Stephanie and I met at Carnegie Mellon Pre-College in 1997. She was from Oklahoma, and I was from Ohio. I don’t remember how we met, I just remember becoming fast and easy friends. She introduced me to one of my favorite movies of all time, The English Patient by bussing me to downtown Pittsburgh to attend some cinema’s art house series. Kristen Scott Thomas’ Katherine would influence the type of woman I wanted to be; my role models would be a combination of her, Emma Thompson’s Beatrice and a little bit of Fraulein Maria. Stephanie, on the other hand, was like Kristen Scott Thomas already, but with a touch of Carrie Bradshaw and just a little bit of Ado Annie. (It’s possible her being from Oklahoma influences my thinking on the latter.) Stephanie was thin with blonde, curly hair. And fun. And funny. She had, and still has, the most fantastic taste in everything, but it’s layered with an approachable friendliness. If you meet her, you’re going to want to be her friend. And she will drink you under the table.
I ended up attending Carnegie Mellon, while Stephanie went to Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. Her CCM class and my CMU class worked together at a lot of the same summer theatres, so we managed for to stay in touch throughout most of college. We both moved to New York after graduation. And once there, she and I and our friendship entered an unprecedented period of growth.
“The Meatpacking District,” I remember her telling me. “That’s where everyone goes.” It was 2002. This was Meatpacking before it got overrun with hot mess celebrities, but after the SATC episode where Samantha threw water on transvestite hookers. Stephanie and I and a gaggle of other ladies– Annie, Christine, Missy, whoever– would pour into cabs and head to Son Cubano first (usually first), then on to APT or Hotel Gansevoort or Lotus. We were all musical theatre nerds who had been surrounded in our formative years by gay men, and we couldn’t get over the smorgasbord of straight men. We didn’t know what the rules were. We didn’t realize we had any power, strength or, most notably, privilege, by virtue of being young and attractive. Notably, that power was given to us because the patriarchy deemed us “worthy.” We did nothing to earn it. (Privilege.) However, that blessing was also a curse. That same privilege kept us from being taken seriously, objectified us to the point of trophyism, assumed we hadn’t struggled, experienced loss, or, frankly, had anything to say. But we didn’t realize that yet, either. In short, we assumed everyone we met had good intentions.
We got wise fast. And there were wild times, to be sure. When we went out, Things Would Happen. Maybe it was a certain Midwestern openness. Maybe it was our Resting Nice Faces. We still talk about the time the cabbie, just short of 14th and 9th pulled over and turned off the meter. We all froze, half assuming he was going to kill us. Instead he turned around and told us about the intimate details of an unusual sexual encounter. We maintained our resting nice faces and made polite, appropriate responses. We were actresses, after all. I could be wrong, but I think he drove us the rest of the way for free. When I told my husband that story, he assumed he was hitting on us, but if so, it was possibly the worst pick-up line ever. Then there was the time we lost one of our group two minutes after we walked in, only to look back and find her already making out with a stranger.
But it got old. Very old. I wish I could say we found solace in theatre, the one thing we had been passionate about our whole lives. But if theatre was our first love, it was abusing us more than any dance floor groper or objectifying ex. We were getting chewed up and spit out by the industry: no callbacks, or overwhelmingly close callbacks. No auditions or really crappy auditions. The occasional summer gig that shrunk our pockets by the end of the contract. Bad sublets. Bad subletters. Heinous restaurant managers. Terrible break-ups.
Eventually we found our footing. Eventually those close calls turned into real jobs. I remember exactly where I was when she told me she booked her first Broadway show: walking past the library on 5th Avenue between 40th and 41st. I felt no jealousy; in fact, I was ecstatic. We were doing it! We were making it!
Steph was brilliant in the show. The dancing was harder than anything she had ever done, so we started going back to ballet class together. Six months later Stephanie got me an audition for the same show and taught me the audition choreography to boot. “You think I want some random bitchy dancer in my dressing room?” she said. “I want to share it with you.” I didn’t book the gig, but I drilled that ‘ography so hard I remember it to this day. Meanwhile, I was getting my life together. I had quit the restaurant industry and was working at a dance studio on the Upper East Side. I was living with my sister. We had a cat. I had joined a book club. I was getting back to my authentic self, and so was Stephanie. She lived by herself in her own apartment in Queens now. We were getting serious– or at least more strategic– about the guys we dated.
Then Stephanie, one of the pioneers of online dating, met Michael. She gave up her place, and they moved into an awesome rental off Gramercy Park. (I still can’t believe I know somebody who had that address.) Suddenly, my 2 BR railroad with the slanted floor started to feel shabby. And my sister wanted to move in with her boyfriend anyway. “You should live on your own at least once,” Stephanie advised. I found a cheap studio in a not-particularly-safe section of Harlem. It was the haven I never realized I always wanted. I painted the bathroom a girly shade of pink and the rest of it navy blue, while trying to ignore Stanley and Stella fighting upstairs. Stephanie visited frequently. We were both on Weight Watchers– just about everyone I knew was on WW at that point, even one of my agents. “If you want to lose weight, Weight Watchers is the only thing that works,” Stephanie told me. I took her advice, even though I’m not sure she’s ever strayed above a six. Besides, I hadn’t been booking, and one of the bartenders at my (final) restaurant job told me I was “too fat to be on Broadway,” a comment so mean it still bothers me, but anyway, I lost 20 pounds and booked my first national tour. Stephanie couldn’t have been more thrilled.
Except she was moving to Chicago.
At every stepping stone in my life, from Pittsburgh to NY, Stephanie had been there for me, usually just a step ahead. I turned to her for advice. For her gentle and non-judgmental ear. To see what was possible. She has always listened to me blather on, then helped me formulate a concrete, practical plan. As I write this, I’m not entirely sure what my friendship gave to her. In my twenties, I wasn’t much good for anyone.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to do without her.
Time moved on. She and Michael got married. When I got engaged, she attended my Atlantic City bachelorette party six months pregnant. When the hotel fire alarm went off at 6:00 Sunday morning, she swore loudly and trudged down 17 flights of stairs, only to turn around and walk back up. We laugh about it now– actually, we laughed about it almost immediately. Steph’s like that. She’s ride or die.
Stephanie have been friends for 23 years come this summer. We are both married with kids and moved back to the Midwest. She’s still the one I turn to for advice about everything. When I go to Chicago, I almost always stay with her, and the one time I didn’t, she gave us a permit to park in front of her Old Town house and a bottle of Bordeaux to boot. I still wonder what she gets out of my friendship. But she is always there for me. There’s something about old friends…. months will go by when we will be too busy to talk, then we get on the phone and chat as if no time passed. I can’t even say I miss her. It feels like she’s always there.
Too many of my friends have died young. Some have exited my life with barely a word and even less of a thought. I want to take the time to honor the friends who are still here. This month is a milestone birthday for Stephanie, so I am attempting to tell the story of our friendship. I’m trying to put into words (clumsily) what she and it have meant to me. These words just scratch the surface. I hope we have 23 more years of parties and laugher and wine. Meeting Steph was one of the best things that ever happened to me.
Scenery Chewer 
I started this blog as an artistic outlet, as a place to write down the wisdom I’ve accumulated over a lifetime of auditioning in New York City. But these days my time is divided between teaching, performing, and spending quality time with my family.