Ask Al: FAQs! - Part 5

Lucky me. :)

1. Who is your favorite leading man you have ever worked with? 

How could I ever choose among this crew of men? I’m the luckiest lady on earth.


2. You’ve performed so many classic Broadway musical roles, from “Fiddler on the Roof” to “My Fair Lady,” “She Loves Me,” and West Side Story.”  Is there one song you never get tired of singing?  Is there a classic Broadway role you would most love to get a chance to perform?

As long as I live I will never tire of singing “Will He Like Me” from She Loves Me. Amalia is a parallel of me is so many ways, and that song, in particular, is a battle cry of the deeply-feeling introvert (which I personally identify as.) I’ve had the honor of playing her with a full symphony orchestra (the Orchestra of St Luke’s) opposite one of my oldest friends on earth, Santino Fontana.

I’m at the stage of my life where I am looking forward to moving out of the ingenue and into the role of the woman or “leading lady” as it is often termed. I'm not a girl anymore and I don't mind one bit! In the more immediate future I look forward to Yelena in Uncle Vanya, Rosalind in As You Like It, Fosca in Passion, and in the more distant future, I look forward to Shakespeare’s Cleopatra and Hello Dolly’s Dolly Levi (I see so much of my lover-of-life, widowed mother in Dolly, and I’d love to honor her that way someday).



3. Do you have any regular self-care routines or habits?
- I am (for the most part) on the Auto-Immune Protocol diet. It's the right diet for my body. I recommend doing lots of research and trial-and-error for your body. Then stick to it and rememebr you get one body and one life so friendly reminder: don't treat your one glorious vessle like a garbage truck.

- I prioritize the import of, and get a lot of, sleep (I have great "sleep hygene"

- I engage in non-punitive exercise (I used to go to the gym with the attitude of murdering myself into shape. That was boring and sad. Now I run along beautiful paths, I bike, do yoga, and walk everywhere. Exercise now has a life-affirming vibe, not run-from-Satan-because-you're-worthless vibe. That vibe totally sucked.)

- I drink lots (4L per day) of water (because of my medicaitons, I get dehydrated very easily, so I guzzle water and sometimes add electrolyte capsules).

- I have a really kick-ass therapist (Roberta my "feelings doctor") and I go even when I'm feeling great, the way a person goes to the dentist before there's an emergency.

- I took my time to find a very good, knowledgeable, compassioante GP and I see him regularly. Dr Steven Foscious saved my life.

"AP Introverting".

- I also have great friends, a great mother, and a very famous cat.

- I'm an introvert and thus require lots of time alone— which I advocate for. I use that time to process life, really listen and hear myself and my body, do things I love, and take care of things I don't love. I try to prioritize the things and people that I identify as "nourishing."

- I took a little time to get in touch with and identify things that soothe me (heat, water and “soft things”). This helped a lot when I was in constant physical pain, but now it has carried over to more mundane aspects of anxiety, so when I’m in distress I still use those to start the calming process.


4. You have performed in the UK and the USA often. Is there anywhere on your performance bucket list you have yet to play?

Yes! Japan and Australia are at the top of the list.


5. What do you think of the advice (that is so often given) "If you can picture yourself doing anything other than being an artist, you should do that and not be an artist?"

     Let me start by saying this: sometimes people offer wacky advice. Sometimes, good advice comes in weird sentences. And sometimes? People are jerks! This "acting only" piece of advice could be any one of the things stated above.
Here is what I really think:

     I think the advice (if taken in the spirit of self-reflection) can be utlized to promote a sense of true rigor about a very challenging and sacrificial vocation. I don't know that it is entirely productive if taken literally. But I do believe, when taken theoretically, it can be used to evoke answers to questions within the aspiring artist to test whether or not their pesonality, temperament and values, match their chosen vocation. "Can my soul thrive within the realities that are required to make such a life work" is a great question for anyone to ask themselves.

     Temprement matters. All good things in life usually come at a cost—what matters in this conversation is what "price" is each individual willing to "pay" to pursue thier dreams. Just like beng an astronaught or Olympian, just like being a parent! In that vein, any kind of artistic work is going to be a constant borage of rejection and failure, followed by bright sparks of victory. Not every extremely talented (or celebrated in childhood) individual is going to innately possess or be able to develop the internal personality/temperament to match their talent. In many cases temprement is as if not more important that talent and skill.

     A recent (and profound) example from one of my closest friends on earth, comes immediately to mind.

Bobby. Happy.

     Bobby Steggert became my best friend in adulthood. He grew up outside of Baltimore an intelligent, sensitive child with huge gifts in the performing arts. He graduated from the NYU Acting program and immediately started his Broadway career—he won job after job and accumulated enormous success quickly. He originated several roles in now-iconic plays and musicals, he has a host of recordings, fans, and two Tony nominations.
     But at 31, Bobby “woke up.” He realized he had everything he thought he had ever wanted, but was internally miserable.
     After much self-reflection, Bobby left show business at the height of his successful performing career, went back to school (at Columbia no less) to major in social work. He recently graduated, and now works with immigrants and the LGTBQ communities. He writes vividly and profoundly about his decision to leave the theatrical world in this article for 'The Medium' that I daren’t say anything further without allowing Bobby to speak for himself.


     I cite this example because— by all intents, Bobby, was as high-flying a young artists as it was possible to be, with all the talent required for a career in the arts. But as time churned along, Bobby mined his soul for more, and discovered that his temperament, personality, and overall value-system was not in line with a happy career serving in the arts. His life mission, he discovered, lay elsewhere.

    One can never say if this “all or nothing” guidance would have been helpful or pertinent to Bobby early in his life, but this story of a brilliant, vibrant, contributing and by all accounts hugely successful adult that started in the arts, and walked away from his initial passions to pursue others does not make him a “failure” as an artist. It makes him a huge success of a a human being.

     In short, I think this “acting only” advice is offered to start the process of that self-reflection.

     In addition to Bobby, I know so many other talented actors and singers— some far more talented than I, who discovered their temperaments were better suited to other jobs in life! I say “better suited” incidentally, because I don’t want anyone out there to think that this is about “having what it takes” or not having what it takes. You have what it takes, dear readers/listeners, you have exactly what it takes for your life and perfect path. Whether that matches up with the artistic job of your teenaged dreams is neither here nor there.

Coulda-been-ku 15

15. 

You were good to me

A diligent observer 

I hope you soften 

Ask Al: Creative Un-Blocking!

Dear Al,

Do you ever get creatively blocked? What do you do to find fresh inspiration?

Sincerely,

Blocked

* * *

Hello Blocked!

Whoa, boy have I absolutely been there. You claw at your eyes. You rumple up pages because you've seen someone do that in a movie once. You put on The Bathrobe of Shame. You throw a typewriter.

No, but seriously, practically I do a few things:

1. I return to some of my original sources of inspiration.
     For After Anatevka specifically, I drew from several sources of inspiration you’d likely never even imagine—Rosencranz and Guildenstern Are Dead inspired my writing of the “scenes between the scenes,” and the J.J. Abrams TV show LOST was on television when I first began the novel, and directly inspired the “flashback” structure of the story-telling. The prose of John Steinbeck and Boris Pasternak (particularly East of Eden and Dr. Zhivago, respectively) as well as Russian literary greats Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. And of course the great stories of Yiddish oral tradition, and other Yiddish writers (in addition to Shalom Aleichem) such as Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Shalom Ashe.

     Essentially: I return to the masters and pray for a jolt by “praying at the altar.”


2. I “phone a friend.”
     I also have a small circle of (very) trusted friends that I will call and talk through the troubles with. That can be anything from story, plot, conflict, to trusting them to comb through the words themselves and tell me if I use too many italics. Or Whatever.

     Sometimes I scream into the phone while this friend talks me off the proverbial ledge. Sometimes we cry. Sometimes we do victory laps. The best part is, I always enjoy returning the favor. To give the two most important credit: I have been bouncing ideas off of and with Santino Fontana since we were teenagers, and I don’t know where I’d be creatively without Bobby Steggert. Which is why both are thanked in the acknowledgments of my book by name only, without any need for explanation.


3.  Change your environment / Do something to get your blood flowing.
     Personally, I walk. Everywhere. Until I drop.
     Sometimes I need to get the heck out of my “space” and walk and walk and WALK. Anywhere. Often co-mingling #1 and #2 whilst power-walking my way to publication.

     Have you ever seen the episode of The West Wing where CJ can’t sleep so she exercises on a stationary bike until she sweats out her spleen? Yeah. It’s like that. With less political consequences.


4. I’m always prepared for the un-blocking.
     Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat Pray Love and Big Magic, among others) speaks so perfectly about how the ancient, Jacobean, and early modern world viewed genius in her 2009 Ted talk. To quote David McMillan on his analysis of Gilbert's talk for Thought Catalogue:

“For nearly twenty minutes, Gilbert argues that (1) artists since the Renaissance have been under the belief—or more accurately, the delusion—that they are the source of their own genius; and (2) that this delusion may in fact be the root cause of much of the suffering, madness, and self-destruction that characterize the lives of creative artists in the modern, post-Renaissance era.

Gilbert goes on to explain that that this modern view of genius is starkly different from the Greco-Roman view; for the Greeks and Romans, creativity didn’t come from human beings, it came to human beings. This view served as a “protective psychological construct” that kept the artist both humble and sane. Humble, because the artist could never entirely take credit for his or her work. Sane, because if the work wasn’t good, it wasn’t entirely the artist’s fault—he or she could blame it partially on having a “lame” Genius.”

     Briefly: Gilbert reminds modern society that once, a person was not “a genius” they possessed a “genie”—they were fortunate enough to own an actual talisman that they believed was directly connected to the heavens. Today we see it in reverse— the person themselves possesses the inspiration, they are as we now call it: a “genius,” and they are exclusively responsible for the content they create—for better or for worse.

     Gilbert tells a wonderful (possibly apocryphal) anecdote in her book Big Magic about Tom Waits being hit by the “genie” whilst driving in his car along the highway. He had to pull over and write it all down lest it escape him utterly. He’s a real servant to the “genie.”

     I personally like to think of it as something somewhere mystically in-between. I imagine that the majority of my creativity belongs to me, but sometimes I am absolutely struck by an inspired just-right sentence, a voice, a plot point, a storyline or sometimes an entire character that feels as though it has come to me from nowhere.

     A very specific example of "the genie coming" to me—the character of Dmitri Petrov in my novel After Anatevka appeared to me fully formed—almost as if he knocked on my front door, asked if he could come in, made tea, sat me down, handed me a pen and recounted his entire life story to me in one sitting. I allowed it. I allowed Dmitri to take me over until Dmitri was "done," dutifully taking notes on his story and listening to “him” until "he" was "finished."  I honestly don’t feel even remotely responsible for his creation. In some ways, I feel Dmitri just chose me to tell his story.

     So! In that vein, always always have a pen, something to write on, or have some device that can quickly record your voice. You never know when the “gods” are going to bless you with inspiration, and when they do (even at an inopportune moment) you better be ready!

Philosophically, I try to keep the four worst enemies of creativity at bay:

5. Timing
   There is no perfect time to write. Just start. Do. Make. Go. Anything. Now.

6. Distractions
     Eliminate distractions (a lot of people use Ommwriter to focus on just writing). I also tend to turn off the internet and put my phone on airplane mode.

7. Fear
     Don't be afraid. Many writers struggle with putting their ideas (and themselves) out there for everyone to see and critique. Guess what? Life is full of exposure and judgment, and fear is a major reason some writers never become writers, some actors never become actors, some humans never become their greatest and best selves.
     You have to do your own rumbling with your demons, but the first step is recognizing that you are afraid, and then making the choice to overcome those fears and share your stories anyway. It would not be courage if you were not afraid.

8. Perfectionism
     You want everything to be juuuuuuuuuust right.  I know. I understand.
     Just as there will never be a perfect "time" to write, there is also no perfect writing, no perfect writing environment, no perfect pen, sentence, paragraph... nothing is perfect. If you are waiting for perfection you'll never even begin. Again, rumbling with perfectionism is everyone's own cross to bear, but in my experience, perfectionism kills more good work than any of the other demons combined. Be brave. A messy draft is better than a blank page.


Happy un-blocking!

Al

“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”

— Jack London

We got Trouble (in Tahiti)

Camelot

There isn't the language to express what this role, process, and the entire experience have meant to me personally and professionally. Guenevere and Camelot were a silent agreement with myself to go all out-- to go big or go home-- before I decided whether or not to recommit myself to the theatre, and particularly, to singing in the theatre.

My illness from 2014-2017 left my singing voice in an unrecognizable state of disarray, but more than the physical damage (that, with much help from my devoted teacher Doc White, and sometimes soul-crushing work has 90% been overcome and largely healed) was the psychological and emotional trauma of literally losing not only my "money maker" but my Voice with a capital "V"-- the source of my purest expression, joy, and much to my surprise: my identity. To have it taken from me when I had really only just truly begun to embrace its fullest potential was a grief-like devastation I am still processing (despite the physical healing taking place). The confidence of an instrument that will simply "be there" without the slightest hint of drama or fear is no longer my reality, and I am never more grateful than when my voice flows from me without pain or internal hurricane.

Guenevere sings more than almost any other character I have ever played (Laura Fairlie, Eliza Doolittle and Maria in West Side Story were her competitors), and the largest singing role I have taken on since healing from my illness. It was a line in the sand" if you will. If I could maintain my health, power, vocal resonance and do so 8 shows a week, perhaps I would learn in my cells that I was capable of singing in the theatre again. No one could tell me this. It had to be experienced to be truly and fully learned. I suppose I selected a rather ambitious task when it came to such a "test" but ah well: that's about as AlSilber-y as it gets. Whole-ass it or stay at home.

But more than Camelot's significance in my vocal and health journey, it has been a milestone of the first theatrical experience I have enjoyed so thoroughly in over a decade (since, frankly, Fiddler on the Roof in Sheffield and subsequently London).

It is a funny thing in the theatre-- not every component always aligns itself perfectly-- to have a truly special production one must have three components in place: a perfectly balanced company (of actors, creatives, orchestra, crew and stage management)—there can be not even one bad apple, and if there is, that bad apple must be so swayed by the good that they don't make an impact. An excellent product (the work itself must be of excellent quality and hopefully feel important). An excellent process and atmosphere.
It's delicate.

This entire experience—the quality of its work, the alchemy of the company and the personal victory of triumphing over illness has meant more to me than I can express. It has been one of the most profound work experiences of my life thus far (in fact only one other in my memory rivals it and it was long, long ago...) Ken taught me a great deal off stage as well, and I am ever-grateful for those lessons.

Definitively, at the very core of this experience working with Ken Clarke. Creating and building a great, complex and truthful marriage between Arthur and Guenevere. I truly feel I have had the privilege of working with one of our great actors at the beginning of his career. Thank you, Ken, for always showing up, for playing “pro tennis,” and for allowing me the privilege of being let into your eyes and inner life as Arthur.

Further, I have had the extraordinary privilege of being present for the "break out" moment of one of the greatest singers and human beings I have ever had the joy of working with and cultivating an onstage romance with, and an offstage platonic intimacy (like I've only ever known with Bobby Steggert.)

Further, we created a beautiful triumvirate of friendship with genius actor Patrick Vaill (known as "Arthur's Admins") who played Mordred. That triangle and all its branches meant so much to me.

Nick Fitzer is that man, that artist, and it was easy to fall in love with all he brought to this incredibly complicated character. He buoyed and supported me, he lifted me sky high and taught me so much about love in its many forms, on stage and off. I am so thrilled the world took note. To quote the Washington Post:

"Nick Fitzer, playing divinely self-confident Lancelot du Lac, the delights become magnified. Fitzer’s delivery of “If Ever I Would Leave You,” the pastoral love ballad Lancelot sings to Guenevere, is, in a word, sensational, and the performance is such that you may find yourself asking, “Where did they get this guy?” To other directors out there looking for a romantic musical-theater leading man I can declare: C’est lui."

And my beloved ladies of Dressing Room 3, where would I have been without their family-like support, humor, truth, and love? I've never been in a dressing room like it: I wanted to remain there forever. Each woman standing up with her own magnificence, personality, talent and sense of life. I learned and grew from and with all of you and I've never felt so loved and supported by any other group of women. Thank goodness for our text chain!

This COMPANY. My heart.

So.
Dearest Guenevere,

I shall love you eternally.

Thank you for all you taught me and all of us. I haven’t experienced a perfect theatrical alchemy as profound as #Camelot at Shakespeare Theatre Company in many, many years.

Thank you.
I won’t let it be forgot.
None of us will. X

' Choose' by Carl Sandburg

The single clenched fist lifted and ready,

Or the open asking hand held out and waiting.

Choose:

For we meet by one or the other.

Ask Al: FAQs! - Part 4

1. You got a flat-out rave review for your portrayal of Guinevere in Camelot from the Washington Post. Was there anything the critic noticed that was especially meaningful to you?

     I always love to know that the production we’ve worked so hard on building is received so warmly.

     I’m not alone in being an actor who does now read my own theatre reviews. I find they “mess with my head” and regardless of positive or negative feedback, they give me specific adjectives that stick in my mind and body that infuse my performance. I wrote about this in a former post a few years ago. The extraordinarily difficult thing about theatre reviews is that the actors have to RETURN to the work the reviewers love or hated the following day, week, month, etc., with the knowledge of those words and opinions.

     In contrast, I do not feel this way about my book reviews! And I suppose I would feel similarly about acting work captured on film. The work, in those instances, is “over.” One cannot change it, it is preserved forever in the form it is and is not a “living” work of art. The distinction of the living work is what makes reading reviews particularly difficult for me, and I suspect, for many others.




2. One of the songs you sing in this show is "I Loved You Once In Silence." Who is someone you loved, but never expressed it to them?
Believe me: they know who they are.

It was expressed. The sentiment of the song remains exactly the same. Sometimes loving is hard.


3. What drew you to the role of Hodel and then Tzeitel in Fiddler on the Roof— are the three of you alike in any ways?

     There are too many to mention. I honestly feel this question is best answered within the pages of After Anatevka— and not only the similarities, but the differences, and the growth every human being hopefully acquires as they age and experience life. I had the uncanny joy of being able to understand each woman more deeply as I embodied the other— much like members of the same family come to more deeply understand their siblings as they all become adults.

     One of my most treasured passages from After Anatevka is from the penultimate chapter, an epistolary exchange from Tzeitel to Hodel:

“Home, Hodelleh. That place beyond the place where we rest our heads every night. Where our centerpieces, our sewing, our carefully prepared meals, simply do not matter. Where our petty little differences and competitions with one another do not matter anymore.

And I thought of you.

It is odd, Hodelleh. Because I do not know if you shall ever read this, I feel compelled to tell you more than ever. Home—where love shall reign supreme. The kind of home you always held within your heart, my dear sister, the kind no meaningless skill of mine could ever fully capture. How I love you, Hodel. It aches within me that I failed to show you in so many ways. That I provided you with every comfort but the comfort of my heart.

Yet I know that we shall both, as we always did, return to each other. For the love beneath our struggle is so strong. Perhaps in time, the Lord shall reveal to us why it is so difficult.”

     My goodness, to embody two such women. What a privilege.


4. Since you started your career how have your future aspirations changed or stayed the same?

     One of the wonders of being a human being is that your dreams really do come true. Not all of them, and not always in exactly the way we envision them, but dreams DO come true, and what happens after they do? Well, we gotta get some new dreams!

     The way I would put it is like this: if the book of my life/career is 25 chapters long, I know that I want Chapter 25 to be someone pulling me off a stage and putting me in my coffin in my costume. That remains the same— the interim dreams alter. I can’t wait to work with people I’ve yet to meet. I can’t wait to play Cleopatra. I can’t wait to originate roles that haven’t been written yet. But ultimately, the final dream remains the same: a life in the theatre.


5. What are your strengths and as an actress?

     Hm. I believe I have a very quick access to the emotions many people consider to be “beyond the comfort zone”— particularly sorrow and anger. I also enjoy using my vivid imagination to create emotional backstories that fuel me. I also have a very active academic mind, curiosity about the world around me and a strong sense of empathy. Those help!


6. The arts in schools are often so low in the chain of importance that it’s mostly overlooked, how can students, teachers even parents shine more light on the importance of the arts?

Interlochen Center for the Arts

     The first and most important aspect of arts education is that is must begin at home. If parents and families value the arts, they will pass that import on to their children. But the arts belong in schools, for a myriad of reasons.

     Music, visual art, creative writing, and dance all belong in schools, but because my background is predominantly in the theatre I will use a theatrical example: theater’s earliest origins extend back to Ancient Greece, where participation in the Festival of Dionysus, a multi-day cultural event, was a requirement of citizenship! The theater was not about celebrities or spectacle; it was about telling stories for the purpose of the public having a cathartic experience together. Aristotle defined it as “the purification of the spirit…by witnessing the playing out of such emotions or ideas on stage.” The result is positive change. Especially in fractious times like ours, when there are great fears and even greater uncertainties, the theater can be a place of emotional and societal healing.

     Further, not every human being possess numeric or linguistic intelligence (the two “kinds of smart” that are predominantly measured in conventional schooling), and the arts offer students an additional way to excel, process and experience the world and to deeply contribute to society.

Great Day Washington

Got up [untheatrically] early to appear onGreat Day Washington! But I was SO excited to talk all things Camelot, White Hot Grief Parade, and of course, TATIANA ANGELA LANSBURY ROMANOV!

The classic musical "Camelot" by Lerner and Lowes is in production at the Shakespeare Theatre and the show just got extended to July 8th! We talk to lead actress Alexandra Silber who plays Guenevere. 

For tickets visit www.ShakespeareTheatre.org

'Eyes Fastened with Pins' by Charles Simic

How much death works,

No one knows what a long

Day he puts in. The little

Wife always alone

Ironing death’s laundry.

The beautiful daughters

Setting death’s supper table.

The neighbors playing

Pinochle in the backyard

Or just sitting on the steps

Drinking beer. Death,

Meanwhile, in a strange

Part of town looking for

Someone with a bad cough,

But the address is somehow wrong,

Even death can’t figure it out

Among all the locked doors ...   

And the rain beginning to fall.

Long windy night ahead.

Death with not even a newspaper

To cover his head, not even

A dime to call the one pining away,

Undressing slowly, sleepily,

And stretching naked

On death’s side of the bed.1

1 Charles Simic, “Eyes Fastened with Pins” from Charles Simic: Selected Early Poems. Copyright © 1999 by Charles Simic. Reprinted with the permission of George Braziller, Inc.

 

Source: Charles Simic: Selected Early Poems (George Braziller Inc., 1999)

Interview with Pop Culturalist

"Gifted storyteller, brilliant thinker, accomplished actor: Alexandra Silber is a consummate artist with a luminous voice on stage and page. A veteran of Broadway and the West End, Silber has performed in productions ranging from Fiddler on the Roof, Master Class, and The Woman in White to My Fair Lady, Murder on the Orient Express, and Carousel. In other words, she boasts an impressive resume that has enabled her to get to know a host of dynamic, singular characters. But Silber hasn’t been contented with just acting out other people’s stories—she has chosen to write her own stories, too. Her first novel After Anatevka—a sequel to Hodel’s story in Fiddler on the Roof—debuted in 2017, and her memoir White Hot Grief Parade is set to be published later this year. From Broadway to bookstores, Silber is at home wherever she gets to tell a good story.

The next story she will be part of is straight-up legendary. Silber will join the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., to headline a new, highly anticipated production of the iconic musical Camelot. Based on T.H. White’s classic novel The Once and Future King, Camelot first premiered on Broadway in 1960 and remains one of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s most popular musicals. The show brings the world of King Arthur to wondrous life. With a cast of conflicted knights, un-distressed damsels, and scheming usurpers, the musical centers on the tragic, passionate love affair between Arthur’s wife Queen Guenevere and his favorite knight Lancelot—an affair that threatens to unravel the titular kingdom that the mythic king has so lovingly built.
We got a chance to chat with Alexandra Silber about stepping into the role of Guenevere, the magic of literature, and why Angela Lansbury should be queen of everything."

P-C: What do you hope contemporary audiences will take away from a new production of Camelot in 2018?

Alexandra: At its core is a king, a leader, a fallible man: King Arthur, who is trying to make the world a better place through logic and compassion, and he doesn’t always win. But his endeavor to do so is honest and genuine. I think that’s really why it’s universal. Accompanying him along the way is the woman [Guenevere] who inspires him and gives him this platform to talk through the thinking that he’s been taught how to do by the world’s best parent, if you will: Merlyn, the man that represents all of his virtues and all of his ideals in human form. Ultimately what’s sort of incredible is that the two people that he loves most dearly [Lancelot and Guenevere] are the people that, through no malice, betray him.

When the musical came out, it resonated so deeply with the Kennedy administration. I think the reason it did resonate with the Kennedys was that JFK in many ways represented the King Arthur I just described: this young man endeavoring to make the world better. I think that right now we don’t look at those ideals with sentimentality or wistfulness; we look at that with a sense of great urgency and outrage. And I think that is a very powerful environment in which to present this musical again—particularly in our nation’s capital. So I think there’s something really crucial to be said there. Not to be overtly political, but perhaps covertly: the whole concept of King Arthur, of right vs. might, is so antithetical to our current president. And I think that there’s something really powerful about just presenting that as a possible alternative.

P-C: Guenevere is an interesting character. She is strong-willed, vivacious, and very sympathetic. But, she also has these darker shades, since she exemplifies an old-fashioned trope of the fallen woman whose adulterous affair brings about the downfall of an idyllic kingdom. Do you think Guenevere is a character that feminists can admire? How do you hope to bring her into the 21^st century?

Alexandra: I think that Guenevere’s crisis is exemplified in her opening song [“The Simple Joys of Maidenhood”], which is also the first moment that we meet her. When she makes this plea—“where are the simple joys of maidenhood?”—I think what she’s really saying is, “I am a woman who is really a girl that has never had any experiences of my own. I’ve never made any choices for myself.” What’s so exciting about this, as a feminist, is being able to say, “She’s crying out to have that choice!” Even though the song and the lyrics are childish, they still come from a place of yearning, of wanting independence and autonomy from the men that have controlled her life. While, absolutely, she is disloyal to her husband, it could also be seen that she’s ultimately loyal to her own needs and her own sexual awakening, and that she simply chooses to self-actualize those dreams that she never got to have.

I think that there’s something really powerful about the aspect of her awakening as a woman that Lancelot represents. What I really love about her is that she’s nuanced. One of the things that T.H. White says about her is that Guenevere was simply herself; she was neither loyal nor disloyal. She was all of these things; she was a real person. What I love about that is that she has this incredible loyalty to Arthur. She respects him; she admires him. And, he is the father of her mind and her intellectual awakening as a woman, queen, and leader. But, they lack this very important part of being a human being and being a woman, which has to do with the physical experience and the fullness—and almost the spirituality—of sex that she experiences with the incredibly God-oriented Lancelot. Their relationship is not just based in the carnal, but in God. So, I think that’s why she is a person to be admired: that, though the conventions of morality judge her, actually what she’s done is chosen to have a full life. While it’s still morally dubious, she didn’t have much of a choice. So, I really am looking forward to digging into those nuances and not necessarily presenting a person as morally righteous or morally bad, but as morally and spiritually and sexually conflicted, as so many of us are, moment to moment. T.H. White describes Guenevere as a real person—she was neither good nor bad; neither loyal nor disloyal—she was all of these things. As are we all, right?

P-C: Her strength as a character comes from the fact that she is someone who is deeply flawed and, as you say, deeply conflicted. I never thought about how she really does get fulfillment from two men that are each servicing different parts of her life.

Alexandra: Yes, and I think the other thing that I hadn’t considered was [when] T.H. White specifically talks about her crisis: childlessness. I think we are still told as woman in the 21^st century, that our value lies in the carnality of our bodies and in our fecundity. “How many male children have you born?” is a question we are still facing as women, even in this country. I think what’s fascinating is that Guenevere has a husband with an illegitimate child, and she has a lover with an illegitimate child. Oddly, the one of the three of them that is probably the most set up to parent is the one that is forever without children. What’s fascinating is that the Universe, God (I’m sure she’d say) has denied her the ability to see her fulfill her feminine role to its completion, and therefore she fulfills it in every other way possible. I’m sure one could argue she’s parenting a nation, but we all know that isn’t the same thing.

---

“I’m a storyteller. Storytellers are myth-makers and myth-interpreters. We take these stories and we put them into the world and share them with others.”

---

P-C: You’ve mentioned T.H. White a few times. Have you read The Once and Future King before, or are you reading it for the first time in preparation for this role?

Alexandra: Both. I read it in high school. That was powerful to read as a young person because, when you read it as a teenager, you read it from Wart’s [Arthur’s] point of view. I think the section of Once and Future King that resonates the most when you’re young is “The Sword in the Stone,” because you are self-actualizing along with him [Wart/Arthur]. But what’s resonating so much more with me now is the third section of the book, “The Ill-Made Knight.” And to come back to it as an adult woman and to read about the complications and the nuances of Guenevere’s 25-year affair with Lancelot, to understand my relationship to politics, to God, to my womanhood—it’s a completely different read. I think that’s the thing that’s so amazing about literature—as well as drama, stories—and why I love the concept of re-reading. Re-reading books is a very big thing to me. I have a book that I read every 4 or 5 years: East of Eden by John Steinbeck. I feel like this book is the Bible of American humanity. Every time I come back to this book, I realize it is so rich a read. As a parallel [to my experience with The Once and Future King], the first time I read East of Eden, I was 15 or 16: I’d never been in love, I’d never had sex, and my father hadn’t died, so reading it was a very theoretical experience. Then when I returned to it five years later, everything I just mentioned had happened to me. It was a completely different experience of reading it as a person who’d been in love; reading it as a person who had had a sexual awakening; reading it as a person who had experienced the mythical loss of a father—it was a totally different experience. I think I’m having a similar awakening to The Once and Future King, reading it as an adult woman literally half my life later. So it’s really rewarding. What I think is really great about reading it is knowing that the original creators—Moss Hart and Lerner and Loewe—used this as their source material. So instead of going back to [Thomas] Malory [who wrote stories about King Arthur in the 15th century], or reading about the Holy Grail, this was their Bible. So, in a way, T.H. White’s voice becomes the authority of who these people were in a much more long-form way. The beauty of literature is that you get this reliable narrator that tells you about their inner workings. And in drama, of course, you just have to rely on what the characters say, and then make up or allude to their inner workings. But with literature, you get to see their inner monologues and get some backstories.

P-C: It’s interesting that you mentioned Thomas Malory. His version of the Arthurian legend pre-dates White’s by centuries. And before Malory, Chrétien de Troyes was writing Arthurian stories in the 1100s. So, the characters of King Arthur, Lancelot, and Guenevere are born and reborn in all these centuries and iterations of the legends, up through the musical Camelot. So, I think it speaks to their timelessness as characters, too, and their ability to be mouthpieces for different eras. That’s why it’s exciting to get this production now, to see what these characters have to say in 2018.

Alexandra: I completely agree. You know, I think it’s exhilarating, but it also should be expected. It’s the same reason that we revisit Shakespeare and certainly the Greek tragedies. These are the same human crises that we face. We just have to re-experience them in the new lens of the present, and sometimes they have this incredible resonance in a totally different way, and it’s important to be reminded that we’ve done this all before. We’re not reinventing humanity.

P-C: In addition to your prolific stage career, you’re also a published author. How do you think your experience as an actor has shaped you as a writer?

Alexandra: When you boil it all down, I’m a storyteller. Storytellers are myth-makers and myth-interpreters. We take these stories and we put them into the world and share them with others. But it’s always an exercise of interpreting and reinterpreting the human condition, and the two mediums in which I do that are just different mediums in which to do the same thing. I think my experience of theatre and acting was intoxicating as a young person, because I experienced life very deeply. I still do. I don’t know if you know a lot about the Myers-Briggs scale but I’m an INFJ, which is a super introvert. And I was the child of a sick father and a very loving family and had very great parents. But I was also spending a lot of time alone interpreting really big life and death questions very early in my life. So, I had a lot of big feelings that the theatre helped me actualize and focus in a healthy way. [It gave me] a place where I can tell big, important stories and experience big emotions in a constructive and exploratory way. People the world over have lost their fathers for millennia, and had big experiences and feelings about it. I am not just Alexandra Silber, facing the loss of her father; I’m also Electra; I’m also all of these people. Drama felt like a really exciting connection. I have an older brother, but he’s about 17 years older than me, so I spent the majority of this experience in solitude—I had the experience of an only child. Literature simultaneously was a place to really cultivate my inner world and inner imagination. I think what happened was, theatre became this place for me to actualize and export those feelings, and literature became a place for me to cultivate my inner world. It was a very inside/outside experience.

I think what ultimately came from that process was when I came to literature and, actually writing it, I realized that I had a couple of huge advantages and a couple of big disadvantages. The huge advantages were the believable creation of character, and it was incredibly second nature to me at this point. So, in creating a character, I had two experiences. One was to ask what would this character do next. I could embody a character and say, “What are they going to do next?” And then, was able to go, “Alright, this is the next plot point—how will I justify getting to that plot point?” which is something that, as an actor, you’re always trying to do. How do you emotionally get there? When I had a believable root of my character in my novel, that approach really helped me a lot. So my ability to create a believable character and embody them as human beings, not just write them, made a huge difference.

Of course on a very obvious level, the concept of dialogue was really fluid for me. But one of the things I did struggle with was the macro lens. When you’re writing a piece of fiction, your main role is as a reliable narrator observing everyone. I was used to embodying one person within a story and serving their one particular arc. So that took a lot of practice and training. Being an actor, you have to be very, very vulnerable. You have this veil, this agreed-upon veil that you’re revealing your inner-most vulnerability to serve a character and, that you can always somewhat justify—this isn’t my grief, or this isn’t my pain, or this isn’t my joy, or this isn’t even my naked body—it’s theirs, it’s the character’s grief, the character’s pain, the character’s naked body. What’s very different about writing a memoir is that veil is totally down. It feels like the most exposed Barbara Walters’ interview or Oprah interview of all time. It’s a very, very different kind of laying oneself bare. That has been really challenging. Yet, my goal is for it to be a source of great connection. We’re in the moment of Me Too. Me Too is about all adversity, and it is the mantra of empathy above all else. So, that’s really what motivated me to get my grief story down.

---

“The whole point of art is to reflect life back to us. Most times, life is too painful to look directly at—almost like the sun. If we were to observe an eclipse with our naked eye, we would be blinded. Sometimes that’s like looking at our own truth. We have to look at it through special eclipse sunglasses. And that’s what art does—it makes it bearable to view our own human condition.”

---

P-C: Putting yourself out there in a memoir is a very courageous act. Once you started, did you find that the act of writing gave you more strength?

Alexandra: Yes. I’ll ultimately say this: there was this moment where writing felt so necessary. It was like a tidal wave that wasn’t going to stop, and if I kept it inside, it wasn’t going to remain in me benign; it was going to make me sick. I almost didn’t need to necessarily have a lot of people bear witness to it; I just actually had to get it out of my physical body and soul. It had to just get out.

P-C: It also sounds like a revelatory experience.

Alexandra: I think the most important thing I’ve gained is that, often what we think is the purpose of our journey is not the purpose of our journey. I mean, this is a lesson we learn over and over and over again [in literature]—like, Odysseus and Frodo Baggins. But, I think staying open to what this could be about is the most important exercise in all daily life. The whole point of art is to reflect life back to us. Most times, life is too painful to look directly at—almost like the sun. If we were to observe an eclipse with our naked eyes, we would be blinded. Sometimes that’s like looking at our own truth. We have to look at it through special eclipse sunglasses. And that’s what art does—it makes it bearable to view our own human condition.

P-C: As as we’ve said, Camelot is an adaptation of a novel. What other books would you like to see get a musical adaptation?

Alexandra: This is a slightly bizarre answer, but Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities. It’s so, so beautiful. It’s heart-wrenching. It’s delicate, and [I would like to see it get] the same treatment that The Band’s Visit got. Basically, Invisible Cities is about the dialogues that existed between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo. Kublai Khan is sort of holding Marco Polo hostage in a Scheherazade way, in that he’s forcing Polo to discuss his adventures and describe the cities that he has seen. The book is divided into these direct dramatic dialogue conversations between Khan and Polo. Then, the prose that exists between those dialogues is told from Polo’s voice, and they are these little short stories of the cities he’s visited, which all, incidentally, are named after women: the City of Theodora, the City of Desdemona, the City of Irene. Ultimately these dialogues that exist between Polo and Khan are exploring the nature of the universe. Khan says at the end, “There’s one city you never talk of: it’s the city you’re from. You never talk about Venice.” [Polo] says, “It’s possible that I’ve been talking about Venice the whole time.” I just think there’s something about the ultimate ruler and the ultimate traveler discussing humanity. It’s a poetic exploration of existence and journeys, and I think it would be a very beautiful musical.

P-C: Speaking of journeys, you studied at the prestigious Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and worked in the West End before returning to the United States and performing on Broadway. What’s the best advice you’ve received in your career?

Alexandra: The director that I did my first production of Fiddler on the Roof with, when I played Hodel in London, was Lindsay Posner. I remember Lindsay coming backstage one day and giving notes. I was young—I was 24, and really having this experience of the final scene for Hodel. It’s so emotional, it’s so deep, it’s so big. And, [I felt] like I had this responsibility to experience big feelings every day. I felt like I had a duty to Hodel to serve her. I felt frustrated if I didn’t turn myself inside out every day, [and I felt like] I was somehow failing. Lindsay said this thing that set me free, not only on stage, but in life. He said, “You know, you only have 100% of what you have today.” [In other words] “use 100% of what you have today.” Today, you might be more vulnerable, you might feel more broken, and therefore Hodel will feel those things. And then the next day, you might feel stronger and more determined, and you might just have a greater constitution to withstand big feelings. That’s why live theatre is so rewarding: it’s happening anew every single day. He was saying you can’t compare your 100% today to your 100% yesterday. All you can do is use all of yourself as you are today. That just set me free. I also feel like it set me free offstage, going, “You know, if I can get to the end of the day and know I did my best, and recognize it’s not going to be the best I have tomorrow or the best I had yesterday, but based on what I was capable of using today, I did my best.” So, “use 100% of what you have today” is really, really a lifesaver.

Pop-Culturalist Speed Round

Guilty Pleasure TV Show
I don’t even have to think about it: Murder, She Wrote. My love of Angela Lansbury is so deep. She’s my only idol. And, Murder, She Wrote is just the most comforting, entertaining, light and oddly inspiring show. I think we all in some way, wherever we are in the stage of our life, worry or fear that it’s a little too late for us. Like, whether it’s too late for me to go back to grad school. Or, it’s too late for me to start a new career. Or, it’s too late for me to have children—or it’s too late for me to find true love. Or, who knows? What I love about Angela Lansbury that parallels directly with Jessica Fletcher [in the show] is that the character is living proof that it’s never too late for anything.
Favorite Movie
What About Bob?
Favorite Book
East of Eden
Favorite Play
Our Town
Favorite Musical
West Side Story. I just think it’s empirically perfect.
Hidden Talent
I am extremely good at writing lyrics to television theme songs that don’t have lyrics. I don’t want to brag, but I’m really good at it.
Favorite Place to Travel
Scotland, with a very close second of Venice.
Artist or Band that You Could Listen to on Repeat
There’s a folk duo named Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker. I feel like I could personally run their crazy, psycho fan club. I discovered them through some staunch Googling, and quickly bought everything they ever made. They actually have a brand new album out: “Seedlings All.” If I could recommend just one song, it’s their version of “My Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose,” which is the Robert Burns song. Her voice is just like the voice of an angel. And Ben Walker’s guitar—he’s a classical guitarist—is just out of this world. They’re an unbelievable duo. They’re my favorite music to listen to.
Person You Admire Most
Dame Angela Lansbury

from As You Like It, "All the world’s a stage..." by William Shakespeare

Jaques to Duke Senior

 All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

The Lie of "Brian"

Meet Brian. GOD, he's the best. (PS ^actual Southwest ad)

As an artist, people are often asking me to speak at things where audience members will have thoughtful questions, or various recording devices and my internal monologue is always WHY ARE YOU ASKING ME I’M FAKING ADULTHOOD. But off I went on book tour.

It was on my third stop that I met Oscar: Nosey Man of Scotch Plains, New Jersey. It wasn’t a remarkable crowd that day in Scotch Plains; mostly older people, a few flat-out almost-dead people accompanied by the teenagers who had wheeled them into this lecture hall, plus a handful of perfectly nice Jewish Gen-Xers who had clearly planned this event.

I spent about an hour chronicling my London and New York theatrical career, my research journey in Siberia, the story of how my first novel came to be, the pertinent information about my upcoming novel…

Let me be clear: talking to a roomful of strangers for an hour about anything is not fun. Like what could I possibly be an expert on? Even current eleven-year-olds know more about what is up with my iPhone, and probably have a 401K or two in better shape than mine.  But talking at length about yourself? That's the pits (maybe it's fun if you’re Oprah? but I honestly doubt it...) It is far more interesting to speak about what you value, believe in and your personal mission statement. But book talks are a wily hybrid of selling a product and selling your actual self. It’s more intense than being an actor, oddly, because you are the entire cast and creative team, and this “show” never closes. In the theatrical talkback, you very rarely have to talk about your own damn self which is fantastic because talking about yourself, no matter how profoundly awesome you may be, is seriously boring.
    Why have you even invited me here to talk about myself? I think. I’m just a 30-something with a barely verified Twitter account and a PhD-level specialist knowledge of both Murder, She Wrote trivia and pre-1998 musical theater. I’m basically the same awkward teenager I was 18 years ago. Except now I have a utility bill and ulcerative colitis. Do I inform them of my encyclopedic knowledge of Angela Lansbury trivia? Do I make them follow my cat on Instagram?
    The answer: I eventually come to do both of those things.

But anyway there I was in Scotch Plains talking about myself. When I had finished my talk I asked, in the now-forever-lost innocence of pre-Scotch Plains book tour events:

    “Any questions?”

In the back of the room, an older man named Oscar had been trouble the whole book talk. Oscar was handsome, popular, with the charisma of a cult leader. Terrific. In response to my invitation for questions, Oscar the octogenarian class clown raised his hand.

    “I have a question,” he said with an air of faded-but-not-forgotten Mad Men; the white-guy bravado that comes from any 85-year-old with all his hair, and can still drive a car unsupervised.
    “Yes, Oscar?”
    “ARE YOU MARRIED?”

—Record Scratch.—
Hold on a minute.

Would Oscar have asked a male author this question? Why does it feel as though the onus is on me, on us, the women, to identify and justify independence? Why are women always the victims of some kind of Marriage Inquisition?

Also, there’s no short but positive answer to this.

I mean I guess I could be coy:
    “Why, oh my gosh are you proposing, Oscar?”

Or be socially strong:
    “No, but I am really content to [blah blah enter completely honest statement you’ll write off as feminist bullshit blah blah]”

Or I could simply have some damn boundaries:
    “I meant questions about the BOOK, anyone have any of those?”

There’s really no version of “NO I AM NOT MARRIED” that could satisfy a person or crowd that had the audacity to ask. Mind you— all of this crossed my mind in 1/1000th of a second.

Reader? You’d be as shocked as I was to hear the phrase:
    “Iiiiiiiiiiiii aaaaaaaaam, yeeeeees I aaaaaaam married yeeeeeeees” fall out of my mouth in slow motion.

Time stopped. I imperceptibly moaned as I prayed fervently for a flaming hot meteor to strike the lectern here at this Jewish Community Center.

    “Um… any other questions?”
    “Yeah!” Oscar again, “What does he DO?”

But before I could worry about diarrhea soaking my skinny jeans I found myself spewing the following out of my unruly mouth:

    “Heeeeeee is aaaa pilot. YES! He’s a pilot. He flies planes…. Because he is a pilot—BRIAN!” I screamed, “—Brian: The Pilot….”


I ran.

With shocking, and extremely creative ease, I had lied outright to a room full of senior citizens and barely broken a sweat. Thus I ran from the JCC of Scotch Plains New Jersey. I ran with the ferocity of Harrison Ford running from Tommy Lee Freakin’ Jones.

I’m sorry Oscar.
I’m sorry Scotch Plains, New Jersey.
I’m sorry Brian, wherever you are…

*

Once on the train back to New York City I immediately texted people to assess my level of trash can person:

• I called my best friend and former high school roommate Lilly who has seen me far worse than this! Lilly was there the day my Dad died, the day I got LASIK eye surgery and had to wear the weird goggles, Lilly has even picked me up from a colonoscopy or three. Lilly laughed so hard she almost asphyxiated. 
• I texted Laura Benanti, the only adult in my phone who knows how to capably handle a real-life-Nora-Ephron-essay-plus-sensitive-etiquette situation and she told me I’d done the right thing to both panic-lie AND run away. Plus she's from New Jersey. So.
• I texted Danny Burstein who virtually high-fived me and told me to tell the world about Brian, suggested contacting Central Casting for a full fake-wedding photoshoot, and made a few vivid additions to the backstory almost instantly.
• I texted Julia Murney, who thought Brian was lovely (He is duh), though was concerned with how quickly Brian and I were moving in the relationship.
• I texted my also-single, kick-assiest-woman-I know friend Amy Maiden in Australia,  who reminded me that “it’s the end of days so fuck it it’s fine.”
• I texted Samantha Massell, daughter of a successful, single, working mother who was outraged on my behalf.

Sent this to everyone on the list, above

Basically: I got most of the moral support I required before I even reached Trenton.

Not that I shared it with more unsuspecting senior citizens, but the Lie of Brian grew. And grew. Brian is amazing, you guys. God he loves flying so much, #blessed! He loves flying and tennis and sunsets and me. His father bought Amazon at 6 so he’s loaded! Plus he’s an orphan so no irritating in-laws, and he’s super sorry he can’t be here today but he’s flying the red-eye to Beijing …again.

Anyway the next day I went to Claire’s and bought the biggest, most hideous rhinestone fake wedding and engagement ring combo $27 could buy. And no one ever asked me about being married again. (Lesson? Props matter).


I am grateful for the experience in Scotch Plains. I am better armed for the future, and both impressed and horrified that a prop wedding ring can help keep everyone focused on discussing my attempt at an artistic contribution to society and less focused on discussing my damn love life.

Protector of the skies and my heart.