They brought a woman from the street And made her sit in the stalls By threats By bribes By flattery Obliging her to share a little of her life with actors
But I don't understand art
Sit still, they said
But I don't want to see sad things
Sit still, they said
And she listened to everything Understanding some things But not others Laughing rarely, and always without knowing why Sometimes suffering disgust Sometimes thoroughly amazed And in the light again, said
If that's art I think it is hard work It was beyond me So much beyond my actual life
But something troubled her Something gnawed her peace And she came a second time, armoured with friends
Sit still, she said
And again, she listened to everything This time understanding different things This time untroubled that some things Could not be understood Laughing rarely but now without shame Sometimes suffering disgust Sometimes thoroughly amazed And in the light again said
This is art, it is hard work And one friend said, too hard for me And the other said, if you will I will come again Because I found it hard I felt honoured
Oh hello there. Are you in need of some inspiration?
Behold: This is my friend Carla Stickler.
Last week (in the midst of everything) Carla flew to NYC from her new home outside Chicago, to answer a call from Wicked on Broadway: “Hi Carla, we know you haven’t been a part of the full time company since 2015, but can you be here in a few days to standby for Elphaba?”
Carla has recently pivoted away from showbiz and taken on a new career in coding. She has not played this role in seven years and kapow: with a performing itch to scratch and an industry in need, Carla "Defied Gravity" last night. ON BROADWAY.
The vocal training, the sheer vocal CAPACITY, and ballsiness to be painted in green, pushed onstage with zero rehearsal, and screlt your heart and guts out. For some of us, we might not totally appreciate what a role like this entails—let alone not having done, rehearsed it, or even THOUGHT about it for SEVEN years. But Carla? Did it. On one of the biggest stages ON EARTH.
I have known Carla since we were 12 years old at summer camp. In adulthood we’ve been a part of a group of “Kick Ass Ladies” (with Christina Wallace + Rachel Beider) who lift one another up and support one another on this roller coaster called life.
Carla is one of the smartest and most devoted humans I know with the voice of an angel, but even better: the heart of a WARRIOR.
She will return to her life in Chicago with her amazing husband, perfect dog and kick ass coder job— but if she never performs in public again? She knows without a shadow of a doubt that THIS BOW was her last bow. As Elphaba. On BROADWAY.
I’m proud of her accomplishment, but even more in awe of her courage, resilience, and sheer KICKASSERY.
I love you, Carla. Thank you for reminding me (and all of here) that sometimes miracles happen TO us, but sometimes, when we are scrappy WE HAPPEN to THEM.
And just like that, the Troupe disperses. What a life we lead. The sacrifices made to serve as we do. For all of the emotional, spiritual and physical labor, we do it because we love it. We love to tell stories and hopefully affect change and offer insight.
For this, we often aren't paid much, we are often far from family and friends, we miss important life events and don't often enjoy fame or the perks of glittering stardom. Theatre-people are chasing something else, and despite all of these sacrifices (and more) we still come back again and again, 8 times a week, to tell stories because we don't merely believe that art can change the world, we know it. We have evidence. We've seen it. We've felt it. We have been changed by the transformative power of art ourselves.
And our play was about the power of a play.
So we returned. From all of our quarantines and corners of the planet, we returned. To tell our story.
We did it. The company of Indecent at the Menier Chocolate Factory went "down in the airplane" together on March 14, 2020, and 18 months later we got back in the air in 2021 and made it to the finish line. As a family. Words will never be able to capture what we shared.
I cannot believe that the world has gotten itself to this place— however fractured.
I cannot believe this company got to the finish line healthy and in joy.
And, I cannot believe that I am alive and well, having been rebuilt from the guts up— and survived to do this, the most beautiful work of art I have been a part of thus far in my career.
On 14 March, 2020, Rebecca Taichman's original production of Paula Vogel's Indecent played its second preview performance at the Menier Chocolate Factory.
Previews came after a period of detailed, emotional, and spiritually grueling work on the part of our extraordinary company and creative team, and as the day wore on, the world around us began its crash into the piercing silence we all came to know far too well.
That night, my heart surged with ache for the world, but in particular for our theatre community whose very existence relies upon its live-ness.
Theatre is a sacred ritual— it has many of the sanctities of traditional ceremonies: the repetition of words, songs and intentions; the bearing of witness, and ultimately, catharsis. Rituals matter to human beings. The most significant moments of our lives are all marked by them, and because the significance we create is far greater than any one of us, we call upon rituals to construct the towering cathedrals of Value under which we can reside. We pledge. We graduate. We celebrate. We bid farewell. Retire. Age. Move forward. It is impossible to decipher whether we create them, or they create us. At the very kernel of who we are, human beings long to make meaning of our existence. For many, formal Storytelling is as ancient and as sacred as any formal spirituality.
Toward the end of Indecent, ten “players” gather in an attic in the Warsaw ghetto and risk their lives to tell a play to the few souls brave enough to witness it. On March 14, 2020, we, just like the players in the attic, with no clear idea what tomorrow would bring did the only thing we could to survive the terror of the moment: we all agreed to speak the words we had rehearsed, we play our parts. Sometimes ritual becomes a form of survival. So we did our play. What else could we do?
The next day I boarded a ghostly-empty plane home to New York and we all know what came next…
Inside the narrow spaces of our locked down lives we transformed into different beings— all of us. For those of us fortunate enough to emerge from the Coronavirus pandemic healthy, we are the lucky ones. Some did not emerge at all. But none of us are unaltered.
Our company kept in touch over the last 18 months on a WhatsApp thread. We Zoomed. We shared jokes, sorrows, milestones. We aged, we altered. I myself lived through many personal joys and sorrows— I both got married and had three life-saving surgeries in under 6 months that cured me of a disease I’ve lived with for years. When we returned to one another on 9 August, every single item was in its place from the final preview—the same clothes, props, words, shoes, even the wigs in the middle of being re-set. Yet nothing was the same. Not the world. Not my physical body.
I don’t know that I had ever been filled with so many emotions at the onset of a first rehearsal.
There is a phrase in Yiddish: zeyn in dinst fun — “to be in service of.”
All I could do, all I can do, is serve. The play, the character, and to quote Paula Vogel “those who set aside the time to be there in person.”
As we began rehearsal it became clear that we could not “re-create,” we had to create anew.
And I believe that is precisely what we’ve done. This production is distinct not only because we are the London company, but because we carry with us into our telling of the story all that we have shared— a company bonded together in shared trauma and informed by a cataclysmic world event. We are as equally changed as the world around us.
And yet? The play is the same. Ritual. We speak the words. We wear the clothes. We sing the songs and move in the same lines. Ritual is beautiful because it does not change, YOU do.
One of the great joys of Taichman's production is the half-hour pre-show where the entire company sits in stillness and watches the audience enter the space. On 3 September, 2021, our company watched with tears in our eyes, as the audience of 175 people slowly filled the seats in an act of post-war solidarity and need. What I have learned from the last 18 months, from the revival of our world, industry and the company of Indecent, is that the human spirit is inextinguishable.
Every performance feels precious now, and every audience member who joins us is brave. By engaging in this sacred ritual we have been deprived of for so long, we honour all artists, theatre makers, theatre lovers, the real-life people our characters represent, and above all: the 7 million global citizens lost to us—the audience that can no longer speak for themselves.
That is zeyn in dinst fun — “to be in service of.”
Oh London. I have returned. I am new. I am unchanged. The World is altered. The World is the same.
Standing in on the same patch of the South Bank I stood upon on March
16, 2020 -- the day before the world closed down, and seeing that the
river, the bridges, the city, the sky-- are all still here.
I will never tire of a stroll through Borough Market and the bells of Southwark Cathedral.
Reunion with my dearest London pals the day before rehearsal. So much has changed. So much has not.
Finding this "Banksy" on my walk to work...
Marvelling how every. single. item is literally exactly where we left it 18 months ago...
I
took this photo on March 16, 2020, after a desperately sad, confused,
and terrified walk to the theatre to retrieve my belongings, and I wept
for our show and the world. I didn’t know if I would ever see this
marquee—and all it represents—ever again. The next day I boarded a
ghostly-empty plane home to New York and we all know what came next…
Tomorrow I return to the Menier Chocolate Factory and to Indecent in London, reuniting with the same, small group of people I was “in the plane crash with.”
I
don’t know that I have ever been filled with so many emotions the night
before a first (re)rehearsal. Yes, excited, joyous, relieved, moved and
SO grateful; but equally anxious, terrified, overwhelmed, underwhelmed,
and desperately sad. All of it. These, plus countless questions…
All I can do is serve.
Everything
is exactly the same (the same clothes, props, words, shoes, even
the wigs are in the middle of being re-set…) Yet NOTHING is the same. Nothing. Not the world. Not my physical body.
I miss my husband and family. I feel faraway from my medical team. Yet,
when your job has always been more than “just a job,” when it is a
calling, one answers the call. And it sometimes comes with great
sacrifices.
After everything we have collectively and
personally endured, I’m re-evaluating and re-weighing what all of it
means to me in so changed a reality.
You too?
I think
living inside Uncertainty is more than merely “healthy,” it is an
essential part of claiming our human-right to peace. But living inside
Uncertainty is a practice, and one I endeavor to, daily.
- a great deal of "clothing optional" swimming and sunbathing. Not sorry at all.
- A glorious trip to San Francisco centered around the LGBTQAI+ journey and history in this historic city.
- Eating delicious bao and dim sum in downtown San Francisco
- A foggy drive across the Golden Gate bridge whilst listening to this...
- Meeting my new friend and teacher, poet Thomas Centolella for the first time IRL (a friendship born, believe it or not, of this very blog!)
- meeting my new friend and soul-sister Leta from ^ Tom's poetry class (because even though I attend online from New York, the class is held at College of Marin County... where I am as we speak. Fate!)
- Muir Woods. ....Magic.
- Tati being extra
- beautiful drives
- introversion paradise
- marveling at a mask-less California (is this... the Time Before?!)
- seeing so very many hummingbirds
- writing poems
- reading Phillip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass on audio-book as we float in the pool.
- Drinking wine flights in Sausalito with my love
- meeting important people to Alec who now live in NoCal.
- cooking so many delicious things from the farmer's market
There are
no words to express how profoundly moved I am to return to this
incredible play and production, with this company, in my theatrical
motherland, in this brilliant theatre.
One of the remarkable
things about theatre is its relationship to repetition and “sameness.”
We will wear the same clothes, say the same words, make the same
movements…it is the same but the world is not. My body is not.
We shall
tell our story through new lenses of humanity and it will resonate in
new ways. The rain Rifkele and Manke fall in love in shall celebrate
this new beginning, and like falling tears, shall mourn all that we have
lost.
Art is the essential work of our souls, and of tomorrow.
And tomorrow is almost here.
Ale Brider.
"Live performances will resume at London's Menier Chocolate Factory in
September with the reopening of the European premiere of Paula Vogel's Indecent. Starring Broadway's Alexandra Silber, the show began performances
on March 23, 2020 prior to being shut down due to COVID-19. Helmed once
again by the show's Tony-winning director Rebecca Taichman, Indecent will play from September 3 through November 27.
In addition to Silber, the cast of Indecent will include
Cory English, Beverley Klein, Finbar Lynch, Molly Osborne, Peter
Polycarpou, Joseph Timms, Merlin Shepherd, Anna Lowenstein and Josh
Middleton." -- via Broadway.com
I came to know of and work with The Transport Group at the beginning of 2011 as a cast member of their immersive production of Michael John LaChiusa’s Hello Again—directed by Jack Cummings. It was my first job in New York.
When Jack gives me another chance to write for this newsletter, perhaps I will tell you all about rehearsing this play above the old (sadly now closed) Pearl River in SoHo, the parrot that lived there named Rudy, and the seemingly centuries-old elevator that Nikka Lanzarone (who played The Whore) was constantly getting trapped in. I can tell tales of our 3am tech rehearsals lit by the late night street lights of our beloved New York City.
I can also recount with vivid detail my epic hours-long audition for the project in which I read and sang for every.single.female.character. in the play, and yes, sure, brought little props and different outfits for each (and perhaps more remarkably, that everyone just sort of let me do that…)
I can recount the company’s first publicity photo session filled with a little bit of nudity and a whole lot of laughter, and, I, newly arrived in New York City, wore not much more than Bob Stillman’s arms.
Ultimately I was honored to play the Young Wife amidst a cast of some of our most gifted singing actors—as brilliant as they were brave, and it’s been a joy to see them skyrocket personally and professionally. It has been equally thrilling to still be on the same text thread with all of them 10 years later. It is a testament to the ferociously devoted companies The Transport Group builds, but also to the indescribably powerful bonds the theatre fosters; building families out of an aggregate of strangers.
But I am not going to write about those wonderful memories.
Today I am going to write about a memory emblazoned permanently on my mind as perhaps one of the greatest theatrical moments of my life. A small moment. A moment in which I did very little. Being an actor can be virtuosic, but just like in life, sometimes the magic happens in the silences.
On December 18 2017, I was participating in a benefit concert of Man of La Mancha for The Transport Group— a blinding collection of Broadway’s finest had been lined up to share the leading and supporting roles, and to sing every note of the score with a full orchestra.I was assigned some lovely moments that evening to offer my take on Aldonza — the whore Don Quixote perceives to be not only an angel, but his true love.
None of those moments was more precious to me than the scene leading into the finale of Act 1— the anthem of the evening and delivering the message of the play itself. I spoke a few words, I looked Jason’s Quixote in the eyes, and then? I listened. I bore witness to Jason Danieley singing “The Impossible Dream,” and it forever, alchemically, changed me.
At this time in my life I was rumbling with a crushing experience with a chronic illness (that I have now, gratefully, recovered from and cured). I didn’t know how to operate in the world, I didn’t know what it meant to be well— what kind of healing to ask the Universe for.
Jason (a genius I’ve respected for decades and a friend I’d made my Carnegie Hall debut with a few years before), was facing his own personal “windmills” that frankly, aren’t my stories to write about.
Both in rehearsal earlier that day, and backstage before the scene, we didn’t speak of any of it. We didn’t know the details of one anothers’ struggles exactly, nor do I believe we needed to. But as we stood in the wings preparing to walk out together I felt something connect us—like a chord of light wrapped gently around each of our hearts, not tugging, not forceful in any way, just joined. Anyone who has ever been in the theatre will tell you: there is no breaking-open of the heart quite like those moments silently shared in the hush of the wings.
We strode out and began the scene. Eyes locked, and unadorned. I had been in hiding with so many people in my life during that time, yet I felt no need to “hide” from Jason, no need to protect myself or preserve anything for my dignity. Our actor-selves just asked one another a question:
“What have you been through?”
Some questions are medicinal, just in their being asked. “What have you been through” is prime among them. It’s transformational to be in the presence of another human being with both a willingness and a capacity to hold space for the truth of another. Even while stuck in the dense mud of our own realities, even as our bodies are “scorned and covered with scars,” may we all endeavor to be the kind of person who says:
“Though I may not see this experience of life through the same set of eyes, I see you. I hold your feelings, fears, vulnerabilities and recognize our common humanity. I take your concerns to heart. And in remaining here with you for this moment, we are both transformed.”
That was what happened to and for me when I stood beside Jason as he sang “The Impossible Dream.” It is what happens when songs are really prayers.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic I don’t know that the world at large really knew how to listen. Perhaps it didn’t wish to. I am not immune—it is terrifying to really listen—and perhaps part of that culture is what made me ill, and it has only been in this silence of quarantine that I have had a chance to heal. Who knows? After this year I don’t think I know much for certain anymore.
But what I do know is that hurriedness is so entrenched in the ways that we communicate, that when something significant is shared between people it's often not given the proper time to breathe. To settle. To marinate, and ultimately absorb.
What would it be like if we were to normalize long pauses, deep breaths, and unencumbered gazes filled with compassion and without expectation? What if in our scenes, and pauses, and songs-as-prayers, we could, with our creations, push through the unfathomable cracks, the great gully-trenches and dried-up canyons of every broken heart? And what if in those songs the lyrics were:
“And I know if I'll only be true To this glorious quest That my heart will be peaceful and calm When I'm laid to my rest…”
What if in the making of art we could strive, with all of ourselves, to stand for something good? To tell the truth. To fight evils. And what if our greatest glory isn’t in the winning, but in the striving?
I don’t think that is an Impossible Dream. Because we do it in the theatre. When we are brave. And skilled. And, as I was that night with Jason, sometimes when we are just so broken open by life’s trials, that we cannot help but listen and get lucky.
The song ended. The experience of it left me trembling. Jason turned, and extended his hand to me. It was a gesture of something shared. We walked off stage arm in arm.
May we all strive, dear friends— with “our last ounce of courage.”
I love this Alec Silver human person so much. So on our 2-year-anniversary, we took a leap.
In this era of the Coronavirus— of collective isolation, grief, loss, adversity and hardship—I, like all of you, have been through, and learned a few things. If our shared human experience has taught me anything it is this:
There is only NOW, and LOVE (in all it’s forms) is ALL. WE. HAVE.
You know? The phrase “This too shall pass” is true of more than just adversity. Joy, TOO, shall pass if we do not seize it and cherish it while it is before us.
So Alec and I seized the joy AND the moment.
So with three people present, we eloped in a fairy-tale-snowy Central Park, merging two ancient cultures and creating a new one, together.
Our friend and Rabbi Samantha Frank, perfectly married us. One of my best friends on earth, my friend-partner Alley Scott got ready with me before, and gifted us these beautiful flowers by Mimosa Floral. Our pal Michael Kushner took these fabulous photos (and served as a witness!).
And yes, I did: I wore RED.
To anyone out there that is having trouble seizing joy: it’s okay. Life is hard right now. Be kind to yourself. But joy is there to be seized in the large and in the small.
To
anyone out there who believes that certain dreams are not available
to/for them, take heart: stay open; life can be surprising (says this
37-year-old first time bride...well...if you don’t count the 500+ times I “married” Adam Kantor...)
I’m tightly embracing you (in this fuzzy red jacket My Mom found—that somehow perfectly matched my dress...)
Alec,
oh how I love you. I have never been more certain of anyone or
anything. Thank you for being beside me in literal sickness and in
health, and above all, for the honor of picking me.
As we move through these final Days of Awe between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, may we embrace Quiet and pause often. Inside the loud and raging modern world, may we hold that rage but balance it with the noticing of simple joys, embracing natural beauty and the micro generosities gifted to us. May we look for opportunities for kindness and connection.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
And, where there is pain; where there is death and anguish and injustice and rage—let us be courageous in humbling ourselves. Be brave in asking for forgiveness, and gracious and expansive in our willingness *to* forgive. Forgiveness sets the forgivER, free.
The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.
The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.
We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.
It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.
At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.
Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our
children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we
put ourselves back together once again at the table.
This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.
Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the
shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.
We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.
At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.
Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.
It goes without saying at this point that Rosh Hashanah 5781 is not going to feel like Rosh Hashanah 5780.
Never has the ancient meaning of “who shall live and who shall die” felt like it has had such specific meaning as it has this year—
:: It reminds us that each of us is here for a brief time. ::
I always welcome chances to “start again—“ be it Jan 1, a birthday, or a new school year.
Personally, I don’t love “New Year Resolutions” I prefer affirmations or intentions...
SO: I am setting the intention to cultivate health, nourishment and wholeness.
For my individual body,
the health of the world in the wake of COVID19,
political progress,
peace,
health of the planet,
...and all our souls.
The #Hebrew word for SHALOM, is related to the word for *WHOLENESS,* SHALEM.
In that I see that health is comprehensive— we must treat the “whole organism—“ of our bodies, society, and planet.
We have a lot to heal right now, and healing is an essential part of wholeness—we are being called to get VERY uncomfortable and face our mortality, our biases and to engage in productive conflict. But the fruit of those efforts? Is hard-won growth.
In these final hours of 5780, the Torah calls: . You stand here today in this moment With all those you love, With all those with whom you joyfully share this passage through life. . And you stand here today with all those you have been taught to call other, And those you have learned to demonize and hate. . You stand here today with all those who came before you, The generations upon whose shoulders you stand. . And you stand here today with all who will come after you, Your children’s, children’s, children Who will some day call you ancestor.
Rosh Hashanah is another chance for a new beginning.
Dear Ones, I am currently having one of the worst #autoimmune flare-ups I’ve experienced yet. This is not to invite pity, but to connect and maybe even validate your experience!
COVID19 is no joke: the state of the world, the Unknowns, of the Arts, the unemployment, the stress, the insanity of our political climate— it’s stressful! And stress is one of the leading cause of flares.
Many things (and I mean: oh my goodness SO. MANY. CURRENT. THINGS) are not in our control. We cannot choose what happens to us, but we can control our response.
Sometimes you get #flareups when you’re doing everything “right.” You are doing the diet, you are following all the protocols. In our society we prioritize success stories, and and lift up people that appear to do life “perfectly.” We believe that there is a *linear path* to wellness (often we are even SOLD this idea because, capitalism). Sometimes you can do everything "right" and still experience a flare. You’re NOT a failure, you’re learning to care for your unique body in a way that works for you. It’s all data.
#Health and wellness are complex, nuanced and take a lifetime to embody. Nobody has it all figured out. Wellness is not linear. It is holistic.
Setbacks are just that: a setback. A chance to regroup, pivot, get grateful and grow. Setbacks do not mean that you’re not doing, or trying, hard enough. My current health doesn’t make me a FLAREure! It makes me a human being, doing my best in a set of tough circumstances, on a journey, riding the roller coaster of life.
With a chronic illness.
In 20FREAKING20.
I would love you offer you what *I myself* need to hear today: 💫 Offer yourself grace. 💫 There is no perfect path. To health or to anything. Let’s continue to support each other in this comprehensive health journey.
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