Clown and mother
8/15/09
We got into town in time to see the special matinee performance of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. At the same time as I was watching the current production I had a movie in my mind of the production of the same show that I was in when I was a company member here at The Bigfork Summer Playhouse. I played “Shy, a role for a small young and innocent looking girl. Hmmmmmm.
name
address Brooklyn, NEW YORK
yada yada yada
Married/partnered/children/pets YES
Years you participated in the Bigfork Summer Playhouse: 1990
Names of productions and roles performed (if you remember). Shy in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Anytime Annie in 42nd Street, the youngest daughter, in the red and white dress while everyone else wore pastels, getting carried all over the place by everyone in The Pirates of Penzance
Were you part of the crew? no
Are you still involved in the performing arts? yes
What is your current career? stage clown, Clowns Ex Machina
What hobbies do you pursue now? What are you passionate about? drinking coffee and raising my daughter
How did your experience with BSP affect your career choices? helped define me as a comedienne
What is the biggest lesson you learned from your tenure with BSP? don’t date outside the company
What was the funniest/hardest/most dramatic moment from your tenure with BSP? The man-boy actors were in the middle a pie fight using the leftovers from the gala just as the local volunteer ladies showed up to visit the dorm and collect the empty potluck dishes.
What was the biggest challenge faced doing Repertory Theatre with BSP. getting enough sleep Do you think this is still a challenge? yes
Any tales of romance or intrigue you’d care to share with us? that’s like asking if there are any undiscovered lakes you can see from the highway
What advice would you give an aspiring actor just getting involved with BSP. It’s not abut being talented it’s about putting in the hours. What do you wish someone had told you before your accepted your spot with cast/crew? start young, stay long, appreciate Montana
What makes BSP unique compared to other summer stock or repertory theater groups? It’s in Bigfork, MONTANA!!!!!!!! In the SUMMER!
Why do you think theater and performing arts are important to our society? THIS is the question that caused me to set aside this form without filling it out…just saying. What benefits are there to participating in live theatre as a crew or cast member? Is this an essay question? How about as an audience member? As a kid growing up in Missoula in the 1970’s it was the closest I could get to professional theatre watching Kim and David Simmons, Laurie Bialik, Emily Clubb, Dick Nagle, Jim Caron, Kathy Danzer and the rest…
What’s your one dearest wish for the future of the Bigfork Summer Playhouse? That it will continue long enough for me to be a “blue-hair” watching my niece on stage while my daughter runs the light board.
I thought we would spend some time at the Pacific Science Center with My Kid. But, that didn’t happen. We enjoyed hanging out in the hotel room as a family until it was time for The Husband to go have lunch with a former work colleague. My Kid and I went swimming in the hotel pool. Then when The Husband met us at the pool so I could go meet an old friend, My Kid decided to get out of the pool. Then she decided she wanted to ride out to the sewing machine repair shop at the far North end city limit with a drive-throu McDonald’s thrown in for fun. The errand took so long that they didn’t get back downtown in time to visit Seattle Center and the Pacific Science Center. Instead they met me at the wine bar where I was with my friend who hadn’t seen Ken since our wedding. I think I stopped by her office with my new baby once. My new baby is going into 4th grade. We had some catching up to do. We talked about the summer she played my older sister in both Gypsy and Fiddler on the Roof and the same actress played our mother in both musicals performed under a circus tent in an asphalt parking lot in Missoula, Montana
When The Husband and My Kid showed up at the wine bar where we were sitting with our happy hour flights of Italian red and truffle flavored popcorn (eyes rolling yeah I know) we talked a little more and then we went up to The Mother-In-Law’s apartment to deliver the repaired surger and for The Husband to program the new phone and hang pictures and some other small chores. We were at her apartment long enough for My Kid to watch the entire movie Mousehunt. At 10 p m we had to leave even though there were still more things on The Mother-In-Law’s to do list because my kid hadn’t had dinner yet. We parked downtown and thought we could find a restaurant downtown but the kitchens were closed so we went back to the hotel and ordered room service. The Husband walked two blocks to buy beverages at Ralph’s grocery on 4th Ave. where we used to buy food so often on the way to rehearsals or shows when we worked at Annex. I remember shopping for snacks at Ralph’s once to eat while hanging out with one of my many housemates from that big white house on Queen Anne Hill. He was an engineer at Bad Animals music studio at the time. I think he moved to Austin, Texas to be a musician. I wonder if he found success.
I had a nice visit with an old friend from the same Montana hometown as the theatre friend we had lunch with the day before. They weren’t friends growing up but they had siblings who were in the same class. Remember when 2 or 3 years difference in age meant you wouldn’t even have cause to meet or talk to a person. Some of the parents of my daughter’s classmates are probably younger than anyone I ever babysat. Thoughts of who were we as children growing up in 1970’s Montana, then making the decisions to become actors and life for all of us beyond that which now includes aging parents.
Today will go quickly, we have to make a promised stop at Magic Mouse Toys in Pioneer Square. We’ll start with breakfast (or brunch or lunch depending on how long it takes us to get up and out of here) in Pike Place Market and check out the stuffed animal store My Kid saw last night when we were looking for a restaurant. She’s looking for a toy lemur but the ones we’ve found so far are apparently the wrong breed. (She’s looking for one that looks like “Mort” from The Penguins of Madagascar. It’s a search that began on Sunday at the Woodland Park Zoo on a day spent with The Husband’s father. (Yes in addition to juggling work and family and friends and sightseeing The Husband must carefully coordinate the time he spends with each of his divorced parents.)
There are more errands to run and things to fix and check off the list of things for The Husband to do for The Mother-In-Law. At least it is Saturday and The Husband won’t be dialing into his office.
Yes, the New York clown community has its own awards show. Flying under the radar at the Krane Theatre on the Lower East Side, last night, individuals in street clothes, were publicly acknowledged for their contributions to the art form of clown.
Before and after the show there was socializing at Phoebe’s bar on Bowery and 4th where there was the usual talk about upcoming shows and gigs as well as more discussion of the Swiss clown Dimitri and his family who just finished a run at the New Victory Theatre. There were random smart people digressions on topics as diverse as the Food and Drug Administration and the public education system. I saw Kevin Carr, stand-up-comedian/actor/clown for the first time since…some year waaaaaay back during the last century, when we were both in the same Clown College class in Florida. Adam Gertsacov, another classmate, from back in the day, who books his flea circus and other solo shows at community events and schools, was also there –slightly stunned that this was his first social night out with a bunch of clowns since the birth of his son six months ago.
Barry Lubin, better known as “Grandma” of The Big Apple Circus, presented Dick Monday and his wife Tiffany Riley, who were in town from their home in Dallas, Texas (where they relocated for a more affordable lifestyle after having kids) with the Clowns of the Year award for their work as the ensemble The New York Goofs and for their teaching of clown skills in New York City for over 10 years. They remain a vital part of the New York clown scene returning several times each year to teach and perform.
Hovey Burgess, a master teacher in the NYU graduate acting program received a lifetime achievement award for his work as a circus and clown historian. Everyone knows him because he goes to everything and he is acknowledged somewhere in almost every book about American clowns and circus published in the past 25 years.
Deven Sisler, just back from Haiti, accepted an award on behalf of Clowns Without Boarders, a volunteer organization that sends groups of clowns to areas of crisis all over the world, including refugee camps, conflict zones and territories in situations of emergency.
Very cute, very young Spencer Novich, a student in the experimental theatre wing of the NYU drama school won an audience choice award for his eccentric dancing character and mid-career professional Joel Jeske and Mike Richter, and Christopher Lueck received one for their act “Musique”.
But, mostly the evening was a celebration of people who embrace the art form of clowning.
“There’s no competition here, we’re all fighting to make a living,” said Dick Monday as he picked up his award: “This does weigh a lot and it will keep the credit card debt in one pile.”
Yesterday I read Tom Robbins story, in the Village Voice, http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-11-12/columns/how-obama-s-hopesters-took-ohio/
“I just know the one thing I’m going to do today is vote,” Wagner insisted. “I’m out of a job, and even the temp agencies are cutting back on hours. I’m hoping a lot of people make the right decision today for a president who’s going to bring change.”
Beside him, Kenny Gordon, 59, a big man with a graying beard wearing a Cleveland Browns cap stood in the parking lot holding a large “Obama–Biden” sign. He said he’d been dispatched by his local chapter of the steelworkers’ union. “I’m in the mills 40 years. I swore I’d never be there as long as my father; he did 42. But I’m getting there.” After high school, Gordon worked for awhile at Steinbrenner’s shipyards before switching to steel. “Back then, you could quit one job and get another that afternoon. There were 7,500 men in my mill when I started. All the closings have taken their toll. Jesus, there are so many empty homes now. One day, I’m watching TV, and it shows these people down in Texas living under a bridge. I look, and it’s one of my old neighbors. I couldn’t believe it. He told me he was going to get a job down there in oil because he heard it was busy. He ends up living under a bridge.”
This morning on NPR I heard a feature deconstructing the musicality and timeliness of the Depression Era song, “Brother Can You Spare a Dime”; http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96654742
From the Salt Lake Tribune:
In its unanimous nine-page decision, the three-judge panel said the Department of Family and Protective Services Court of appeals ruling case was legally and factually insufficient and 51st District Judge Barbara Walther acted improperly when she ordered about 450 children to stay in state custody.
The court said the state failed in a mass April 17-18 hearing to prove any of its key claims that the sect’s beliefs, communal households or underage marriages put every child in the community “in urgent” danger.
“There is simply no evidence specific to [the mothers’] children at all except that they exist, they were taken into custody at the Yearning for Zion Ranch, and they are living with people who share a ‘pervasive belief system’ that condones underage marriage and underage pregnancy,” the court said.
This is a story that disturbed me intensly when it happened over a month ago. The State of Texas Child Protective Services accompanied by armed SWAT teams raided the Yearning for Zion ranch and took over 400 children into custody.
This did nothing to ease my personal fear of the State of Texas and the people who love it (Present President included).
Years ago I saw a segment on 60 Minutes or 20/20 about a family in Texas of Middle Eastern ethnicity (who knows it’s Texas they may have been Greek or Italian). Anyway, they lived in a small town and they were different (which in Texas means NOT CHRISTIAN). Apparently the children were taken away from the parents because while at a public elementary school sporting event the older boy was in the father, carrying his daughter who was about 4-years-old at the time was seen to pat her butt. The children were taken away by Texas authorities and the parents were accused of sexual abuse and it took them two years to get their kids back. Unpleasant things stick in the mind and this story stuck in my mind and flashed across the television screen in my brain ruining occasions when I noticed my own daughters yummy butt which fit in my hand like a piece of fruit AND THE THOUGHT AND ACTION AT THE CORE OF MY BEING WAS MY BABY IS SO SMALL AND BEAUTIFUL NOW, YET SO MUCH BIGGER THAN SHE WAS, IN SUCH A SHORT TIME SHE WILL NO LONGER BE THIS SWEET SIZE. Nope, no sexual feelings. None. Oh wait, I was a nursing mother that’s something they object to in Texas, That was the thing that upset me the most.
Nursing toddlers and walking babies (under 12 months could stay with their mothers over 12 months and one day–straight to foster care) Several of these children under 2, who had never been away from their mothers ended up in hospitals suffering from dehydration and shock after being taken away from their homes and weaned at gunpoint. No kidding. My child would have ended up in the hospital. I was generally a very attentive parent, but once when when she was about 14 months old, we were going on a trip and the clock was ticking I put her in her crib and left her alone because I had to finish the packing and everything I needed to do before we left for the airport. She never fell asleep. She screamed for hours until I picked her up to carry her out the door because the car service had arrived. She would have been one to cry to the point of dehydration. The parenting books I looked at all address separation anxiety and how long separations must be worked up to over time and filled with love and other familiar adults (like grandparents).
Even if the danger of sexual abuse the Texas authorities were concerned about existed, they could have addressed it by taking all the girls over 10 or 12 into custody. These are large children, they read and write and speak English fluently, posess the ability to debate even…
I can’t bend my mind around the thought processes of Texas authorities who decided the best way to protect these toddlers from marrying too young and becoming pregnant teenagers was to send in SWAT teams and wean them at gunpoint.