The Adventures of Sophie and Sharon: Part 2, The Matching Glasses

What?
Have you ever seen more perfect monikers?
More delightful a set of glasses?
--No, no! Not Sophie's glasses, the matching glasses!
The ones that call it like it is...?

matching glasses: calling it like it is...

The Adventures of Sophie & Sharon: Part 1

love at first sight (which, as Sierra knows, never dies..)

When Sierra Boggess and I first met in London [pictured], violins played. No not literally. But it felt like they did. Or perhaps it was cellos. A string section. The Love Story theme played, something like that. Okay anyway the point is that we were an instant match and not only excited to work together in Master Class, but to share a dressing room-- which we promptly began to plan straight away...yep.

So, what are two crazy, American, London leading ladies to do? Well I will tell you what they do!
They go all out.
They whole ass it.
They come up with a concept and never look back. 

Ladies and Gentleman, I give you : DRESSING ROOM 4

[:::confetti:::]

Al and Sierra have (prepare yourselves) turned Dressing Room 4 into a Julliard dorm room-- as if Sophie and Sharon have been forced to move in to the dorms together and are valiantly trying to make it work Odd Couple style. It is a work of pure and unadulterated genius. We are pretty freakin' pleased with ourselves.

Did we force our director to take us to the Julliard Store so we could use his staff discount?
Did we then buy Julliard flags and magnets and relevant paraphernalia to go on our doors and walls?
Did we buy matching t-shirts, fleeces and water bottles?
Did we make multiple trips to Urban Outfitters so we could get a white board, a chalk board, squillions of picture frames and various key knick-knacks? 
Do we have matching make-up brush glasses that are character-appropriately labeled "Hot Mess" and "Bitch"? [above]
Did we paper our walls with scores, records and music-school articles such as "As a musician do you lead a cluttered life"?
Do we have notes, roommate citations and pep talks written to each other AS Sophie and Sharon all. over. the. room?
     and, best of all,
Did we go to Kinkos on our night off and spend 2 hours printing out over 30 pages of relevant opera memorabilia...?

....the answer to all of these is YES.

We are aware that it is ridiculous. We are. But not only do we not care, we feel sorry for people that don't get it. (Being serious for a moment, it might even seem a little insane to say this, but it has legitimately fleshed out our back-stories on stage in a pretty profound way...)

So. Get ready. Stuff in Dressing Room 4 is about to get very very real...

those would be matching t-shirts...

Master Class on Broadway

First Tech Week on Broadway

Never in all my life have I experienced so pleasant, stress-free and flat-out dreamy a tech week.

This company, valiantly spear-headed by our immaculate leading lady Tyne Daly and charismatic fearless leader, director Stephen Wadsworth, has engaged with one another, taken care of each other, and managed to finish every aspect of this beautiful Broadway show ahead of schedule without a single tear or raised voice or actor meltdown.  We are all still passionate, energized and completely in love with one another.

That is a miracle.

...So. Tuesday the audience arrives and we all eagerly await our "seventh character" and look forward to telling and sharing this story with all of you. Here's to my first tech week on Broadway. I hope and trust it will not be my last. I am a lucky and grateful lady.




all photographs by Clinton Brandhagen

* * *


Terrence McNally’s music-kissed biographical drama about opera diva Maria Callas, Master Class, begins previews as Broadway’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre June 14.According to MTC, “McNally’s award-winning play about Callas takes us to one of her famous master classes where, late in her own career, she challenges the next generation to make the same sacrifices and dare to rise to the same heights she did, making her the most celebrated, the most reviled and the most controversial singer of her times.” Tyne Daly leads a cast that features Sierra Boggess, Clinton Brandhagen, Jeremy Cohen, Alexandra Silber and Garrett Sorenson. Stephen Wadsworth directs.

In My Life: Justin

justin flagg

glasgow, scotland

2005

This is what it is all about...

Today was the best rehearsal day I have ever experienced in my life.

For so many reasons.

I have walked on Broadway stages before. I have even performed on them. But there is nothing like stepping onto a stage you are going to live on for a while, for the very first time. And this time? This time, that stage is on Broadway. And there is no way to describe it but it is simply different. As I walked into the theatre I clutched Jeremy Cohen's hand-- Sophie and Manny reunited on the Great White Way. "I will never forget this moment," he said. I couldn't agree more.

There we were, on the stage, and everyone was so excited! Garret [Sorenson], who has sung on some of the most prestigious operatic stages on earth was as gleeful as a child in a 650 seat house. Sierra [Boggess], returning to Broadway after a stint in our beloved London was orchestrating the picture taking and "moment marking" like a gleeful big sister watching her siblings going to Prom. We shouted! We squealed! We hugged. We allowed ourselves to feel the moment. We are an exceptionally loving and jolly bunch.

We returned to rehearsal and achieved a new kind of theatrical divinity none of us could ever have dreamed possible. The already magical scene reached new depths, new heights, new glory, and we all felt it (there is no way to articulate these tingly moments in the theatre, the closest comparison I can offer is that feeling of kissing a person who is the one...). Progress. Catharsis.

But then, as if all that were not enough, I had a singing session that accessed a quality in not merely my voice, but in my self, that no words could ever articulate. Suffice it say that I sang like never before.

I returned home that night to my family, all visiting from California-- my mom, my brother and sister in law, my two little nieces, and created more memories. Food, laughter, stories at bedtime...

I don't know if I can find the words to describe the quiet perfection of May 19, 2011 exactly, but perhaps finding those words is not important. This kind of contentment, happiness, peace? It is a quiet thing. It requires no language, only silent inner knowledge, like a candle glow of contentment.

Reader? This is what it is all about.
This is what life is all about...

class in in session...

Lo-Fi Around The World

HARK!!
Hyperbole alert!!
Check out the trial of the Lo-Fi application and your life will change.
No.
For reals.
Totes.
Fo sho.
I cannot shove any more ironically used, 21st century tweenage slang in here to emphasize this point thoroughly enough.
(Oh, and from experience, don't download it if you have anything meaningful to do within the next 24 hours... because... you might not come up for air and you might forget your friends' birthday or not go to a meeting or be so distracted that you write down the wrong phone number or forget to grab that last load of laundry from the dryer or when you sweep the basement, you accidentally dump the entire contents of the dust pan into the bag of clean laundry from the dryer... Those are some options. So beware. The program is pretty much *that* great...)

"The 12th of Maaaaaaayyy..."

So.... no we aren't dorks. We just loooved each other and are pretending we are still in the show. kind of. on a relevant date mentioned in the piece.

...that isn't dorky! it's. :::sigh::: okay. point taken.

So here it is: images from our heavenly Hello Again Reunion on "The 12th of Maaaaaay" in Sheep's Meadow, Central Park. Please note that we deeply missed some notable men (Bob Stillman and Jonathan Hammond to be specific)! In fact, as The Young Thing Blake Daniel said in one of the best notable quotables of the season: "None of my sex partners are coming." Word, Blake. Word.

But Vladamir, I hardly knew you!

Hitchcockskya

Me: Hi, this is Alexandra Silber, I'm calling for Vladamir.
Them: [dead silence, then] Da.
Me: Well okay, [nervousrapidfirenerdyvoice] soooo I am doing some research on the katorga forced labor system in Imperial Russia [isoundliketheguyfromTheSimpsons] and I was told that Vladamir was available for a discussion sometime today?
Them: [silence.] Vladamir is out. [more silence]
Me: Okay...well I--
Them: --HE WILL NOT RETURN.
Me: [what?!] ...um, EVER?
Them: Da. EVER. I go now. Goodbye.

...whoa...

Things My 5 Senses Love: A List

Tastes
Coffee
Anything Oliver Friendly cooks.
Sea salt
Ice cold watermelon. (A whole one. Just for me. No sharing. Okay maybe a little sharing...just a touch...)
pure, pure water

Sights
Piles of books
Lemons
Nick Bantock's art work (and company, but that is not so much a sight, I'm trying to be terribly strict here!)
Early morning sunshine
old photographs
dappled sunlight through the leaves
The extraordinarily blinding colo(u)rs in nature

Sounds
Meaningful conversations
The sea
Trains
Lilly playing the oboe
The laughter of people I love

Feels/Touches
Holding hands (particularly with long time favo[u]rite hand-holding partner David Fetzer)
Holding on to anyone you love
My childhood stuffed animals
The cool side of the pillow

Smells
Rosemary / Lavender / Peppermint in noparticularorder
Café Hula in Glasgow
Fresh Michigan air (especially after the rain)

...and you...?

"Zebra's Walk" ©Nick Bantock

In My Life: Emma

Emma Williams

London, England

2010

Det. Alexandra Eames' advice to Alexandra Silber

go on... have a cookie...because you are tall...

[At rise: me on the set of Law & Order: Criminal Intent sitting across from Kathryn Erbe who plays Detective Alexandra Eames. It has been a long day. And now there are freshly baked chocolate chip cookies sitting at the food table and the odo(u)r is wafting our way...]

Kathryn Erbe: Cookies! [she turns around with glee] Are you gonna have a cookie?
Me: They have cookies again? [They had cookies yesterday-- is this heaven?!]
KE: They have them every day. And they are hot. And delicious.
Me: I missed them yesterday...
KE: Well, then you should have one today!
Me: I dunno... [I am thinking of myself in these ill-fitting jeans for all the world to see... in HD...]
KE: ["Cookies are serious business" voice] You should have a cookie. You are young.... [she is deadpan] and tall...
Me: ...Okay...
KE: Please. For me.
Me: I promise.
KE: Thank you.


Cookie consumed.