Dessa Rose - One Week Left

Our Dessa Rose journey is quickly coming to a close. Yesterday marked the end of our third week of performances. We close on this coming Sunday. What an experience it's been! I have had such a great time getting to know my fellow cast members and chatting with them about life and the business. I really think that the fact that we all like each other as human beings plays onstage. Even when we have scenes where our caucasian friends aren't necessarily being kind to their African American castmates in some of the shows' more difficult scenes.

Speaking of difficult scenes. We had a really great talkback with the audience on Sunday afternoon where some people volunteered how difficult it was to watch some of the scenes as they played out onstage. For example, the beatings, the coffle, and other violent scenes are hard, even when they are put into musical form. However, the example that was given was a point in the show where Ruth leaves the slave quarters and we all proceed to laugh at her behind her back. An audience member commented that this was difficult because it's such a universal occurrence that happens to everyone. For whatever reason, this really stuck with me. It's so interesting to think about the universal messages in this show and why it is so vitally important to make sure this story is told.

A friend of mine came to see the show and asked me how I felt about playing a slave. The question struck me because I realized something about my role in this show. This is so not about playing a slave in a musical. It is more about telling the story of these two women. And their story just happens to be set during a time in American history where this was their truth and reality.

I'm so excited about the remainder of the run - my two sisters and their friends are seeing the show on Wednesday, and more of my classmates from Boston Conservatory will be attending at random points during the week. Having love in the audience really makes a difference in a performance. For now, I'm enjoying my off days and resting up for a great final week!

Dessa Rose - Rolling Along

Today is the first show of Week Three of our Dessa Rose run. Things are going quite well - we've had a lot of lovely, very responsive audiences. Sometimes, it takes the audience a moment to really warm up to the subject matter. That's understandable, given that Act I moves pretty quickly and is really quite a lot to take. But they usually warm up and get lost in the story by Act II.

Last night was the New Rep Gala, and what an event it was! I met a lot of New Rep patrons and audience members. Many people had come to see the show more than once, and it was so wonderful to get an opportunity to chat with them and thank them for their support. Attending the Gala gave me an opportunity to learn about the other programs that New Rep does. One of the highlights of the evening was Rachel York's performance. Apparently, she is in the audience of our matinee today. That's really cool, but also a little nerve wracking, I admit.

We also received a note on our callboard today from Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, the authors of Dessa, congratulating us on our current run. It's so cool to feel that connection with the authors of this piece and know that they appreciate us telling this story. Between that and meeting Rachel, I'm really starting to feel like a part of the theater community.

Well, once again this is a dressing room post, so I've got to head upstairs for the epilogue. ciao!

Dessa Rose - Back in the Saddle

Tonight was our first night back after a two day break. So interesting coming back to a show after running it for a while and getting a break. I've worked out certain character choices for my characters throughout the show - while allowing the individual changes in each performances to affect them - but it was so interesting finding those choices and really considering why they work or don't work after the show has been left alone for a bit. I think I might have fallen into a rut of making decisions and reacting certain ways to events in the show, but stepping away from it gave me a little perspective. This is not to say, of course, that I completely changed all my blocking and disregarded my props this evening. This is not what happened at all. However, it was so great just to a fresh unfiltered look at what's going on. 

It was also really nice to come back and see the familiar faces of my castmates and catch up on what they did over our break. It made me realize what a bond we're starting to have as a cast. I think that that really plays onstage and helps us have that ensemble feel. We are really going to be bonding this weekend - we have four shows in two days, matinee and evening shows on both Saturday and Sunday. That will certainly be an adventure for all involved :)

Okay, I must go to bed and prepare for my last day of classes (!!!!) and another great show tomorrow night. Until next time...

ACCORDING TO TIP

The baseball season is in full swing and that would have made Tip o'Neill a happy man. He was a life-long fan of the game in general and of the Red Sox in particular. He loved telling the story of how, at the age of seven, he was taken by his father to his first game at Fenway Park. He'd always take care to give the exact date, July 1, 1920. The reason he remembered it so clearly was that Walter Johnson, the legendary Washington Senators pitcher, threw a no-hitter that day. Young Tom O'Neill was transfixed, and hooked on baseball for life. Having seen only one big league game he assumed that no-hitters were common-place. As it turned out, though, it was the only no-hitter Johnson ever pitched and, in more than seventy years of watching, the only one that Tip O'Neill would ever see.
He was a regular at Fenway Park and later, when congress was in session, he and his pals would often make the drive from Washington to Baltimore when the Red Sox were in town to play the Orioles.
Although he was rightly renowned as a great story teller and conversationalist, at ballgames those stories were mostly confined to the down time between innings. He'd score the games on his scorecard and pay close attention to everything that was going on. As an avid card player he had developed the habit of counting in his head which cards had been played. He also counted pitches the same way, this was long before pitch-counts were in vogue. Today the number a pitcher has thrown are tabulated on the scoreboard. for everyone to see. But in those days late in a game he might remark, "This fellow's got to be tiring, he's already thrown a hundred twenty three pitches." Those with him would look around in wonderment at how he knew that.
Meanwhile, he was wondering why nobody else had been paying attention.
He was five years old when the Red Sox won the 1918 World Series, too young to know or appreciate what had happened, and through all the years of his rooting for the team, he never saw a championship flag fly over Fenway. But he got a lifetime of enjoyment out of the game and out of the team, and even became great friends with some of the players, like Carl Yastrzemski, so he'd be the first to say he got his money's worth out of being a Red Sox fan.
But, boy, would he have loved to see those flags flying over Fenway today.

Dick Flavin Nominated for Emmy!

After a 21 year hiatus from television, Dick Flavin, playwright of According to Tip, has been nominated for a New England Emmy award in the writing category, making it his 15th nomination. Dick was first nominated thirty years ago at the very first New England Emmy awards and in it's following nine years was nominated 14 times receiving 7 awards. This makes Dick the only person who has been nominated every year of eligibility as well as the only one who has had a twenty-one year hiatus between nominations.

Dick is also the only individual who has been nominated working not for a television or cable outlet, but for a sports franchise. After leaving TV in 1986 to pursue speaking and writing interests, he did not return until 2007 when the Red Sox asked him to get involved with Red Sox Stories, a program that aired on Channel 38 on Sunday nights, produced by the Red Sox themselves.

The winners will be announced on May 10th!

Dessa Rose - And We're Off!

The show is open! We enjoyed a really fantastic opening night yesterday. The show was really full of energy and fun. I was a little worried that the subject matter would throw audience members, but everyone seems to be enjoying the show a lot. I'm really glad about that - this is such an important message for people to see and hear.

Tech week and previews are always so intense, but it's so great to have such a payoff at the end of the process. Our opening night gathering was really a lot of fun - we got a chance to really interact with those on the technical staff and our audience members. It was nice to see them face to face and have the opportunity to tell them thank you either for sharing this story with us or for being such an integral part of creating it.

I learned today at the matinee that this show can be really draining, so I think it will be really important to keep up the stamina and the energy for every performance. I have such a blast doing it, but it really is vocally, mentally, emotionally challenging for the actor. But thats the fun part! And the art of this whole theater thing - weaving it altogether, telling the story.

One of the most fun parts of this process has been hanging out with the other ladies in the dressing room. We're always flying around the dressing room at our places call half dressed, but it really brings out the kindness in these ladies. People helping others get dressed, telling jokes, giving life lessons. A sense of camaraderie is really making itself apparent in the cast, which is really a lot of fun. It's one of my favorite parts of theater. Aside from how much fun it is to be up there doing it :)

Until next time! Please come see the show and tell all your friends!

ACCORDING TO TIP

Ken Howard is the perfect actor to play Tip O'Neill. He's got the reputation, as a Tony and Emmy winner that gives the play instant credibility; he's got the right temperament and he's got the acting chops to make an unforgettable character come alive on stage.

When people ask how we managed to catch such a big fish, the simple answer is that we went fishing. How we found him is a little more complicated, though. When the script was in its early stages I brought it to Lenny Clarke. Lenny has been famous for years in this area as a stand-up comedian, but he has evolved into an outstanding television character actor. Michael Allosso and I worked with him for some months, but his television commitments kept getting in the way.

The next actor we talked to was Brian Dennehy who is, of course, an A-list Broadway icon. He was appearing on Broadway at the the time in Long Day's Journey into Night, for which he would win a Tony Award. He was more than happy to see us backstage and I was very heartened that he took my script as seriously as he did. After some weeks he decided to stay with recreating roles in classic productions (he has since been on Broadway in Inherit the Wind). So we went fishing again.

George Wendt, who won fame as Norm on Cheers, came to our attention. There was a certain amount of synergy there. It is not generally remembered, but Tip O'Neill was responsible for saving Cheers from being canceled. Early in its first season, the fall of 1981, the program was unable to draw an audience. It turned out, though, that the mother of the Cheers casting director was Delores Snow, Speaker O'Neill's longtime assistant. In a last ditch effort to improve the ratings Delores prevailed upon the speaker to make a cameo appearance on the program when he was going to be in California that January. At that point his epic battles with President Reagan were at their peak, making him the most well-known Democrat in the country.
NBC trumpeted the fact that he'd be on the show. When O'Neill showed up at the Cheers bar, sitting next to Norm in a hilarious scene, the ratings were huge. The program had found its audience and it never left. Anyhow, George had loved acting with Tip and wanted to do the play, but when it looked like we were going to launch a few years ago he had a TV pilot that was picked up and had to back off. George is currently starring on Broadway in Hairspray.

Rita Fucillo, who was then doing the producing, cast the net out once again and we got word that Ken Howard had read the script and loved it. I flew out to Los Angeles and had dinner with him and his wife Linda. I knew right away that we was the perfect guy to be Tip O'Neill. I loved the others to whom we had talked, and still do, but Ken Howard was, and is, The Man.

We shook hands on the deal that night.

Since then the project has been through some ups and downs but Ken has been right there with us, solid as a rock. In the process he and I have become real, honest-to-God, friends. In a stroke of luck, Ken happened to be in Boston last September and on the day he was to leave Paul Boghosian, now the producer, had set up a luncheon with Rick Lombardo at New Rep. I took Ken by and everyone hit it off. Rick showed the theatre to Ken, who fell in love with the venue. And here we are, less than two months away from show time.

Sometimes when you go fishing you catch the big one.