How boring!!!  People riding Segways can’t compare with volunteering at the cat shelter in Brooklyn or the bizarre dynamic of pot lucks in the Midwest.  Honestly, happiness is so dull.  If you’ve read this post this far, congratulations.  You’re a real martyr.  At this point I’m open to suggestions.  Please let me know what aspect of tour life you’re dying to know about, and I’ll do my best to come up with an interesting take on it…

 

Seattle Cheese Festival

My tour’s arrival in Seattle coincided with three straight days of unusual sunshine and the Seattle Cheese Festival.  I have been a die hard cheesehound ever since I was formally introduced to the stuff waiting tables in Manhattan restaurants.  Even though I am lucky enough to have put that job behind me, my passion for good food and cheese challenges me to maintain actress-like proportions.  Nonetheless, I donned fat pants last Saturday, stuffed an umbrella in my purse (just in case!) and trotted down to the Seattle Cheese Festival.

This totally free festival takes place on the cobblestone streets of Pike Place Market.  Anyone who lives in or has ever visited Seattle will say that “you simply must” go to Pike Place Market during the course of your stay.  They would be right.  The market presents an overwhelming array of fresh fruit, vegetables, flowers, honey, souvenirs, and last Saturday and Sunday, cheese.  Vendors range from biggies like Cabot to locals like Mt. Townsend Creamery to award winners like Cypress Grove and everything in between.

I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been overwhelmed by cheese.  This was one of those times.  I quickly abandoned my plan to eat from one end of the fair to the other.  With so many terrific options, I could afford to be choosy.  I began to lean towards local cheeses, turning down a perfectly good sample of an Ossau Traty, one of my faves, in favor of local or unusual cheeses.  (I did, however, shy away from Wisconsin State University’s cheese in a can.  Too unusual.)  Interestingly enough, I found each cheese indicative of its culture– no pun intended.  Many Midwestern creameries added flavors to their cheese such as dill, jalapeno, and garlic, which irritated a purist like me.  An English cheddar representative proclaimed loudly that his cheese had been eaten at the Royal Wedding, the veracity of which I doubted, but nonetheless people literally gobbled it up.  I restricted my purchases to Mt. Townsend Creamery’s  Off Kilter, a semi-soft cheese washed in Scotch Ale and Rougette’s Bavarian Red, triple cream, washed rind, soft-ripened cheese.  (Full confession:  I purchased the latter in part because the Rougette people were wearing leiderhosen.  Hey, I’m an actress.  I give points for costume.)

The market worked its charms on me as well: in addition to cheese, I purchased a baguette, a box of artisan crackers, a pound of Washington cherries, dried mangoes, and a bouquet of pink and white tulips.  I couldn’t take advantage of the wine pairing because I had a seven-hour rehearsal later that day.  Nor did I take advantage of any $40 educational seminars, which had titles like, “Great British Cheese Meets Great American Beer” and “Is My Cheese Safe?”  If I had a little more advance notice, I could have attended.  If I’m lucky enough to be in or around Seattle in years to come, I will not let the cheese festival take me by surprise.  I will pack some Tums and my fat pants and be ready for it.