First Night of Bitch!

Twelve or so years ago I did a production of Michael Frayn's "Noises Off" at a lovely, now-defunct theatre in oh-so-bucolic New Hampshire. I played Dotty Otley, the character Dorothy Loudon created on Broadway, and the role Carol Burnett played in the film--a bitch of a part. For theatre people, "Noises Off" is one of the funniest plays ever written: it's about a performance where everything goes wrong.

This past Monday night, at "Bitch!", not EVERYTHING went wrong. There were a couple of dozen friends in the audience, and that was--well, very encouragin', as Ruth Gordon would say. They laughed a lot, mostly appropriately. And Joe Kinosian, pictured above, is not only a devil on the piano, he's an angel of a scene partner. He saved my ample ass more times than I care to admit. When my subconscious told me to cut and skip and omit and forget, he brought me back to the surreality that is the Fringe.

Just as the show started, there was a loud crash! somewhere in the vicinity of the booth. Knowing that our intrepid stage manager Sarah Magno and Melinda Buckley, director, were up there, I didn't worry--until we had no sound cues. None. No music, no doorknocks--except for the frantic by-hand knockings emanating from the booth, followed by some desperate offstage pounding--which made it seem like there were angry ghosts all over the Connelly theatre (a truly ghost-y place, even without the knocks). That's when I knew we had a problem. The crash! had been the board operator knocking everything over, somehow pushing the MUTE button on the sound machine, unable to figure out the problem.

For a fleeting moment, I thought of stopping the show and starting again. Almost never a good idea, but at the Fringe, each show has just 15 minutes to set up ENTIRELY, and 15 minutes to strike, after every performance. Our roller coaster was already well on its way, and since it was the first time we had ever done a full run in the space with costumes, audience, or full tech (well, everything but sound), Joe and I soldiered on, and eventually we not only had knocks, we had telephone rings, we had rhythm, and we were back on track.

Until the scene where Lady Lawford wakes to find she has been burglarized, in her foggy mind, by the Kennedys. That's when the sofa's entire arm came off in my hand. Fortunately Lady Lawford blamed her step-dancing mackerel-snapping in-laws, I hope in character. The audience loved it. Well, except a critic who happened to be there, but really, who cares?

And of course my dress got caught in the wheelchair and I forgot to take the bandage off my head when I should have, and I skipped more pages and my gorgeous 50's ribbon dress was soaked through even though a Lady never sweats--you know, the usual.

My teacher, Geraldine Page (don't you love all this name-dropping?) used to say she lived to be onstage when things went "wrong". And to take care of them. Be in control, make yourself feel that you do have some power, at least for the time you're onstage, and make the audience feel that they have had a purely unique experience that will never happen again.

The sound will never again be so screwed up. (That particular board operator isn't with us anymore.) The sofa arm won't come off--we have a new sofa from New Jersey now. I will take off the bandage next time, beware of the wheelchair, refresh my lines, sweat through another costume, and encounter other ghosts.

We get to do it four more times: August 20, 22, 23, and 28th. Something is bound to go wrong at each performance. Absolute heaven.

August 17th, ready or not~

BITCH!, the Autobiography of Lady Lawford as told to Buddy Galon, (my FringeNYC play), opens tomorrow night at the Connelly Theatre on East 4th Street, ready or not. I am determined to ignore the facts and get lucky, Ruth Gordon-style.

I'm tempted to list the facts I'm ignoring, but anyone who has done Fringe theatre knows what they are. Let's just say that I am too old, too talented, and far too grand to acknowledge them!

The facts I'm NOT ignoring are how terrifically talented my co-workers are; how stalwart; and that August 28th, this particular phase of this particular learning experience will be over. One way or another.

The list of thank yous in the programme is hilariously long. But it's how grateful I am.

Come see the show if you can. For more info and tickets: www.fringenyc.org.

Meanwhile, enjoy the photo of the beautiful Peter Lawford and his houseguest, Marilyn Monroe, poor girl.

More soon.

A View from the Other Side of the Table

One of the reasons I started this project in the first place was to get myself on the other side of the table in the audition room. Originally, I didn't plan to be playing Lady Lawford. I know it's hard to believe, but I don't think I'm ideal for this role--I imagined someone older, British, elegant--maybe even bitchy.

But since I'm primarily an actor, not a "real" writer, it's easier for me to see the strengths and weaknesses of the script from the inside. At least that's the premise I'm working from now--so I'm playing Lady Lawford this time. (performance dates below).

And as the playwright I DID find myself on the other side of the casting table this week, with Melinda Buckley, our director, and Melissa Doyle, our producer, listening to actors play the piano, sing, and act their hearts out. They were terrifically unique: solid performers, some so handsome it hurt to look at them, some wonderful singers, some better pianists, and a couple were stars-in-the-making who just didn't happen to fit into this play. I am grateful to them all.

These auditions confirmed all the corny stuff I used to tell my students--the auditors REALLY want you to be good, to solve their casting problem, to be the ONE. And even if they think they've found the ONE, they want you to show them something even better, even more unique, to re-define who the ONE is. I'll try to practice what I preach next time I audition. It's hard to remember on the actor's side of the table.

SO: Who is the ONE? The adorable, brilliant Joe Kinosian--composer, pianist, singer, musical director, actor--and who knows what else!? He just clicked.

Joe was recommended by Kevin Chamberlin, star of DIRTY BLONDE, SEUSSICAL, CHICAGO, and the upcoming ADDAMS FAMILY on Broadway. Kevin's a friend whom I met almost twenty years ago in an early Doug Wright play called DINOSAURS, at Yale Rep. He played Magic Moses, a Christian wrestler, and I played Candy Faye Kafka, a country singer so changed by plastic surgery her own mother doesn't recognise her. Even back then, Doug Wright was brilliant. (DINOSAURS is a story in itself--one of those shows that form real friendships. I'm still in touch with Kevin, Doug, Marylouise Burke, and Bill Mesnik, all from then.)

So nice that Lady Lawford's Buddy is a friend of a friend!

Our world--the world of theatre--is small and grows smaller every day. Good or bad, I find that more and more reassuring, the older I get.

The Lucky/Shameless/Dragon Part:

Bitch! (The Autobiography of Lady Lawford, as told to Buddy Galon)
The Connelly Theater, 220 East 4th St (Ave. A & B)
MON 8/17 @ 10:00-11:35PM
THUR 8/20 @ 4:45-6:20PM
SAT 8/22 @ 7:00-8:35PM
SUN 8/23 @ 2:30-4:05PM
FRI 8/28 @ 7:00-8:35PM

Ticket info: www.fringenyc.org

BUY THEM IN ADVANCE! WE WILL SELL OUT, AS IT'S ONLY A 99-SEATER! AND SELLING OUT EARLY GIVES BETTER BUZZ--HELP A BITCH OUT, OK?!!

Shameless

Shame (ME,fr OE scamu; akin to OHG scama shame; bef. 12c) 1 a: a painful emotion caused by consciousness of guilt, short-coming, or impropriety b: the susceptibility to such emotion 2 a condition of humiliating disgrace or disrepute : IGNOMINY 3 a: something that brings censure or reproach; also: something to be regretted: PITY "it'd be a ~ if you missed the party" b: a cause of feeling shame

Lately I've been drumming up momentum, interest, and funds for BITCH!, which I guess could be considered Self-Promotion. After all, I wrote it, am re-writing it, and will be in it. But somehow the idea of self-promotion seems incomplete without the adjective "shameless".

I wonder why promoting my play makes me blush--Am I immodest? shameless? bound for hell? Why is it so guilt-inducing?!

Just the word "shame" takes me back to a specific gesture my mother, grandmother, aunts, and uncles used: The Forefinger Rub. When we were very small, and did something BAD, usually fibbing (or "storying", as my family put it), they would accompany the forefinger gesture not with "Shame, shame", but "Shamie, Shamie"--as if giving our shame a nickname made it cute. Even as a kid it made me wanna puke.

So I googled the Shame Gesture, and found:

"It implies a superior position from sender to receiver and is sign of friction, which was derived from pointing. Professor Mark Knapp of the University of Texas says,"the whittling motion of the non-pointing finger indicates friction. Making this gesture toward someone indicates 'you are causing trouble between us!'"

The gesture seems to be fairly recent and is limited almost entirely to North America. They've got a similar gesture in Wales, but they make a sawing motion with the non-pointing finger. And in parts of Mexico, rubbing one index finger across the other is considered obscene! "Shamie-Shamie!", I thought, till I read:

"We all deserve to have this gesture applied to us, because we all fall short of God's standards. Shame and guilt are what we should receive. Now, if you take that shame gesture and stop the stroking down the finger half-way you get a cross shape as your two index fingers overlay each other."

Nun-uh. I think it's a gesture intended to brush something off of ourselves--pointing to another and sloughing something off--maybe unwanted attention, maybe DIS-grace, maybe our own shame. You know, a sort of "I am rubber, you are glue" from adults to children.

But if you're truly shameless, can you still blush? Am I "story-ing" by writing a play? Does that make me shameless? And, ever notice how well the word shameless goes with Bitch?

The "Get Lucky"(Ruth Gordon)/"Be a Dragon" (Geraldine Page) news:

-WE REACHED OUR KICKSTARTER.com GOAL!!--but are gratefully accepting donations online till July 15 and offline thereafter. We still need about $2,000. And we would be proud if you'd spread the word.
-I am re-writing like crazy, and un-re-writing like an even crazier person.
-Casting for Buddy is July 13. Know any young actors who are adorable, incredibly talented 20-somethings, and who play a mean piano?
-Performance dates will be confirmed on July 11, but looks like they'll be between August 17 and 28th, 5 performances only, at the Connelly.
-AND we're putting together the rest of TEAM BITCH! and would welcome volunteers. Check out www.andsoshedid.com---Come join us!

It would be a ~ if you missed the party!

The Update on BITCH! (the play)

As I said before, blogging is embarrassing. More embarrassing than THAT is asking for money for my FringeNYC project, BITCH!, the play based on Lady Lawford's book.

We have a little more than two weeks to raise the rest of $3500--Team Bitch has raised about $2700 of that goal, with more than a little help from our friends. For more info about the fundraising and the really cool rewards for donating, check out www.kickstarter.com/projects/1663327260/lets-kickstart-this-bitch-my-play-i-mean.

My brand new website is up, www.andsoshedid.com, with more info about the play. And in a few days, we'll unveil a short film by Gillian Farrell, with yours truly as Lady Lawford.

Melinda Buckley, our intrepid director, is getting ready to hold auditions for the role of Buddy (know a great young actor in his twenties who's a piano wiz?); Melissa Doyle, our producer, is rounding up rehearsal space and a staff (contact us if you know a great stage mgr or lighting designer--fun guaranteed, but not a lot of $$).

FringeNYC has told us we'll be at the Connelley Theatre on East 4th Street--exact dates TBA next week, but definitely several dates between August 14-30.

SO--everything's in motion--but if we don't meet or exceed the $3500 goal on Kickstarter.com, we don't get any of that money at all. And we actually need more than that to put the play up. Whew. Think good thoughts and spread the word, will you, to anyone you think this may interest or amuse!?

Thanks for your support; we'll see you on the Fringe!

Drama of the Gifted Peter (Lawford)

While schmoozing at the Book Expo, handing out flyers for BITCH! the play (and for Branden Books, the publisher of Lady Lawford's autobiography), I met a woman who told me that a friend of hers had had an affair with Peter Lawford. "Well, not an affair", she said,"more of a one-night stand". She said she couldn't reveal any details--but that it had been a wild night ("you know how one-night stands are")-- I raised an eyebrow, hoping I looked like I knew.

"You don't have to tell me", I assured her, "but let me tell you about his mother." I've been intimately acquainted with Lady Lawford these past four years; I think I've read everything that has been published about her, most of it uncomplimentary, some of it screamingly funny. I like her. (I have to; I'm playing her.)

I trotted out the titillating stuff: that Lady Lawford pretended to have been married only twice; that two of her husbands committed suicide; that she was disgusted by sex; that she hated the Kennedys; that she dressed Peter as a girl until he was nine or ten or twelve, depending on who you believe--

She gasped. "Well, that explains a lot", she said, "because my friend told me---" and she revealed the sordid details of her friend's one-night-stand with Peter Lawford. And it was reeeeally good gossip, with just enough of the ring of truth. You know what I mean.

Suddenly I felt so guilty, standing in the Javits Center, talking trash about a man I'd never met--a grey-haired dreamboat I had a crush on as a little girl, the "Fella with the Umbrella", that handsome English guy on 60's gameshows, President Kennedy's pal.

Poor Peter Lawford: a beautiful boy born to a wildly narcissistic mother, unsure about his paternity, tossed into stupefyingly adult situations and expected to perform--which he did, all over the world, most notably and successfully in Hollywood. He fit perfectly into the MGM star-making system. Groomed by his mother to be the perfect escort, worthy of royalty--he married into America's first family, forever holding the coat for a starlet or an in-law or a Rat Packer. And he somehow maintained the illusion of savoir-faire and good humor until drugs and alcohol got the best of him.

It's a tricky business, this "as told to" stuff.

There are several fascinating books about Peter Lawford, but by far the best-written, most insightful, is by his son, Christopher Kennedy Lawford. And it's not just about his father--it spans the legacy of the Kennedys and the Lawfords, detailing a chemical predisposition to addiction, and the power of family expectations. It's a story of survival everyone can relate to, SYMPTOMS OF WITHDRAWAL, and it's a hell of a read.

But I beg you---please read it after you see my little play! If you read it before seeing BITCH!, I'm afraid you'll find it almost impossible to laugh.

Encouragement and Enthusiasm

I'm getting used to the word Bitch. I still don't like it, but it IS catchy. Yesterday at the Fringe Town Meeting the title of my play alone got a laugh, and that's very encouragin', as Ruth Gordon said, when she so enthusiastically accepted the Academy Award for "Rosemary's Baby".

I watched that broadcast at the time--1968?--and thought it was cute that an old lady would say something flippant at the Oscars. I was a teenager then--pretty smart, but not smart enough. I didn't know that Ruth Gordon's illustrious career had spanned more than 50 years as a Broadway star, movie actress (NOT star, not yet), playwright, and screenwriting partner with her husband, Garson Kanin. The films they wrote ("Adam's Rib", "Pat and Mike", etc) were some of my favorites, even then, and I knew his name, but I didn't know hers till that night at the Oscars.

As a teen, I could tell her tongue was in her cheek, but I didn't, as they say, know the half of it.

Now I find myself, a veteran actress (what a way to put it!) in "Bitch!", playing a woman whose MUCH younger companion imagines himself Harold to her Maude.

I have since read and re-read Ruth Gordon's memoirs--plural. She lived a long, productive life with a husband 16 years her junior, (eons before Ashton and Demi), and finally became a full-blown movie star when most people are collecting Social Security. We should all be so lucky. And so talented.

Here's a Ruth Gordon quote I carry in my wallet: "To have a career, be lucky. If you're not, GET to be. Never give up, ignore the facts, use everybody, and when it gets impossible, ask God for a windfall".

I'm told that the quality Ruth Gordon most admired in people is enthusiasm. It's a quality her dear friend, Thornton Wilder, also admired. I'm absolutely convinced that enthusiasm must be one of the keys to getting lucky.

This week's Lucky news: the Kickstarter page is up, and it is GREAT, thanks to David di Paolo (videographer) and all the contributions from generous artists--monetary as well as "incentive"-wise. Check it out--www.kickstarter.com.

The delightful and multi-talented Melinda Buckley has signed on as Director, and Melissa Doyle is the Producer of All Things Bitch. Taylor is knocking himself out, getting more incentives and being sounding board and all-round doll; Ann Blackstock donated her massive photographic skills to the mix. And Mike Johnson is going above and beyond the duties of brother-in-law--his graphics are fab. (I'm hoping to unveil me as Lady Lawford on next week's blog).

Fundraisers are being planned: a winetasting party and an evening of cabaret stylings, including some very Bitch-y comedy, TBA. To volunteer for fun, just let me know!

And please forward this to anyone you think it may interest or amuse! Let's get lucky!

I will, said the Cat. I will, said the Pig.

Andsoshedid is the name of my newly-formed production company. And So She Did. As a young child, I loved the way my mother would repeat those words when she told me the story of the Little Red Hen. "Who will help me plant the wheat/harvest the wheat/bake the bread? Not I said the cat/pig/et al--Then I'll do it myself! said the Little Red Hen. And so she did." The Little Red Hen could do it all. That's how I wanted to think of myself.

I am blessed to know wonderful people who have specialities I don't begin to understand and who are generous in sharing their time and talents. My brother-in-law Mike Johnson is donating fancy "Bitch" graphics and setting up the Andsoshedid website; Tom L, a wonderful actor, has offered PR consultation; and a dear, dear openhearted friend gave me the Fringe registration fee ($550)in exchange for a programme mention of her production company! My former student Taylor has made himself available for brainstorming and errands and fundraising and --well, just about everything. A photographer friend has agreed to take photos of me in the Lady L "Bitch" bookcover pose. Several people have shared detailed info about their own Fringe experiences, and others have helped with fundraising info. Three angel actress friends have helped me get "incentives"--autographed stuff--for raising money. A former co-worker has offered to shoot a short video (if his bosses knew he'd be in big trouble) to put on kickstarter.com, and a fabulous friend (a former Geraldine Page acting classmate) has agreed to shoot a short film for youtube. Yet another friend, a phenomenal playwright, has given me so much help with the play itself I'm embarrassed, he's such a better writer than I'll ever be. Several friends have offered to write small checks, "Bitch" unseen. A couple of people have said to just tell them how they can help. Tonight my ex, Shane, brought me basic organizing materials from Staples. I am grateful, humbled, simply knocked out by the amazing people I know.

But as these stunning gifts move Bitch-on-the-Boards closer to reality---I'm freaking out. It needs a re-write, like yesterday, and I'm not sure I'm up to it. I need thousands of dollars to produce the show. (Getting money together has never been my forte.) I need a director and a stage manager and designers: lighting, costume, wig, set, and sound design. I need a company manager. A producer or two. I need a crew that will cheerfully work for almost nothing, and I need a young actor who is open and confident enough to workshop the piece, FAST!

Is it at all possible that the right people with the right talents and compatible temperaments may appear on time, willing and capable, as graciously, as gracefully, as all the lovely people who already have stepped up to help?

Apparently I'm not the Little Red Hen after all. A play can't be shared like bread, can it? I'm hoping it can be. I have wonderful friends who deserve all the credit --and all the bread--I can give them.