Hello Again and again and again

 When I arrived on the “shores” of New York City in the winter of 2011 I was what can only be described as a “total disaster human—” faking adulthood and literally living on Tyne Daly’s sofa. Don’t get me wrong— there are worse places to be lost, heartbroken, poorly dressed, couch-surfing and unfamiliar with such adult concepts as a credit score, the cost of milk, or how to get a mobile telephone despite being twenty-six years old and having had, prior to this moment, modest artistic success in London.

I feel like we’ve all been there: at the burnt out cigarette butt of a chapter of our lives, wondering if we’ll make it through until morning.

I’d arrived in America the previous year in need of a resurrection, (and absolutely acknowledge that I was privileged enough to be able to “start in the middle” of this circus called showbiz—with representation and some British experience under my hideous and poorly fitting belt—) and began auditioning. I didn’t know where the hell I was because I was managing to get lost (on a grid system—a grid system!), and, despite every effort to sabotage my life and reputation, I managed to book a few jobs as I wandered around North America zombie-sobbing between high notes.  

It was during the era of my life that I met Jack Cummings and auditioned for Michael John LaChiusa’s masterwork, Hello Again.

And when I say I auditioned? I mean I hurricaned into Whatever Studios on Somewhere Street, New York, New York, holding 47-ish pages of sides and music as the team (with incredible actor, TG alum, and high school classmate, Nick Westrate reading) watched me give them every. single. female-identifying. character. in. the. play.  
With (sensible) outfit changes.
And choices…
It was the second-most preposterous audition* I’d ever offered (to date**), and I was certain after an hour or so of insanity, I had solidified my reputation as a genuine eccentric.

 But by the end of the day I’d received what I would soon come to learn was a characteristic email from Jack Cummings III— effervescent, inspired, hilarious and perhaps most important for me at that moment in time: galvanizing. Someone had seen me in all my eccentricity and wanted me to be a part of something. Something deep and rich and strange and beautiful. And to be a part of it with a collection of human beings so talented, so singular, so epic in their giftedness and generosity, that they didn’t mind That Weirdo From London tagging along, singing “Tom” in my underpants, and giving me my first New York City family right when I needed it the most.

A few weeks later I was introducing myself to those glorious artists. They were Nikka Lanzarone, Max VonEssen, Elizabeth Stanley, Bob Lenzi, Bob Stillman, Blake Daniel, Jonathan Hammond, Rachel Bay Jones, and Alan Campbell— and that was just the cast. Every Edison lightbulb, every corset, stage manager, musical arrangement, and design, the team was a crucible of talent and the World of the Theatre I longed to be a part of. Before I knew it I taking my clothes off in a loft (with consent! with consent!) in the middle of SoHo, singing the most glorious music one can imagine, learning the true meaning of platonic intimacy and oh, that’s right: getting my Equity card.

We made memories that included Nikka and Cody Richard Renard being stuck in a service elevator, Alan Campbell graciously buying me lunch on the first day of rehearsal when my British debit card was rejected from a local diner, a midnight photo call, 3-am tech-rehearsal taxi rides home with Elizabeth Stanley, pretend-drowning on the Titanic, engaging in simulated acts of intimacy inches from the audience, the presence of a pet parrot, quick changes more impressive than NATO negotiations, the welcoming of members of the original 1995 cast at Lincoln Center; not to mention endless laughter, joy, belting, tears, pathos, sorrow, and community.

All for $245 a week.
All of it shared… with human beings that started as strangers.

[THE WHORE]
You
You
Hey there
Where you goin’ soldier?
 
[THE SOLDIER]
Who me?

 
Isn’t that the miracle of the theatre? 

The people. The chance meetings. The new arrivals to our day-to-day that deeply and irrevocably touch our lives for a moment, then poof: off it all goes into the ephemera like so much mist. Artists open their chest cavities to these emotional foreigners, and we sew them up just as deftly once the curtain has fallen.
10 years later the cast is still on a text thread. Some of those cast members and creatives are some of the closest relationships I have enjoyed in my adult life on and off stage. The group has shared it all from birthdays to silly inside jokes to huge career and life milestones.

And really, at the end of the day, at the end of all of this, isn’t that the medicine we all craved so desperately during the darkest days of our quarantines? The prescription we still crave: to bear witness, to be seen, to share intimacies, to sing in harmony, to create and collaborate.
To be together.
And to be changed because of that togetherness.

Back in the days of Hello Again, I had so much to prove. Mostly to myself.
Because I didn't realize that the only requirement was to simply Be. We are all worthy of love and belonging because we are human, and for no other reason. And there I was—like so many of us have been and will be: emotionally poverty-stricken and in the wrong outfit. But a group of strangers took me in and said Hello. Again and again and again. And when human beings do that for one another it is a transformative, deeply miraculous thing. 

These days we are starting to gather and greet one another in person once more. We meet through face coverings and vaccine screenings, scarred from the unutterable experience of what we have all been through collectively, but also, not truly shared.

I picture The Whore and The Soldier meeting by the Hudson River now. Masked. Broken. But alive at the end of 2021, and starving for connection.
It rings differently now:

[THE WHORE]  
Look here
Don’t you know my face?

[THE SOLDIER]
No

[THE WHORE]
You there
Come and tell your sweetheart
Where you’ve been
It doesn’t matter
Hello again…

 

______________________________________________________________________


* The first most preposterous audition is a now-infamous story of me being late for an audition for Terrence McNally’s Master Class at the Kennedy Center because I accidentally locked myself in the utility closet. Incidentally, I booked the job and the play transferred to Broadway. Because sometimes life is ridiculous.
** At least by 2010— I’m pretty sure Rachel Hoffman can attest I’ve been a huge weirdo in audition rooms since this story…

The Impossible Dream

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.”

"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.

What goes around comes around...

... indeed. There are many nebulous themes in Hello Again, but if we glean anything at all, that one is certain. And like everything, al things must end, it only means new beginnings, and indeed, the ephemeral nature of the theatre is what in fact provides it's poignancy... Farewell Hello Again. Thank you to everyone who made the experience of my New York debut possible. Life-long friendships were established. The overcoming of challenging personal and artistic obstacles. We sang in our underwear. We did ..."other things..." On tables and things. We got nominated for awards. For a lot of awards. We won some of those awards. (And heck, I even got my Equity card...a touch on the tardy side mind you, but I got it...)

So farewell lovely group. "I'm sure we'll be saying hello again..."


Let us just finish with a quote from the wonderful creative mastermind, Michael John LaChiusa himself:

"This cast of Hello Again is one of the most remarkable ensembles I've ever seen onstage-- and I've had the privilege of assembling some pretty remarkable casts over the years for my shows, including the original production of Hello Again...

"Over and over again, for the last month, people have been writing to me and repeating the same thing 'this restored my faith in theatre-going.' It's sort of cliché, of course, as a sentiment and the compliment. But I sense something more: there's a hunger out there for what TG provides with Hello Again. There's a sadness in knowing that people are hungry, of course-- but also a great joy in being responsible for providing a little nourishment in the desert. You've done just that..."

"Tom"

"Tom" from Hello Again.

Featuring images of Nikka Lanzarone as The Whore and Bob Stillman as The Husband by Sarah Ackerman and Carol Rosegg from the 2011 Off Broadway Revival of Michael John LaChiusa's Hello Again.

Ask Al: Creating a Character (from the Hello Again Blog)

The Hello Again blog has asked me to contribute by documenting the creative/character building process for The Young Wife. Below, is the first installment that address the beginnings of "how does one go about creating a believable character onstage?" Enjoy!

*

“Whenever an actor first reads a play on which he is going to work, he is an audience. He visualizes the play and hears it like an audience. Whatever identification he may have with the play is similar to the identification he may have with the play is similar to the identification an audience might have and should not be confused with the organic identification he must find with the character he is going to play. He laughs at or with the play, he cries at or with the play, and, more than anything else, he cries and laughs at or with the character he is going to play.
“This is the moment where the images he conceives, and the tone and sounds he hears in his imagination on his first contact with the play must soon be discarded and not confused with the real work on the play and the part. The actor still has to go backstage and then evolve on stage.”

—Uta Hagen

In preparing for The Young Wife in Hello Again I first did two things. I read the play. Then I read it again. And then again. (One could say that I said Hello again and again and again…)

An actor’s ultimate job is to create a character that serves the play. The story (and not their own ego). So obviously in order for an actor to make a meaningful contribution to the piece overall, one has to gather information, make provisions for, and establish as much detail as possible concerning the play itself before beginning to “interpret” or make an outline for their own role within the play/ story/ piece.
To quote Uta Hagen once again, “all tedious research is worth one inspired moment.”


I always try (sometimes without a great deal of success) to throw away as many of my first impressions as possible, because whenever my first impressions have been utilized in the past I have always experienced regret. (It is tremendously difficult getting past them.) My first impressions got in my way like Prince Phillip feebly making his way through the thorny branches in Sleeping Beauty. Only less sexy. And without a sword. Leaping toward a “photograph” of my first impression is almost always a trap— an objective perspective that, in my opinion, doesn’t do me any good. At all.

However, working subjectively through the play from its foundations one avoids ready-made-microwave-dinner-type-character-cliches. (Example: choosing to cry at the moment when you feel sorry for the character you are playing, the actor could be providing the tears that should arguably be in the eyes of the audience. A character truly struggling does not necessarily mean that the character is moved.) Through asking myself/you as the character who “I” am, what “I” want, what “I” do, one ends up with profound, deep-rooted human meaning.


*

A great place to start is by asking yourself “What is the playwright trying to communicate?” Then to attempt to define it in an active sentence. (We have done that as a group, as well as on individual levels, but we can’t give it all away now can we?)

Arthur Schnitzler’s La Ronde served as Michael John LaChiusa’s source material— and Hello Again was the result of this dramatic suggestion. Now do not be confused— Hello Again is in no way a “musical version” of La Ronde (in the way that Hello, Dolly! is the musical version of Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker, or She Loves Me is a musicalized version of The Shop Around the Corner)—instead, it is inspired by, but not a word-for-word musicalization of this 1900 play by Arthur Schnitzler which scrutinizes the sexual morals and classism of the period through a series of encounters (rather than focusing an exploration of relationships—particularly sexual— outright, which is more the focus in Hello Again).

The play was not publicly performed until 1920 when it elicited violent critical and popular reactions against its subject matter, and interestingly, in 1922, Sigmung Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, wrote to Schnitzler saying, "you have learned through intuition—though actually as a result of sensitive introspection—everything that I have had to unearth by laborious work on other persons." (Cool huh? They became very good friends as a result of this correspondence, and Schnitzler must have been relieved, for up until this point his edifice has been wrecked. Edifice Wrecked… Freud. Oedipus? Get it…? Awful? Okay, it is. It’s awful…moving on…)


All this being said, in La Ronde, each of the characters in the play is literally the same person from scene to scene— the circle is literal, The Young Wife who interacts with The Young Gentleman is the same exact person that interacts with The Husband in the following scene. It is entirely possible that the characters in La Ronde are all members of a singular small community.

But in Hello Again the characters are not in any way the exact same person (because of course, first of all, they are set in completely different times/decades and places),  the connection from scene to scene is less literal, more symbolic, and entirely nebulous which allows for a lot of dramatic and interpretive wiggle room— more homework and more discipline required to create believable and meaningful characters.

*

One of the things we discussed at the very first read/sing through was how each of these characters may indeed both be Nurses, Soldiers and Wives, and they share qualities, but they are different people. Perhaps echos of the previous selves (The Soldier), or influenced by experiences from a sort of  “past life” shadow (The Nurse), or perhaps they are simply experiencing the same longings within the confines of different circumstances (The Young Wife).

Where to begin? Most crucially, it was essential for me to identify that I was not developing one character, but indeed, two— The Young Wife in Scene 4 set in the 1930s, and The Young Wife in Scene 5 set in the 1950s.
The Young Wives, if you will…
     …and I know you will.

So. I began by giving each woman a proper name.

One of the most beautiful things about this piece are the reoccurring themes—from musical repeats (“hello again” / “his eyes are green,” the “we kiss,” theme, and “i’ve got a little time” / “we have a little time”) a brooch that travels through time, shadows of characters we meet again and again, and, of course, everyone’s names— Marie, Sammy, Emily, Sally, Marianne, Leocadia…

The 1950s Young Wife already has a name outright— Emily.

And because I find it difficult to create any kind of real person without a name so I named The 1930s Young Wife Marianne. It was a logical step: Emily refers to her friend “Marianne” who is having an affair with a “college boy.”

Thus Marianne and Emily.
Hello (…Again.)

In order to really be Marianne and Emily, I had better know who I am when each scene begins and how I got to be that way. Time, place, relationships— hair styles, undergarments, current events, weather, social expectations, income, education, personal likes and dislikes. All valid and important and useful if not outright necessary information. What do these women want? Need? Desire? What are they afraid of? Amused by? Repulsed by? Each scene in Hello Again is ostensibly a mini-play within itself, as well as contributing to the “macro” of the whole circle so there is very little to draw from in the text itself, one has to utilize the full force of their imaginative powers.

Sheesh! I’d better get to work.

But in the meantime, I will leave you with this quote, by director Jack Cummings III, from rehearsal:

“I think you actually have to… open his trousers…like with the belt and fly and everything…and just.. you know...really get in there…”

Over and out.

Playing House with The Young Wife

I'd preface it... but... well... just watch it.





Notes:


1. Marc Kudisch is one of the only people I allow to call me Alex because he made a very good case and got special permission. Details about "Al" preference here.


2. I need to mention that "first kiss" James Banks *did* travel to Nepal like a bazillion times and set up incredible health programs there, but is still properly in medical school in Cincinnati.


3. Kenn Mann story totally true and the Christmas card I mention can be found here.


4. The Gezentites are real and basically we are gonna be famous.

The Gezentites

Because sometimes.... sometimes it just gets very very real....

Here, is the fictional vinyl of the not-so-famous-actually-totally-false-40s-trio-brilliantly-invented-by-Michael-John-LaChiusa, The Gezentites. 

Ta-DAAAA!      

[*confetti*]

As Blake Daniel, Rachel Bay Jones and myself have been rehearsing this incredible little classic 1940s trio (something akin to the style of The Andrews Sisters) featured in Scene 2 (with The Soldier and The Nurse, played by Max von Essen and Elizabeth Stanley)-- well... well all I can say is that it was love at first croon. 

The three of us sat before music stands with our hands in our heads-- (I believe there was a conversation with Blake which included the phrase "is this a bad time to mention I don't read music..?") --concerned we might never get the notes perfected, we persevered. We succeeded. We were choreographed. 
And... well... the rest is history. 
And as terriblyseriousartists, we realized it was essential that we come up with a name for our group.


After a genius naming swoop (courtesy of group member Blake Daniel) suggested we call ourselves The Gezentites, we were hooked, but Rachel's inspired discovery of appropriately whimsical tissues? My personal affinity for wasting perfectly good evenings on Photoshop? Well, that kind of extra-curricular work seals deals people. 
It was official.
It was love.
We're taking The Gezentites on the road. 

So. This fake album features such artificial hits (there are apparently 20) as "Kleenext to me," "Snot You It's Me" and the title track, "Back Achoo" as well as their most famous 40 bars ever performed in public "Zei Gezent: Be Well and Happy..."
 ...and listen: basically, if you want to be on the inside of this inside joke... 
you'll just have to come to the show. 
[*she motionlessly stares at you through the computer screen with total seriousness*]
     ...Won't you...? 
[*the stare is both intoxicating-ly intriguing and fairly disturbing*] 
                ...won't you...?

But, in the meanwhile reader, enjoy my irreverent Photoshopping, and do "Zei Gezent: be well and happy..."

Rachel Bay Jones, Blake Daniel and Alexandra Silber have been singing in 3 part harmony for 2 weeks...

Hello Again

This is all a little tardy, but I am so thrilled to announce my upcoming project.

Starting 4 March 2011, I will be playing The Young Wife in The Transport Group's exciting new New York revival of Michael John LaChiusa's Hello Again-- the first New York City production since the original in 1993. This production will feature new orchestrations by Mary-Mitchell Campbell (Company) and will be staged non-traditionally in a raw space in SoHo (New York SoHo, not to be confused with London's Soho) by Drama Desk nominee and Transport Group Artistic Director Jack Cummings III.  

Hello Again is a ground-breaking piece of theatre with music, lyrics and book by the Michael John LaChiusa suggested by the 1897 play La Ronde (also titled Reigen) by Arthur Schnitzler (who, amusingly, was a close friend of Sigmund Freud's, thus, possibly inspiring the psychological exploration of sex and aaaaaall it's intricacies). Hello Again focuses on a series of love affairs among twenty characters, in ten scenes, during the ten different decades of the 20th century-- enabling it to explore and address the nature of love, relationships and sex throughout that 100 year period with all of it's varying limitations, longings, hardships and complications.

Here is what the press blurb says:

"Hi. So you're from Philly? Oh. Sorry if my hands are cold."

"Experience the world of Michael John LaChiusa's Hello Again: the passion, sex, and power of 10 love affairs, one from each decade of the 20th Century. Witness The Whore, The Young Thing, The Senator, The Soldier and others as they navigate each new sexual entanglement. Love and desire clash as each character seeks elusive connections. Inspired by Arthur Schnitzler's controversial 1897 play, La Ronde, 5-time Tony Award nominee LaChiusa brings Schnitzler's love stories to life with musical and lyrical styles of each decade, ranging from opera to jazz to disco. Transport Group's production, the first New York City revival of Hello Again, will feature new orchestrations by Drama Desk Award winner Mary-Mitchell Campbell (Company) and will be staged non-traditionally in a raw space in SoHo by 2-time Drama Desk Award nominee Jack Cummings III (The Boys in the Band). The cast features Alan Campbell, Blake Daniel, Jonathan Hammond, Rachel Bay Jones, Nikka Graff Lanzarone, Robert Lenzi, Alexandra Silber, Elizabeth Stanley, Bob Stillman and Max von Essen." 

Basically? It is going to be pretty special. Sexy. Emotional. Physiological. Fascinating. Funny. Tragic. Stunning. Risky. (*ahem*) Penetrative. 

And truly, there is nothing like meeting your cast six weeks ahead of rehearsals, shaking their hands and then taking your clothes off to pose for riské photographs (another *ahem*... below...), but there is also nothing like being blessed enough to sing the landmark song (the perfect and brilliant "Tom"), and reviving a contemporary classic with a rock star cast in The Big Apple itself. 

Join us. 
Do. 
Come along and say Hello.
Again. 
     ...And possibly again. 

The only thing I’m wearing in this photo is Bob Stillman and some pearls...

PS) .... Have you headed over to Facebook and liked “Hello Again” yet?
Like it! and then come see it!