It Takes a Big Heart to Help Shape Little Minds

Today marks the end of Teacher Appreciation Week. I am sure, without a doubt, that this year has been the most challenging in any teacher's career. What we are going through in the education system is unprecedented. This blog post, though, is a particular shout out to one particular teacher, and, no, it isn't one of my teachers, although I could blog about many I have had. This is about the teacher that lives in my house with me. This school year, 2019/2020, was my daughter's first year as a teacher in the 2 year old class at her Dayschool. She has done an amazing job this year from the beginning in the way she made her room visually exciting (Most of the decorations were created and drawn by her), the clever crafts she did with her class of 8 2 year olds, and most importantly the love she shows each child every day. Teaching a 2 year old is not an easy job, and it is not for the faint of heart. If you are a parent, think back to the days when your child was 2 and walking and everything they were getting into, and, oh yes, potty training. Now imagine you have 8 of those little munchkins! Yeah, I thought so. I'm not saying there aren't days that are super hard for Georgi and nothing seems to go right, but she's there for those kids every day. When all of this Corona Virus stuff hit, it was a real game changer. The school closed, but the teachers still needed to provide something for their classes. That's a little bit easier if you have a child older than 2. Long distance or remote learning makes a little more sense. Two's thrive on hugs and movement and face to face contact. Georgi stepped up to the plate and poured through Youtube videos of songs to match her theme for the week, made up Grab Bags with materials and ideas for the parents to do with their children while everyone was at home. She sent out dance party suggestions, and even had me guest star on a video link to Youtube as Mother Goose on her week about Nursery Rhymes. She cares deeply for each child. Even if she wasn't my daughter, I would be thrilled if she were teaching my child or grandchild. It's a hard thing to let go of that precious cargo and trust someone else to take care of them. Georgi earns that trust every day! She dries tears, and fixes boo-boos, acts silly, and yes, also teaches them how to be decent little humans because that's part of loving too! These 8 little people will grow into some great students, but better yet kind people, and if they don't it won't be because they didn't have a great foundation. Happy Teacher Appreciation Week, Georgi. You deserve so much more than thanks!

What a Difference Three Weeks Makes

Three weeks ago tonight I was on a high. I had just closed a show that meant more to me than any other in my career. I felt like the work I had done and the success of the show took me places I had never been in my 46 years of acting, and tonight, 3 weeks later, unless I have to get groceries, I am staying in my house along with most of the world . It's called social distancing, and it's something I have never experienced in the 56 years I have been on this earth. We are all trying to do our part to "flatten the curve" of a deadly virus that has taken so many lives already, and I fear will take many more. I am sure you have read over and over again about the Coronavirus and COVID-19. That's not what this is about. I am one of the lucky ones. I am able to work from home. I have not lost my job nor any of my salary. My children are grown. They have not missed their graduation or senior prom or saying good-bye to their friends. All things considered we are very lucky, but all of this has really made me think. As I observe what goes on in the world around me, I am in awe. Mostly I cannot believe the way a large part of our country is acting about what has to be done in order to make this virus manageable, not to eradicate it, just make it manageable so we don't have to choose who will be treated because we are so overcrowded in our hospitals and have no equipment or beds to accommodate every sick person. I am sad, and my heart hurts.
I have recently gotten into books on tape. I live further from work, and I have about a 30 minute drive to and from. In the past 6 months I have listened to 2 books in particular that I want to talk about. They are The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and The Lilac Girls. Both took place during World War II. I have always been very interested in that time in history, but I think about America then and America now. During World War II, almost every man, woman and child did their part to contribute to the effort to win the war. Women went to work in factories, and kids did scrap metal drives, and just about every male who was able couldn't wait to enlist to fight for their country. Hollywood might romanticize it a little, but they weren't far from the truth. The books I read talked about the sacrifices and conditions in England and Poland during the war. Those people did everything they could to survive, and so everyone could survive. There was no selfishness in the camps, in the occupied towns. Most were united against a common enemy. "United we stand. Divided we fall." That's not just a saying on a coffee mug. It's the truth. If we would all work together, we could help our medical personnel make it through this. Lives, unfortunately, would still be lost as in any war, but perhaps not as many. Yes, I know many of us are following all the rules, doing what our medical community is telling us to do, but I am shocked at the amount of people who are doing exactly what they want and ignoring every plea to help. Have we become that selfish? Why can't we see how lucky we are? No one is invading our homes, taking every possession we own, all of our food in exchange for ration cards. No one is dragging us into the street and shooting us because they can. We are being asked to stay home and watch television. This should not be difficult. I know that I'm preaching to the choir here. Most of my readers, I am sure, are doing their part, but if anyone is reading this who maybe thinks we're not fighting a war, WE ARE! Please, please do what you're asked. We can unite, we can come together! We have to!

And Another Thing.....

Saturday night I said good-bye to someone very dear to me. We met last summer, and over the past 8 months we have become very close. I knew when we started the relationship it would be brief, that it would end far sooner than I wanted it to, but I got into it anyway. I first met her last summer when I read about her. She sounded like the kind of person who would be really interesting. We didn't really meet face to face until about a month later, and I loved her instantly. She was sassy and funny and sweet, and I adored her. In December we started meeting for weekly get togethers, and by January we saw each other almost every day until last Saturday when I knew she had to leave and their was nothing I could do about it. I even told myself she was staying one more day just so I could make it through her exit out of my life. I am talking about Della Brady, the character I just finished playing at Richmond Triangle Players in The Cake. I have been acting for over 46 years, and I have never played anyone I knew any better than Della. A large part of the credit for that goes to an amazing director, Dawn Westbrook. Dawn started out with a tremendous confidence in my ability to play the role. She let me grow and explore and go places I've never been before as an actor, and I'm sure my performance would not have been what it was without her push and guidance, and I mean that as a good thing! An actor, unless they are in a one-woman show, plays off of each cast member, and I had some of the best starting with a lovely man I have known for years, Gordon Bass. Gordon played my husband, Tim, and from the first time we read together in auditions, it was as comfortable as if we had been married for years. We just fit, and I don't know of anyone I would have trusted more for where our scenes took us. What a joy to look into those soulful eyes each night. To quote Della, "and I thanked God because I ...had you." My antagonist was a beautiful (inside and out) actress named Zakiyyah Jackson. Our characters' relationship was a difficult one, but I couldn't have been the Della I was without her. I never enjoyed arguing with anyone more! Watch out Richmond! You're going to be seeing a lot more of this talented lady! Last, but not least, Nicole Morris-Anastasi played Jen, the "like a daughter to me" character. I have known Nicole for several years. I watched her blossom and grow in this part, and she should be very proud of what she put on that stage each night. It was hardest to keep it together when I had to say good-bye to her in our final scene. Bravo, lady!!! We also had a kick-ass crew led by stage manager, Lauren Langston, who never missed ANYTHING!!! Thanks to Darren for literally taking all the "crap" I handed him and Nora, well, you know I could not have been successful without you! Top it all off being in my beautiful bakery designed by David Ballas to make things just right. Shows, especially good ones, and this was a really good show, not just my opinion, read the reviews, are made up of a lot of different people working very hard. Add to that a wonderful, loving supportive theater with amazing people at the helm, Philip Crosby and Lucian Restivo,  and you can't miss. I have never been prouder of anything I have ever done on stage. If I never had the opportunity to act again, I am glad I went out on this one! Goodbye Della. I will miss you and The Cake, but not the cake. Pie anyone?

Sing to Me!

Ok, I’m about to become very unpopular. As I have mentioned recently I don’t go on Facebook much anymore. A big part of that is that I have to scroll through 20 ads before I even see anything posted from someone I know, and even then, their post is 3 days old, but I digress. At any rate, I was scrolling through my feed the other night, and I came across 3 friends almost one right after the other who had posted the duet of Suddenly Seymour from Little Shop of Horrors sung by the cast in the most recent production at The Pasadena Playhouse. Now, let me start by saying that I love Little Shop. I have seen at least 4 different productions, and both of my daughters have played Audrey, and all I have to do is hear the beginning strains of Somewhere That’s Green, and I will tear up. Each production was different, and for the most part I enjoyed them all. This is not a commentary on Little Shop. This is a commentary on Musical theatre singing in general. Let me say here that this is an opinion, my opinion, because this is my blog. You may disagree with me. In fact, I’m sure the majority of you will, and that’s fine, but don’t read anything into this that is not there. I am no stranger to Musical Theatre. I have been singing since I was 3, and I did my first professional musical at the age of 10. Over the last 46 years I have been in the chorus or featured in 22 musicals, and I have seen countless others, not bad statistics for research. I do not understand the obsession over vocal power. Now here’s the part where everyone starts hating on me. I pulled up the recording of Suddenly Seymour as everyone was commenting how amazing it was. I listened. I didn’t like it. There I said it. ANNOUNCEMENT: Please do not accuse me of not liking the duet because Audrey is being played by a transgender actor! I did not even know that when I listened to the recording!!! And this opinion has nothing to do with that! What I did not like was all the belting and riffing. Now, they are not the first cast to sing the duet like that. In fact, most do try to belt their faces off. I am also not opposed to belting a song. There are certain songs that need to be belted, When You’re Good to Mama and All That Jazz from Chicago, Everything’s Coming Up Roses from Gypsy, Poor Unfortunate Souls from The Little Mermaid and lots of others. I, myself, can belt. My first high school show was Godspell, and my father said I got the role singing Turn Back, O Man because I “blew the doors off of the back of the auditorium.” People with a good belt are impressive, it’s true, but just because you can belt doesn’t mean you should on every song you sing. Riffing is a blog entry all on its own. Short and Sweet: I’m not a fan, and it’s way over used! Back when I was auditioning for Godspell in 1978, there were no body mics. We had to project and belt to be heard at the back of the theater or the top of the balcony, but today we have this cool stuff called technology and you can whisper on stage and the cheap seats can hear you because everything that’s heard by the audience is coming through a speaker. This technology has been a great help to the actor and I’m sure saved countless voices. Yes, even with body mics, there are still songs that need to be belted, but only if the song or character suits that style. No, I do not want to hear Feed Me from Little Shop in a lyric tenor voice, but so many songs now become screaming matches between the actors. We get it, you can sing loud. You have power, but let me use the Suddenly Seymour duet as an example. Audrey is broken and sad. Life has beaten her down. That song can grow in power as she realizes that Seymour gives her the respect she deserves. She can be someone with Seymour. The song can end powerfully, but power doesn’t have to come from a belt. Too many times I just feel like the actors are yelling at me, and I just want to turn it off. I have been listening to Michael Caine read his book Blow the Bloody Doors Off. He talks about when he first got into film after being a stage actor for many years and projecting so the balcony could hear him that he had to retrain himself to act for the camera. I experienced the same thing when I was shooting my one and only film, and I was so frustrated because I was used to being loud and booming, but there was no need when the camera is 6 inches from your face, and a boom mic is literally right above your head. Remember that thing called technology? By the end of the 2-week filming I began to appreciate the camera because I could embrace nuance and subtlety. That’s’ what I miss with listening to musical theatre stars of today. Where is the nuance, where are the subtle, almost breathless tones sometimes? I want to see that in singing as well as dialogue. Stop yelling at me! Sing to me. Emote the song. It can be much more powerful than just being loud. When you whisper, you draw people in. Make the song about the song, not about how loud it can be! Rant over!

You're Gonna Make it After All

When I was a kid, there was a sitcom on called The Mary Tyler Moore Show. It was about a young single woman moving away from the comfort of her home to the "big city" to live on her own and all the situations she encountered as she lived her life. The opening sequence shows her leaving her hometown, the goodbyes, and then a shot of her driving her fully loaded car away into the sunset off on life's journey. A little over a year ago, I watched a young single girl do the same thing, but this girl was my daughter, and she was off to New York City to chase the proverbial dream to be an actor. The beginning of the lyrics to the Mary Tyler Moore theme song are, "How will you make it on your own? This world is awfully big, girl, this time you're all alone." I have to be honest, as a Mom, I couldn't help but think about that and worry, but, boy, has she proven me wrong! She loves the city! She has fallen into the rhythm, and seems she's been there all of her life. It helps that she's there with friends. So, this is the part where I thank all of her friends and roommates for making this adventure a little bit easier, for taking care of her and loving her, and being the arms around her because I can't reach that far. I am so proud of you "making it on your own!" The rest of the song goes like this, so take it as my wish for your life and your birthday as you turn 27 today and living life on your terms. Love you so much!!!! Happy Birthday.
Love is all around, no need to waste it,
You can have the town, why don't you take it?
You're gonna make it after all!

Falling Angels

Today is Friday, September 13^th, but I am not going to write about black cats crossing my path or walking under a ladder being bad luck or all of the theatre superstitions I TOTALLY follow. Today, I want to write about something that everyone was writing about 2 days ago, September 11^th. This is not going to be a minute by minute reminiscence of what I went through that day 18 years ago. This will be more about the feeling I had then and still. On the eleventh I was scrolling through Facebook, I usually do that once a day now, far less than I used to, but I came across a post of an article on my feed. I follow the comedian Elayne Boosler, and she had posted a beautiful article that ran in Esquire magazine called The Falling Man. If you are old enough to actually remember details about that day in the late summer of 2001, you know exactly what this article was about. If you are not, you are lucky. A tiny bit of backstory about me and that day. I have a very photographic memory, not the kind that is instant recall of books I’ve read or papers I’ve seen. My eyes are not cameras, but life event emotions and feelings, I can play them back in my head just like they are a movie, and certain memories are not the kind you want to see over and over again. Unfortunately, once I’ve seen it, I can’t shake it. 9/11 was filled with those pictures. For that reason, I did not watch the news for several days after it happened. It was easy immediately after because I was working at an elementary school, and we were told not to discuss it with the children. No TV’s were on. The days that followed were harder for this TVholic, but I purposely kept the set off. One of the first images I did see, and I think it was in print was a photo of 2 people falling past one of the Towers. They had jumped out of the windows of the Skyscraper. I was overcome with sadness, and a sick feeling welled up inside of me. The desperation, the fear, the absolute horror these people must have felt to leap out of a window 100’s of floors above the ground. Let me pause here and say, I have never had suicidal thoughts. I don’t know what that’s like, but I know that they exist, and are very hard to fight. However, if I had been on the floor with those people that day, I may have made the same choice. And here’s the thing, I do not believe they were committing suicide but instead choosing how they would die that day. They knew that death was inevitable. They knew they were not getting out of this situation alive. They chose “Escape” that day, escape from choking smoke and intense heat, and literally burning alive, and damn anyone who judges them for the choices they made. Yet we have shunned those images and put them away quietly. Whenever someone does speak of them, people freak out. How awful that someone took pictures of that! How disrespectful! How demeaning! The Esquire article was a beautiful tribute to these people. Why have they been left out of “NEVER FORGET?” If anything, I think those images paint a very clear picture of the fear of that day and exactly what was happening. Terrorists decided to execute hundreds of people that day. The people who jumped that day simply wanted the dignity to die in their own way. They were not going to let someone else decide how they would die. People jumped from the Hindenburg, and they were the ones who survived. I am sure they did not know as they jumped from the massive, ball of flame that they would land alive. No one judges them. The heroic people of Flight 93 chose to wreck their plane into a field knowing they would die, but they would thwart evil by doing it. They are revered and remembered as well they should be! Some place the number at 200 people who jumped or fell from the Towers that day. 200 people that we don’t want to remember. These are the images that show us how horrible it was in a mental capacity, and that makes us uncomfortable. We wonder if we might have made that choice, and that scares us. Faced with burning alive, I am not ashamed to say, I would have, as I read in the beautiful article in Esquire, “jumped into the arms of God” with full faith that he would catch me and take me home. God bless all of the “Falling” Angels. I remember you, and grieve for you and mourn the loss of your soul in this world.

RIP Rhoda Morgenstern

I grew up in the 1960's and 70's. To say I was a TV kid would be an understatement. I can remember always watching cartoons on Saturday mornings sitting right up on the television set, ignoring the warnings from my grandmother that I was going to "ruin my eyes." I didn't, by the way. Cartoons were not my only fare. Color TV was introduced in 1965. I was 2. I remember sitting in the living room to get dressed for school so I could watch Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers. My mom even let me eat in there most mornings. I watched The Jackie Gleason Show – I can still hear my grandmother (I spent most weekends with my grandparents) yelling from the back door that Jackie Gleason was on, and I would stop whatever outside play I was engaged in and plant myself in front of the set. I watched the Carol Burnette Show every week, and all of the yearly events. There were no VCR’s or DVD or Blu Ray players back then. You could not watch anything any time you wished. I would wait in anticipation of the yearly broadcast of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella starring Lesley Ann Warren or Rankin and Bass’ clay animated Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, the Peanut’s Charlie Brown Christmas at the Holidays and my pièce de résistance, The Wizard of Oz. I never missed it! In fact, I was extremely up set in my senior year of high school that I had to compete in a forensics competition and would miss the yearly broadcast. In short, I love television! I still do! Television has changed over the years. You can now watch anything, anytime, or almost anytime you want. We are in the age of streaming. We can be anywhere and watch TV if we have a phone or now, a watch. As with any improvements, there comes cost. When I was propped up in front of my TV set as a child, it was free. In my tweens something came along called cable television, and you had to pay a monthly fee. The free channels were still there, but cable gave you many more channels to watch. My family got on the Cable train, and I continued that as I moved out on my own until about 2 years ago. We cut the cable chord, and we are streaming only with digital services and Wi-Fi and have a digital antenna to still get those FREE channels. This has its benefits, no commercials, and we do something now called binge watching. When we moved into our present home I decided to start binge watching the TV shows I loved as a child. The short ½ hour comedies. I wanted to watch from start to finish. I chose That Girl first. I then moved on to The Dick Van Dyke show, and then Mary Tyler Moore. These shows were so rich with the characterizations of the cast members. Their mission was originally to bring us into their lives each week and follow their journey, feeling like we were part of their family, their world, and we did. We cared about those characters. When I started watching Mary Tyler Moore, I had forgotten how much I loved Rhoda. Rhoda was Mary’s best friend who lived in the very tiny 1 room apartment upstairs from Mary or “M­ar” as she called her. Rhoda didn’t even have a closet or a kitchen, but she did have those cool beads that hung at the entrance to her apartment, and it was painted a deep pink. Valerie Harper played Rhoda Morgenstern. She was the queen of sarcastic humor and so witty. She was quick with a comeback, and her timing was impeccable! You could always count on Rhoda to tell it like it was, something I identify greatly with. As a kid, I always thought Rhoda was cool with her wild clothes and neat apartment, but re-watching the show as an adult, I just love her!! She was my favorite. She left the show to do a spin-off, something the networks did in those days. If a character was popular enough, they gave them their own show. Rhoda moved back to New York, and I didn’t enjoy the Mary Tyler Moore show as much after that. It was still good, I just really felt Rhoda’s absence. Valerie Harper passed away this week, after a long battle with cancer. She was 80. It’s hard to watch the icons of your childhood pass on. It means that I am getting older, but it also means more and more of my childhood is leaving me. I am so glad I can see my old friend any time I want. Rest in Peace, Rhoda Morgenstern.