Yesterday I received an e-mail, forwarded to me by Kendall Cornell. The Women’s Theatre project was papering their Off-Broadway house for a play about a clown. So I went. It was a much nicer theater than the ones I usually get to play. The stage was large and the grid was jam-packed with lighting instruments. Most of the primary people involved in the production listed a Yale degree in their bios. That theatre seemed out of my reach and yet the play was obviously written by someone who is not very old and reminded me of shows we produced at Annex Theatre in Seattle where, incidentally, quite a few company members had gone to or would go on to Yale.
After the play, “Aliens with Extraordinary Skills” by Saviana Stanescu (MFA, NYU); directed by Tea Alagic (MFA, Yale); featuring Natalia Payne (BA, Yale); Set Design by Kris Stone (MFA, Yale); Costumes by Jennifer Moeller (MFA, Yale); Lighting Design by Gina Scherr (MFA, Yale); Music and Sound design by Sarah Pickett (MFA, Yale), I walked alone to the Times Square subway station.
My heart raced, as I looked at the marquees and the after theatre crowd brushed by me with their playbills in their hands. I was remembering my very first trip to New York. I took the train from Washington D. C. (where I had an internship in the Women’s Division of the Democratic National Committee when Geraldine Ferrarro was running for Vice President on the Democratic ticket with Walter Mondale) to visit Kathy McNenny, who I knew from home. She was attending Julliard and living in a room, not much bigger than her mattress, in a very scary building in Hell’s Kitchen across the street from Studio 54. I was afraid I would be raped every time I got on the elevator.
I saw 6 shows in about 48 hours. I went with Kathy and her boyfriend to see a play at The Irish Rep because a friend of theirs was in it. There was a lot of real dirt on the stage. I saw ” A Chorus Line” because I had always wanted to see it. I had received the album as a birthday present in grade school and had listened to, memorized, and performed, for my drama class, a deeply felt rendition of “Nothing” (just like all the other high school theater geeks my age). After “A Chorus Line” I went directly to another theatre to see Whoopi Goldberg’s late night performance, because Kathy told me that was the must see show everyone was talking about. I was blown away proclaiming that we would soon hear of her in Montana. “The Color Purple” was in movie theaters the next year. As soon as I woke up I went directly to the TKTS booth in Times Square to see what I could see. I wanted to see “Sunday in the Park with George” because I wanted to sing like Bernadette Peters, even though my voice teacher was always telling me not to (apparently I had a lovely voice of my own or some such drivel…) But, there were no TKTS tickets for “Sunday in the Park with George” so I got a ticket to “Forbidden Broadway” and went and sat on the ground outside the box office of the theatre where “Sunday in the Park with George” was playing and waited with a few other people until curtain time to see if there were any returns. I blushed with pride when someone in the ticket line, told me I looked like a real New Yorker and not at all like a tourist, sitting there on the ground and scribbling in a notebook, in my dark oversized coat full of pockets. The woman in the ticket booth told me she had some obstructed view seats but they weren’t worth it because they were way off to the side and you couldn’t see the amazing set come and go. So I waited until almost 8 o’clock and then ran down the street to use my ticket to “Forbidden Broadway” which I didn’t find funny since I wasn’t familiar with most of the shows and certainly none of the personalities being parodied. I went to Greenwich Village to see “The Fantastiks” because I adored that musical, having seen a such sweet chamber production of it in Missoula, accompanied by two grand pianos (or one grand piano and a harp–anyway it had been beautiful) and ever after wanted to be a good enough soprano to sing the role of “Luisa”. I believe I also saw “Le Cage Aux Folles” on Broadway that weekend. (“I Am What I Am” is a favorite song and I harbor a fondness for drag queens. “Pricilla Queen of the Desert” is one of my favorite films.) Between the shows I walked around and ate bagels and slices of pizza. My first bagel in New York was schmeared with an enormous amount of cream cheese and the man behind the counter said something to me that made me think he gave me extra for good luck on my first day in New York. All the money I had went for theatre tickets. No restaurant meals, no drinks. I didn’t even know at that point in my life that I ought to buy food or wine or a gift for my host who I actually never saw after joining her for the one play. She was so busy with classes and rehearsals. She told me when she first came to New York she tried to live in Queens (where the rent was lower and the rooms were bigger) but it was just too far away.
If Queens was too far away from Broadway, how very much more difficult must it be to get there from Missoula, Montana. Although both Kathy McNenny and JK Simmons succeeded. They represented the only two ways I knew of to get to New York. JK Simmons didn’t go to New York until after he had his Equity Card. I knew this because his brother David was a friend of mine and his father was my freshman advisor at the University of Montana. I also knew that his skills included the ability conduct an entire orchestra! (He was very nice to me and invited me out for a drinks with the cast after I sent a note backstage, via an usher, letting him know someone from Missoula was in the audience, when I saw the touring production of the short-lived broadway musical “Doonesbury” in which he played a small part and understudied most of the others. –It was during same fall term of my political internship as that first trip to New York.) The other way to get to New York, as I understood it was to get into a school, scholarship necessary. Kathy McNenny was able to do this after first attending the University of Montana. I remember other drama majors, eager to get on with their lives after college, talking about Kathy’s decision to go to Julliard where she would have to pay for another bachelors degree, instead of going to the Globe in San Diego which offered her a full-ride, an MFA and an Equity Card. But it wasn’t in New York.
Kathy knew what she was doing and I was not in the same league. In high school she was a competitive swimmer with a near perfect GPA, president of the Thespian Society, in the select show choir and involved in many other organizations that involved having her photo in the high school year book. She taught swimming lessons and visited schools as Captain Power for the local utility, possibly the only paying costumed character gig in the entire region. When she was a senior and I was a junior, she played the title role in our high school production of “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie”. I played one of her pupils who grew from child to adult under her tutelage. I was the only actress who did not have to bind for the first scene and had to stuff my bra for the last scene. That pretty much says it all.