I posted this on Facebook today. The response was so overwhelming I thought I'd share it here. If you'd like to see the original post, here's the link: http://on.fb.me/16EKtgu

In praise of actors, my people, my kin:

In 15 years of auditioning for national commercials, I've never booked. Not one. I've taken awesome classes, I do strong work, I'm not a novice. I work in other mediums--TV, films, theater. Not commercials. Not yet. Lots of callbacks, "on avails," etc, but never the booking. So this week, I'm on avail for a big one, right? Which basically means it's down to me and a couple other actors for the role. And my agent texts me last night and says, "So sorry hon, you've been released," which means I didn't get the gig. Again. Also? Didn't get the huge guest star for that long-running network show I went in for on the same day. And? The killer role at that fantastic theater I spent most of last week preparing a taped audition for--no word. Yet. So you know what I'm going to do?

I'm going to do what actors do. I'm going to keep showing up. Keep doing the work. Keep putting myself on the line. When you see an actor's performance on the screen or in the theater, you're seeing the tip of the iceberg. You aren't seeing the hundreds of other auditions it took to get to that job. Don't misunderstand--this is neither bitch-fest nor complaint. This is what I signed up for. It's what I love to do. The thing that so many people who aren't actors--and even some who are--don't understand is that "no" is standard issue for us. We just don't listen to it.

 

'a delicate balance' begins rehearsals in los angeles

Yesterday we had our first read-thru with the company and designers at The Odyssey Theater. I'm so glad to be re-teaming with director Robin Larsen and to be working with this terrific cast for the first time. ADB will mark my fourth play with Robin (the Ovation Award-winner "Four Places" I produced rather than acted in), and it's almost exactly two years to the day since we did "The Fall to Earth" at the same theater.

We open April 26th. Once tickets are on sale, you'll find them HERE.

my 'rabbit hole' adventure featured in LA Stage Times

Les Spindle and the good people at LA Stage Times have put together a lovely feature article on my role in RABBIT HOLE and career in general. I had a really nice time talking to Les--he knows as much about the Los Angeles theater scene as anybody you'll find.

You can read the article here.

opening david lindsay-abaire's pulitzer prize winner, 'rabbit hole'

I have a list of roles I'm dying to play on stage. I think most theater actresses probably do. Mine's yearssssss old, written in various shades of pen and pencil on a dog-eared piece of notebook paper, tucked away in a drawer.  Once in a while I'll get it out to look it over, and occasionally I'll edit the list. Cross something off that no longer appeals to me or I'm too old for (see ya, Juliet!), add something in that's just come along or that I feel I've grown into. I'll think about the doozies that I'll wait a while for ('Mary' in Long Days' Journey into Night, anyone?) and wonder how many of the titles will eventually cross my path. Only a couple of times have I been lucky enough to cross a part off the list because I got cast in it. A few years ago, I played 'Alma' in The Eccentricities of a Nightingale. When I got that part, pffffft! Off the list. And she was as much fun as I'd imagined.

Don't get me wrong: I have been given the chance to play many terrific roles, but lots of them have been in world premieres, and you can't put those on the "to-play" list unless you figure out how to time travel. (A couple of those roles would be on the list now if I hadn't already played them. 'Lisa' in The Glory of Living. 'Darlene' in Caught.) I don't know how I got lucky enough to snag those parts, but I'm glad I did.

Then just the other day, pffffft! Another one crossed off the list, and I'm so excited for it. I'll be playing 'Becca' in Rabbit Hole at the beautiful La Mirada Theatre starting October 25.  I've been dreaming about this role for a very long time.The production is being directed by Michael Matthews, and I can't wait to get to work with him and the rest of the cast next week. You can click here for more info and tickets.

'other desert cities' at the mark taper forum

Jon Robin Baitz's newest play was a huge hit on Broadway last season and was subsequently nominated for multiple Tony Awards including Best New Play. I'm happy to be part of the company as the understudy in the role of Brooke Wyeth. Robin Weigert plays the part, and she's just lovely in it. The entire production is aces and the cast features the talents of JoBeth Williams (who played my mother earlier this season in The Fall to Earth), Robert Foxworth, Jeannie Berlin and Michael Weston, directed by Robert Egan. For more information about the production, you can link to the program PDF here.

If you're in Los Angeles before January 6, I hope you'll make it to downtown L.A. for a performance and to enjoy the gorgeous Christmas tree alight in the plaza of the Music Center.

legendary editor of Variety, Peter Bart, wrote a play and play we did

On July 26, I joined a terrific cast for the staged reading of a new comedy at the Elephant Theater in Hollywood. We had a ball. The Elephant seats about 45 people. That was a lot of talent in a very small space.

I played Zelda Fitzgerald (no, not that one), the "cute but quirky" head writer of a hit TV show. (I imagined her a Liz Meriwether/Emily Spivey type.) Arye Gross played my boss/occasional love interest/beleaguered producer of the Golden Globes. With the help of the rest of the stellar cast including Bradley, Cheryl, Brian and Sam as two movie stars in love, a TV host and movie producer, respectively, we attempted to keep a particularly cursed Golden Globes show from going off the rails. Strong support was offered in multiple roles by Anastasia Basil, Bill Salyers and Avery Clyde. Under the leadership of our terrific director, Robin, and aided by producer Hillary Weaver, hilarity ensued.

trailer for 'the fall to earth' with jobeth williams

JoBeth Williams, Ann Noble, Deborah Puette. Photo by David Colclasure.

Click HERE to watch the trailer for The Fall to Earth. Through April 1, 2012 in Los Angeles at the Odyssey Theatre.

going to nyc with 'caught'

For ten months in '10 and '11 I had the sheer pleasure of originating and playing the role of Darlene in David L. Ray's smash-hit Caught. Now I'm thrilled to be going with the producers and our director, Nick DeGruccio, to New York City for a three-day workshop followed by two presentations of the staged reading at 3 pm and 7 pm, March 12, at the Foxwoods Theatre. Many thanks to my current employers at the Odyssey Theatre in Los Angeles for giving me the preceding weekend off from The Fall to Earth! We'll return with performances of TFTE on Wednesday, March 14.

If you're in New York and would like to join us for one of the Caught readings, message me here and I'll direct you to where you can get free tickets to either performance.

everything you need to know to see the west coast premiere of acclaimed 'the fall to earth'

NOW EXTENDED! 

Chicago playwright Joel Drake Johnson's darkly funny and occasionally terrifying play, The Fall to Earth, runs through April 22  at the Odyssey Theatre in west Los Angeles.

Cast of characters:

Click here to watch the trailer!

Fay Schorsch, a mother: JoBeth Williams
Rachel Browney, her daughter: Me 
Terry Reed, a police officer: Ann Noble

All information including performance schedule, showtimes, ticketing, creative team bios, technical crew and more can be found at the Odyssey Theatre website, so give the link a click. A blurb from the description there:

Playwright Johnson's funny and harrowing play explores the treacherous terrain of parent/child relationships, where everything changes, yet always remains the same.

For a great interview with director Robin Larsen and JoBeth, visit LA Stage Times here.

If you're a casting director or someone else with the ability to offer the cast further employment, email me here for professional comps, and I'll do my damnedest.

See you at the theater!

'the fall to earth'

Back in 2010, I was fortunate to be part of the producing team that offered up Joel Drake Johnson's funny and heartbreaking play, Four Places, in Los Angeles at Rogue Machine. That production was helmed by my dear friend and frequent collaborator, Robin Larsen, and featured Roxanne Hart in one of the lead roles. Its quartet of actors and creative team went on to many richly-deserved award nominations that season, including the Ovation Award for Best Production, Intimate Theater, which we ultimately won. The whole process was a thrill, and so I'm really, really excited to announce that I've re-teamed with Robin and Roxanne for another project written by Joel.

Earlier this year, we secured the West Coast premiere rights to Joel's equally dark and funny drama about family secrets, The Fall to Earth, which premiered at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater several years back. Robin will again direct, but Rox and I will switch places--this time around I'll star and she'll produce along with the fine folks at Los Angeles' acclaimed Odyssey Theatre. And as the icing on the cake, the wonderful JoBeth Williams will grace the stage in a tour de force role as the mother of my character. Rehearsals begin this week with a February 11 opening.

Click here for performance schedule and tickets. 

I hope you'll join us.

thanks, steven stanley

Anyone who's anyone in Los Angeles theater knows S.S. and his website, StageSceneLA. Independent of any publication, Steven attends hundreds of shows in L.A. every year and reports on what he sees. This past season, he was especially supportive of "Caught," attending the play eight times including opening and closing nights and revisiting his assessment of the experience with each cast change over the course of ten months. He also saw "Eccentricities of a Nightingale" which ran during the same time.

Steven is a passionate supporter of stagecraft in this theater town, and I'm grateful that he named me in one of his top honors this year.

uh, yeah, there's a little bit of theater in L.A. part deux

If you're seriously involved in Los Angeles theater AND you've not been living under a rock for the past week or so, you've already heard the wind-up to this conversation several times on different platforms. A distillation of what went down:

The LA Times Culture Monster announced a roundtable discussion around the question "Is LA a theater town?" featuring a panel of talented, distinguished folks who, together, could hardly be described as coming close to representing LA theater in full. In response, Colin Mitchell of the website Bitter Lemons got the ball rolling with a rabble-rousing facebook post connected to his blog. From there, comments flew fast and furious (mostly bewildered and/or negative and all of which have now been removed) onto the Culture Monster page wondering over the makeup of the panel and decrying the topic question as hardly the one we need to be asking.

So, ready to talk it out, this past Tuesday hundreds of us drove downtown through rush hour traffic, parked our cars for $10 a pop and took our seats only to listen to a bizarrely underwhelming and largely irrelevant back and forth that left most of us looking around in disbelief when it was cut short with no opportunity for Q&A. That night in response, Executive Director of the Theatre @ Boston Court, Michael Seel, took to facebook to ask those of us who were there "what was the conversation YOU wanted the panelists to have?" The comments, mine included, point to the fact that plenty of artists and arts administrators in this town intend to have a serious say in what the conversation actually needs to be.

You can read the distillation of Michael's post and the comments it drew at Boston Court's regularly excellent blog "we PLAY different". I invite you to continue the conversation in the comments section below or wherever you see fit. But continue it, let's do.

dangerous sport

*click on pic to enlarge*


LOS ANGELES TIMES CRITIC'S CHOICE

I go back and forth when it comes to reading reviews. But when they're good, they often get sent to me by someone I love who wants to share the nice news. That was the case with this from the Los Angeles Times on "The Eccentricities of a Nightingale".

Most important: in the review it says, "Under Damaso Rodriguez's direction, ------."  Ain't that the truth. Damaso encouraged and nurtured the very thing that this reviewer decided to call "fearlessness"--he's the real deal, and I am so lucky and glad to have worked on this with him.

the joy of eccentricities. opening march 19.

I just started rehearsal for Tennessee Williams' "Eccentricities of a Nightingale" at A Noise Within, directed by Damaso Rodriguez. I'll be playing Alma Winemiller, one of Williams' wonderful tragic heroines. The cast and design team are top-notch--I'm so jazzed about this show. Tickets now on sale at ANW website and on Goldstar.

uh, yeah, there's a little bit of theater in L.A.

When my then-boyfriend-now-husband and I moved to L.A. from Chicago, I was pretty sure I was kissing legitimate theater goodbye. The rap about Los Angeles theater being all bad showcase projects had jaded me before I even landed at LAX. I'm sure I'd even muttered some of it myself, before I knew any better.

I'm not often this glad to have been 180 degrees off the mark. Los Angeles' theater community is as vibrant and varied, as talented and troubled as of that in any of the major market in the U.S. It's nowhere near perfect (another post on that when I'm less hung-over), but when it's good, it is top-notch. Chicago taught me my first lessons on living a life in the theater, and L.A. continues that schooling.

Congratulations to all of the nominees at last nights' Ovation Awards. Congratulations to all who toil and triumph, persevere and prosper onstage in the land where the screen would be king. Just being a part of this community makes me as proud as winning Ms. Ovation herself.

Congratulations to you wherever you live, so long as you make theater that truly means something to you.