Wonderstudies

Understudying and swinging is one of the hardest jobs in all of show-business, and although we've had a renaissance of uplifting these performers in a post COVID world, don't be fooled: we still don't give them anything close to what they deserve.

A role in a specific production is not "mine" — to be stingy with. I prefer to think of my primary duty as being to the character herself— and to serve her as best I can. More often than not that means coming to work and doing what I know I'm on earth to do. 

But if I am not capable of serving? Or for some reason require rest and respite to continue effectively serving? Than the way to truly serve is to allow the other members of The Team do just that. 

It's an honor to be on Team Marian with Christine-- it's been an honor my entire career to work with every teammate serving these women I've had the honor to portray. 

You all know who you are.

Some of you are my very best friends. 

After all: what else are we doing on earth if not uplifting one another? 

Here's to Teamwork.

"There was love, all around..."

©aka liz lauren

“There was love all around, but I never heard it singing…”

One of the things I adore—and have truly learned—in the playing of this classic song (‘Til There Was You’) is the humble admission of something I know all too well (because I personally did it for years):

That, as individuals who desire to love and be loved, sometimes we participate in our own solitude. 

We perpetuate it by keeping the world at a safe distance. We think that a world kept at arms length cannot hurt us. But that isn’t how it works. A heart sealed in an airtight box does change— just not with scars or wounds. It calcifies and hardens.

For Marian— a woman who has an almost rigid rigor for upholding the 'absolute truth' — I think this line in this song is Marian’s greatest moment of vulnerability.

To fully admit (in song)—that despite all her research, her knowledge OF love stories, poetry and BALZAC— she didn’t just miss something, she missed everything. She missed the point of all of it: love “all around” her.

And she missed it not because of town gossip, or grief, or the lack of a suitable partner in the area,— she missed it because her own rigid walls were built up and buttressed so high that she almost tossed love aside even when it was right in front of her.

I relate.

And I celebrate her humility and admission because it is, in every way, my own.

Maybe it’s yours too.

(And I thank —infinitely— the love of my life, my beloved Alec, for patiently standing before me until the walls came down)

May you be brave enough to see the love all around you, whenever you are ready to fully receive it.

Love on.

© Marian at sunset by @brave.lux - What a dream it is.

Janet: No People Like Show People

photo by @kulpy

Mama. 

Roomie. 

Legend. 

Emotional support animal 

and new Chicago bestie. 

Let’s hear it for JANET. ULRICH. BROOKS. 

 

You know? In the Business of Show it certainly isn’t the career volatility, or the total artistic unpredictability that *gets us going.* And it isn’t living far from home, or the job security; and it definitely isn’t the TENS of dollars we make for the privilege of dedicating our life to art. 

 It’s all about the PEOPLE WE SHARE IT WITH.

The honor of sharing this experience with the legendary talent that is Janet Ulrich Brooks has been more than a joy— in fact there aren’t words for all it has been, and you all know I’m very rarely speechless.

To my stage Mama— 'Widda Paroo,' talent beyond, 

and now dear, 

fiercely loyal, 

infinitely reciprocal, 

unimaginably generous, 

ambulance-calling, 

tradition-upholding,

 laugh-out-louding, 

make-your-own-kinda-music-singing, 

new Friend-with-a-capital-F:

     I love you beyond.

Thank you for allowing me to love you out loud.

You’re stuck with me forever.

photo by @kulpy

Not again.

Me: on morphine and fentanyl which was WOWEE

So. Yeah. Yikes. Hi Everyone. Al here—providing a brief blow-by-blow health update in the latest chapter of ‘Adventures of Al’s Not-Colon.’

It's been a while since a health update was necessary (blessedly), but I'm writing to you from my hotel room here at the Marriott Lincolnshire with the white-hot clarity that can only come from... a liquid diet.

In brief: I'm fine-not-fine. 

I'll be fine. 

And right now I am (physically) stable, and we're on the road to "figuring it out."

WTF happened:

 

This weekend I had an experience onstage during the Saturday matinee of The Music Man. After an "uncomfortable" but not unmanageable first act, I experienced absolutely blinding, lightning-fast 10/10 pain in my viscera during Act 2, and could not continue with the performance. This has never happened to me in my career. Even in the early days of colitis. It was emotionally obliterating. 

 

Backstage, roiling in on the floor backstage, I ripped the pins out of my wig, the microphones off my head while Janet called Alec (at the airport on his way to Sacramento— whom I gently had to ask "please stop speaking to me in ALL CAPS") and then my poor mom, as an ambulance arrived and carted me away. Everyone was incredible: stage managers, company managers, the ushers (!), upper management, the Marriott staff, the cast. 

 

 

Oh the drama.

 

I am generally fairly un-embarass-able. Perhaps it's a symptom of 11 years of ulcerative colitis. You face it all and then some when it comes to the challenging of one's dignity. But the sinking feeling of despair  was almost as blinding as the gut pain. 

 

One of the many reasons I had the J-pouch surgery was to avoid this exact scenario: of being compromised because of my health not just in public, but on stage, observed by thousands and unable to continue with the show. It was in many ways, my worst case scenario, manifested. Even though I know I'm tough as nails, and nothing about this is "weak," those voices reign supreme when I make self assessments in moments of adversity. My favorite question to ask Mom and Alec throughout the surgical journey was "Am I a weenie?" To be clear: I would never be this cruel to anyone else. Of course.

The cast and crew were so respectful as they returned to their dressing rooms and waited. No one flooded me trying to over-help; no one "looky-loo-ed." When I came-to in the emergency room and returned to my phone I awoke to a flood of well wishes and a gigantic bouquet of flowers "from everyone in River City."

 

Proof positive: there's no people like show people.

Of particular note, and a memory I won't soon forget is that of our very stoic, very excellent, not-actually-grouchy, grouchy nerd with a heart of gold, our main sound engineer John. John is a character whom I would never have expected to be so intensely THERE for a work colleague who is essentially a stranger— pushed me in the wheelchair to the main entrance. He kept audience members from poking me on the way out. He held my hand while I writhed and wept, and he reassured me with a level of profound intensity, he made me believe I would overcome every element of this. It was breathtaking.  

 

Thank you, John. I'll never forget this shared moment that felt like a poem.

 

John reminded me of a wonderful male nurse I met once after colonoscopy number infinity somewhere in the 20-teens. This nurse (coincidentally, also named John) could tell I was weary, strung out, and absolutely out of hope. He held my hand as I quietly cried on the table, and was still gripping it firmly as I awoke from the anesthesia in the recovery area.

That little gesture. It meant everything. 

 

 

Back in Chicago: I was hospitalized. Given incredible drugs. Tested within an inch of my sanity. The Emergency Room team was not a specialist team and they weren't able to help me figure out what had happened. Blessedly, a gastroenterologist happened to be on call that night! He had heard of the J-pouch surgery! It was a start.

 

 

I have no idea what is wrong with me, I'll update you when I do. But I have both a physical and psychic sense that it is... not good.