Forever Deadward

Hey everyone!

So, I can FINALLY announce one of the big things I've been having to keep under wraps for the past couple months.

"Forever Deadward - The Vampire Musical Parody" is coming back! After becoming something of a pop culture phenomenon when the show premiered at New World Stages we are finally able to move forward with the show. I'm over the moon!

I'll post more details when I have them, but we will be having an industry presentation in October at The York Theater Company (which as of now will be a closed event.)

BUT

We will be having a public concert presentation at the iconic 54 Below in Times Square in December. To buy tickets just click HERE.

You can find all the latest info on our website (www.foreverdeadward.com) including links to our facebook, twitter, and youtube pages.

Dance Moms Parody

Hey guys! Sorry I've been really crazy lately, but I promise good posts coming soon. :)

In the meantime, here's a little project I've been doing. "Dance Moms - Season 16" - A Parody.

Enjoy! Dance Moms - Season 16

"In The Fall of A Sparrow..." Chapter One

Yes, it's true. I'm working on my first book. It's at the point where I'm talking to agents so I guess it's no longer "under wraps" lol.

If you'd like to check it out - here's the (current) first chapter.

I feel like Dickens writing in installments. lol.

It's (currently) called:

"In The Fall of a Sparrow." © 2014

Contact:

Managers:

Schwartz & McEntyre

305 Madison Avenue

Suite 1028

New York, NY 10165

212-856-9777

ross@schwartzmcentyre.com

Chapter I

They don’t tell you that living is the hardest thing you will ever do. Life is an action, a choice, as much as taking a test or confessing your love. You don’t understand until you’ve reached the end. But don’t worry. You will.

I wonder, is death an action? DyING. Yes. But Death itself? Perhaps it works the same as life – you can’t tell until you’ve come to the end of death. But there is no end. That’s the thing about death. It’s final. The possibility of my death has always been there, a specter hovering in the corner. As familiar as a mortal enemy and as constant as the knowledge of what I am. The two are inexorably linked. You can’t have one without the other. My entire life has been defined by one fact: I am disabled in a world without disabilities.

I believe, somehow, that there is beauty in what they call my illness. The way I see the world is precious to me. It’s rumored that before the founding of the State there were disabled persons who contributed greatly to the flourishing of mankind. Some of the greatest artists had handicaps. That may just be wishful thinking. But since it seems this, my story, may be the only thing I leave behind, it gives me hope there may be something of worth in it. There has to be.

They say what they are doing is a service, a protection for me and for society. I tell them I wont hurt anyone. I offer to just go away somewhere by myself. I don’t want to upset anybody. But they won’t allow it. I grew up seeing the newsreels and hearing the warnings about people like me. I know that I am, though I can’t believe it myself, that dangerous thing that is to be feared. Quarantined. Destroyed. Yes. That part they don’t make as clear to you. Do they? That they destroy us. I knew. I was forewarned. That explains The Test, to a degree. I’ll elaborate in more detail later. I’m sure you’re very curious about that part of my story. If you’re reading this, you must be. Achieving that score on The Test was one of the most difficult things I ever did, and that’s saying something. Funny, I don’t actually know if anybody ever will read this. The only time I could be truly myself was, is, inside my own head. You wouldn’t imagine the conversations I had with myself. Now I’m suddenly picturing a person, a face sitting across from me, listening to those things I had to keep absolutely secret. It is a luxury I have always wished for.

I am known simply as Case Number 37401. It’s easier to erase a number. But my name is Sophie. Sophie Barre. Like a fruit. I prefer to say like J. M. Barrie. But a fruit is a nice comparison, and I’m sure you’ve never heard of Mr. Barrie. I still remember the way my father used to say my name with a slight lilt, as if it were played by a cello. So-phie. It made my name sound beautiful. Yes, my name is Sophie, I’m twenty-five years old, and today is my last day on earth. My specter has come for me. I don’t know how I am to die, and I’m afraid. I’ve spent so long hiding from it. Perhaps that’s one grace, I’ll never have to worry about dying again.

You are probably wondering what is it like having my disease. I remember having to get used to the loneliness. The boredom too. They were both difficult in their own ways. One was an infirmity of the mind, one of the heart. Boredom provided most of my daily torment, like constant static on a TV that followed me around day and night and never turned off. The loneliness proved the one I found I truly could not bear. I have found that the heart can exist, in a way, without the mind. I don’t think it works the other way around. That sounds a bit ironic perhaps given the speaker. Being inside my mind was like being in a Wonderland no one else had ever visited. But perhaps that is not the best way to begin. I doubt you have ever heard of “Alice in Wonderland” or that the reference has any meaning for you.

They keep asking about my childhood. Growing up. My interview transcripts could make a whole autobiography. Perhaps you have already read them? Or perhaps not. Maybe, like them, you would also like to know. I can recite it by rote now. I was born in the Block Seven hospital. I grew up in a surprisingly normal way. I had a happy childhood. I went to school, came home, set meals, played. I liked to read, I remember. I still do. I don’t think I was much for playing with dolls or blocks. I was an only child. I liked to have conversations with my parents. Is that unusual? Perhaps not. Though now looking back I tend to view everything as a marker. We talked about ideas. At least my father and I did. We lived near the center of Block Seven in a small two-bedroom apartment on the third floor. My mother was a young children’s instructor, and my father was an assistant speechwriter for the lower level Government officials in our sector. His superior was the Dean of Creative History at the National Upper Education Compound. Our home was small, but warm. Dark, in a cozy way. Brown. Earthy. I was scared to venture too far outside of it. I was afraid, as we all were, of enemies on the outside. It wasn’t until I turned ten that the Great War was won, and we sent emissaries off to introduce our peaceful existence to the other nations of the world. Then we all relaxed a bit. I remember the parades and celebrations.

I used to like to play-act stories with other children I knew. I suppose all children do this to a degree – playing Chancellor, playing at The Test. But I used to make up fantastical stories of imagined, far-away places that were not as safe or comfortable as the world we lived in. I remember since practically the moment I was born of having a feeling of a kind of homesickness, as if I desperately missed a home I had never actually been to. The closest I ever got to feeling that things were the way they were supposed to be was in art. In books, in music, in the sunlight and the sky. Nature is a kind of art. But eventually real life became far more interesting to my friends, and they grew up and forgot. Of course I grew up too, but I never really wanted to leave such magical worlds, as the others did. In some ways, I never did leave them. I always knew that I saw the world differently. The trouble was that I used to think I had companions in my world; I quickly learned I did not. I lost my compatriots, but I never quite lost my homesickness.

I progressed through the grades as normal. Ironically, I don’t remember liking most of school. Some things, but not many. I was always anxious to get home at the end of the day. “Homebody,” Ben would call me. My father would just chuckle when I mentioned the comment, disgruntled, at the dinner table.

“There’s nothing wrong with sticking close to home,” he said. “Besides, it’ll keep you out of trouble. Just lay low, and you can sail through life. No reason to grab attention. Be smart Sophie,” he said. “You’re a smart girl.” I didn’t feel smart. I felt like everyone else lived in some sort of world I couldn’t reach. If I WAS smart, I’d figure out how.

Mother would just smile. A thin smile that seemed to denote the opposite of happiness. She was quiet, never really said much. I don’t remember my mother and I ever having a real conversation. We never exchanged more than a few words at a time with each other. Mother was thin. Wispy. Bird-like. I remember her, always with her hair pulled back wearing a simple, unremarkable dress that I prayed she wouldn’t try to pass on to me someday.

I remember one day, as I was apt to do, I began hounding my father with questions. “Where does our food come from? Why are blankets so soft?” Father always humored me, and dutifully tried to answer each and every query.

“The soft stuff in our blankets, our pillows, even some of our clothes come from animals.” Animals! What a sensational word! Later that night, I heard him and mother fighting.

“You shouldn’t be filling her head with such nonsense!” Mother pronounced.

“What?” Father replied. “Animals are necessary to our existence.”

“They are useful to the Government in providing what we need,” she snapped. “But they are not, and never will be, a part of our lives. Now she’ll just be harping on them for weeks. You know her. Really, you wouldn’t be talking with a child about chemical formulas, so why talk to her about animals? It’s just as ridiculous and unimportant.”

“Amy –“

“You’re going to get her in trouble. You’re going to get us ALL in trouble! The things she says…I’m worried she might be sick, and you just keep encouraging her! How could you do that, how could you even think about putting us in that position after everything -”

“She is not sick!” Father shouted back, interrupting Mother. “She’s just…different. She’s bright. She’s not sick.”

I didn’t ask about animals again. I have never seen an animal, nor I assume have you (I mean a real animal, not the common insects we’ve all seen every now and again.) But I think about them when I get lonely. I like the idea of a big comforter walking about and following me around.

I think about Father when I get lonely too. There was something…cozy about him. No, I can’t think of the right word. How can I possibly describe Father? He was like your favorite armchair that you run to and curl up in. Strong, but soft, and warm. There was something almost magical about him, as if he had a secret, a secret I thought only I could see, behind his often stern exterior. Like the Man in the Moon. He demanded respect, and could be intimidating, but never in a scary way. The closest analogy I can make is that he was like a giant redwood tree. At least how I imagine it. When I read about a tall tree, I picture my father.

           

People say that after a certain age they begin to long for something they miss, and realize that they’ve lost. A comfort, a joy, a peace and safety that somehow seems to have seeped out and disappeared. Everything misplaced since their childhood that they wish they could bring back. The longing is right. The memory is not. I think the feeling tends to be associated with such a time because it is always the furthest away from now you can get. If you don’t keep it active, memory becomes fuzzy, and ends up as a home for all sorts of homeless thoughts and feelings. The truth is, it seems to me I have had just such a longing all my life. Really looking back with a hard, cold view, it seems that I longed for the same thing in childhood that I long for now. We forget that all children long for the day they are grown up, just as all grown ups long to be children again. Neither are right. Both are searching for that feeling they know exists, but is somehow out of their grasp. I miss the safety and comfort I feel in the nostalgia of my childhood. As a child, I longed for the safety and comfort I did not feel, but was certain would come in that far off day when I was free, with none of the responsibilities that burdened me. It isn’t a matter of not appreciating what I had when I had it. I greatly appreciated what I had. But it was not what I was searching for. Just as being an adult is not all we hoped it would be, so being a child was not everything we wish we could remember it as. Our whole lives we are longing for something we never truly experience.

“You live in the greatest age this world has ever known” Ms. Thompson used to say. She was our grade three instructor, when we first learned about National history and the workings of our Government.

“There was a time when you, yes, even some of you sitting here right now might have gone your whole life without being able to see, or walk, or even feed, or speak for yourselves,” she told us. “When most of the population, even if they were born completely normal, would die a horrific death after only a few decades. Not anymore.” She showed us some of the newsreels we’d seen in the cinemas. Cartoon images of people sitting in rolling chairs because their legs didn’t work, people with mental infirmities – some couldn’t understand basic concepts or perform simple skills, some were instead like mad scientists, minds like whirling dervishes, inventing crazed concoctions and insane methods of bringing the world to an end. Lost in their own terrifying fantasies. Ms. Thompson explained that mental disabilities, just like food, could be dangerous both by having too little of what you needed, and by having an excess.

“You can have too much brains?” asked Molly, as a cartoon figure of a man with an oversized brain extending out of his skull launched a massive bomb, wiping out an entire state. He laughed gleefully as children screamed. 

“Well, earlier this year we learned how a cell divides, didn’t we?” Ms. Thompson answered, “we learned that even though it’s a cell’s job to divide, and it’s very important that it does so, if it divides too much, and is never stopped, it becomes something called Cancer, and will end up destroying not only itself, but also the healthy cells near it, and eventually the entire person. Sometimes a brain can do the same thing. So we help those kinds of mental disabilities the same way we stop the little cell dividing too much.”

“Oh,” said Molly. The class smiled.

“Most of these illnesses can be dealt with when we’re still only a collection of a few cells. Some do not become apparent until after a person is born. But we have ways of addressing those too. Scientists are working on ways to keep people from being born with any of these diseases. Just like they have invented new types of plants, even seeds that are resistant to bugs, cold, and lots of other bad things so that food will last longer, and be able to feed more people. We are able to use those techniques on more and more things.”

“Now, just like we saw these news reels of all the things our Government has overcome, we’re going to make our own newsreel of all the wonderful things we now have because of our esteemed Chancellor and our wonderful State.”

“Eternal glory to the Chancellor

Forever their State will reign!”

We shouted.

“Good,” said Mrs. Thompson. “Now you may take out your paper and crayons.”

I don’t remember an earth shaking moment when I realized I was different. Instead it was something that just gradually became a part of my consciousness. When I heard Father use that word, different, to describe me when he was fighting with Mother, it didn’t shock me. It gave voice to something I had always somehow known. I used to say there was too much noise in my head, and it used to drive me crazy that I couldn’t seem to turn my mind off. My father told me not to talk about it at school, that it would go away when I got older, and to just do my assignments as much like the other children as possible. But that only lead to impossible frustration and boredom. I wanted to throw things at the wall. School was all facts. We memorized formulas and theorems, and then repeated them back on tests and exams. I felt as if I were being tested on how high I was able to jump in a tiny closet with a ceiling one inch above my head. Everyone kept saying, “Good! Good!” when I was really just banging my head against a wall over and over and over again.

I finally started spending more and more time, at least at school, focusing my attention on things I did no more than adequately. Painting was never my favorite, and on the occasions when assignments required that we create posters or mini-newsreels, I would go through the motions as best I could, my work never more than absolutely average. I began to focus on it more often to pass the time. Painting was, after all, something I could improve, and at least provided some sort of a challenge. But what I always wanted to do was write. I suppose there is no harm in confessing now (keeping the secrets is no longer any protection for anyone involved in my case) that my father had a collection of illegal books he kept hidden in his study in the underlevel of our home. He was allowed by the Government to reference some illegal books because of his work, but how he attained such a collection I’ll never know. But he let me devour them as soon as I was old enough to make an attempt. Let me. He encouraged me to! I love him for it, and at the same time it enrages me. Why would Father put me in such a position? I believe he was so desperate to have someone to relate to, to discuss these illegal thoughts with, that he allowed himself to overstep common sense. Would things have turned out differently if he had kept his secrets? But in any case, I had dreams of being our Nation’s great literary genius. Funny, This is the only thing I shall ever write.

I wonder, what would you have done in my circumstances? Some may challenge me for being less heroic than I ought to have been. I did not lead a rebellion against the society that did this to me. I won no battles. Achieved no great victory. Others may think the opposite, that I foolishly stepped too far out of my depth. It is very easy to lead a charge when doing it alongside a character in a story, where there is a seductive empathy but no consequences. Or to have a foresight of danger to come when you have the clear-headed mind of an outsider. But if you were truly facing hunger, or going without a roof over your head, or danger to your person, or cold, or sorrow, not just in an imagined existence but in real life, what choices would you have made? Am I right in what I did? Would you have done the same if it were real to you, and not just ciphers on a page? Was what I did bravery or cowardice? Or is it simply human nature? Am I permitted that grace? Of saying I have a human nature? I suppose that’s left for you to decide. My unknown confessor.

So then, let us begin. I don’t have much time. I shall lay my thoughts out as best I can, and try to give you a clear picture of what has led me to where I am now. You, whoever you are, are left to be the judge and jury of my life, and to determine what value, if any, might be found in it.

Being a Child Actor In a Long Running Show

Me right before I started work on "Mary-Mary."

My childhood headshots

With the proliferation of musicals starring children on Broadway, a lot of people have asked me what it was like being a child in a long running show. When I was 11-13 I did about a year long run (it might have been a little longer,) of a musical called “Mary-Mary.” We primarily performed in Los Angeles, but I also went with the show to the UK, touring to London, Warwick and Stratford. The show was a kind of modern “Alice in Wonderland” esque story involving a cynical, grown-up before her time young girl named Mary-Mary, and a host of fantastic fairy tale characters. I played Mary-Mary alternating with mainly one, but for a short while with two other girls, (though I did the majority of performances.) I was the youngest person in the cast - I was always a kid who looked older then I was, so I was the only Mary-Mary who was truly playing my own age. The others were older and looked younger. The other Mary-Mary's and I were never at the theater at the same time. 

I loved doing “Mary-Mary.” It will always be one of my theatrical highlights. Interestingly in real life I was much more like the end of the show Mary – I was in some ways a very innocent twelve year old, very imaginative, and I saw the world in magical ways. I think I still do. My acting abilities were primarily challenged in the first half of the show when Mary is much more jaded and “cool” then I was. I had a very strong grasp of acting – I was in my first play when I was five, and had been taking acting classes ever since. I grew up in L.A and got an agent when I was seven. By twelve I was an old pro. I was very fortunate that I was treated as such. I have friends who were also child actors, and many have horror stories of the kinds of things directors would do to manipulate a performance out of them (that old chestnut about a kid being told their parents are dead to get them to cry is much more common then you might think.) Largely thanks to a wonderful mother, and the fact that I received legitimate acting training I was very blessed to always be treated as an equal actor, and never had any traumatizing incidents. 

“Mary-Mary” was a big responsibility for me. I only left stage twice the whole show, and I was speaking off stage during both exits. I had to be at the theater very early to get ready and warm up before the performance(s.) I used my own hair in the show and had it French braded (two braids, just like Dorothy.) I liked the other people who worked on the production very much. Ironically, maybe this is true to an extent with all performers, but especially children, I remember my relationships with the other characters as separate from my relationships with the other actors. Although I certainly missed everyone when the show ended, I almost missed some of the characters more then the actors themselves. Like they had been real people in a way. The actors I knew I could always see again, but I would never again be able to talk to, and interact with the characters I loved so much. Mary was sometimes closer to a character onstage then Ashley was in real life with the actor who played them.

I’m glad I did my first long run as a child. Children are by nature in the moment, something essential to surviving a long run, and now I have a paradigm to bring to a long run as an adult. But even as a child it did get difficult to keep the show fresh after a while (though probably after a much longer period then one would think, it does take a decent amount of time to really get into the groove of a new show.) I began to set little challenges for myself to help keep things feeling new. One show I might filter things through Mary’s sadness, the next her anger. One show I might play her as a little girl pretending to be older then she is, the next as a girl who really had to grow up too fast. I never did anything that really changed my performance, just little thoughts I kept in the back of my mind to keep things interesting for me.

One thing that really did help keep things fresh was when new cast members would join the company. As wonderful as everyone was, an especial favorite cast member for me was Rachel who replaced the adult lead in the show a few months into the run. Not only was Rachel a former acting teacher of mine, but she was a close family friend. She and her family came over for dinner at my house, and my mother and I went over to hers. I spent most of my time onstage with Rachel’s character, who becomes like a mother to Mary during the course of the show. I felt the same way about Rachel offstage as on, and it was very special for me to get to perform with her.

I remember discovering things about the show and Mary right through the final performance. Every time a new cast member came in with a slightly different take on the role, I started to see new things in the play I hadn’t thought of before. Rachel played her role in a very maternal way, Cheryl was much more zany – kind of your kooky aunt, and Evelyn was closer to a Mary Poppins esque interpretation. Each made me see the show differently, and my Mary became different in response to these three actresses.

Though I was ready for a break by the time the show ended, I was so sad when it was over. I think when you’re a child actor there’s a kind of axe hanging over you – the knowledge that you have a very limited amount of time to play a certain role, and then you’ll never be able to play it again. I cried the day I realized I was officially too old to play Annie. lol. By the time I finished my run in "Mary-Mary" I barely fit into the costume – I was getting tall and the costume was stretched to maximum capacity. The adults could play these roles for years, but I knew I was a ticking time bomb. You’re far too aware of growing up when you're a child stage actor, whether you feel grown up or not. (I think in film and TV it's sometimes the opposite. You're kept a little girl far longer then you should be.)

“Mary-Mary” was a haven for me. My family and I were going through hell in real life, but doing the show I, in a way, felt like I got to step into a fantasy world and be with characters I loved, and who loved me. There’s something magical about being in a show when you’re a child. But it’s also made very clear that you’re expected to be just as professional as the adults in the cast. Show wise I was never treated any differently from anyone else. I didn’t have a child wrangler like many shows involving children do – I was completely responsible for getting myself ready on time, taking care of my costume while I was wearing it, making all my entrances and maintaining a consistent performance. Socially however, I was treated very differently.

I was at that age where I really looked up to the older girls in the cast. I always wanted to do what they were doing. This was especially a problem when we were in the UK where my parents weren’t with me and, though I certainly had people with the production looking out for me, didn’t have someone whose responsibility it was to be with me all the time. During the day I was the cute kid to have around. At night no one wanted me tagging along. I was not invited to girls nights in the hotels where they would slather on face mask and talk about the boys they were dating/sleeping with in the cast. There were a lot of places I was just too young to go to, and I had to all but beg borrow and steal to get someone to take me to a museum, etc. on our time off as I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere on my own (keep in mind, this is in the era before laptops and texting. I couldn't distract myself with fun youtube videos or DVDs, and I had to use the hotel pay phone to call my mom - more often we exchanged good old fashioned correspondence.) I spent a lot of time alone in my hotel room desperately missing my mom. This was an especially interesting dynamic as I was playing the lead in the show, and was doing various press things, photo shoots that other cast members weren’t always involved in. Show wise I was one of the highest on the "totem poll." Socially I was the lowest. On a side note, this was in the days before everything was on the internet, so most of our press still only exits in good old fashioned scrap books of clippings and articles – there aren’t links I can post. I got good at the art of doing interviews (the secret: answer the question YOU want to answer, regardless of the question the interviewer poses to you.) I remember one time in L.A. the whole cast decided to have a movie bonding night, and we went to go see “The Crucible” – a movie I had already seen with my mom, and loved, especially because it was theater related. I remember being humiliated when we got to the theater and the box office worker deemed me too young to go into the theater, and was going to make me stay outside while the whole rest of the cast went in. Finally one of my favorite cast members talked the box office attendant into letting her count as my guardian and give her permission for me to see the movie, but I went from feeling like one of the cast to feeling like the silly baby instantaneously.

Things weren't much better back at school. Especially in L.A there can be a lot of jealousy when you're a child performer. I remember one day in the sixth grade I had to miss a day of school in order to do an invitational performance (a special matinee show where, usually, schools are invited to attend as a way to supplement a lack of arts education.) It wasn't until the eleventh hour when the producers realized that one of the groups coming to the invitational was my sixth grade class. The kids thought it would be really funny to try and embarrass me as much as possible including yelling "Ashley, you suck!" during the show, and trying to trip me when I had to make an entrance/exit down one of the aisles. 

I was never exposed to anything really bad doing the show (again I know horror stories from other kids,) but I found myself a not quite comprehending bystander on the periphery of some drama on more then one occasion. There was a drug incident in the cast – we all got a big lecture about professional behavior from one of the producers where the word “drugs” was never explicitly used, after which I apologized to him if I had done anything wrong. He smiled and said this had nothing to do with me. I had to beg one of the cast members to tell me what was going on. There were also a multitude of hook ups in the cast. I remember feeling in a weird, twilight-zone place of at once being horrified finding out that some of the people I looked up to were sleeping around, cheating on their significant other who was ALSO in the cast, and feeling vaguely jealous that I seemed to be the only one no one wanted to date. I remember being all but traumatized our first night in London when the company had gotten tickets for the West End play “Popcorn” – a brilliant work that no twelve year old should be watching, and, on the flip side, being in seventh heaven watching a WWII era “Hamlet,” and “Cymbeline” at the RSC. To this day “Cymbeline” is my favorite of Shakespeare’s Romances. I loved being in the UK, and I’m dying to perform there again.

But don't get me wrong, I loved acting as a kid! I was the one begging my mom to take me on auditions. Being onstage was the happiest I ever felt. It gave me an incredibly constructive way to channel my feelings, and on the practical side it gave me many life skills. I'm great at dealing with rejection. I actually think it's a good thing for kids to start being exposed to rejection early. When I was seven I didn't remember most auditions I did after I did them, so hearing a week later from my mom that I didn't get that snack commercial didn't leave me devastated, I usually responded with: "Oh, did I audition for that?" Pretty soon it just became an accepted part of life. You do your best, and a lot of times you don't get the gig, and it has nothing to do with you. I got really good at interacting with adults (though I was far more comfortable with people who were older then me then my peers anyway.) I learned about professionalism - if I was tired I couldn't just not show up to work, because it would affect a lot of people. I learned very early that my actions affected many more people then just me, and that it was far better to be a team player. 

I remember, the only time I’ve ever missed an entrance was in “Mary-Mary.” My entrance for act 2 was through the audience, so at the "places" call the rest of the cast would go backstage, and I would wait to get the call that the lobby was clear and I could go to the front of the house. One show I started to feel like intermission was going on for a really long time, so I snuck a look out at the lobby and saw that no one was out there. I cracked open the door to the theater and was horrified to see that the cast was halfway through the opening number and was standing frozen onstage while the music played for my solo. I had the first line after the song was over, so I just made my entrance on that line. After the show I got a serious talking to by the director before the stage manager discovered that the monitors were out and I never got my places call.

I really enjoyed meeting fans by the stage door after the show. There were lots of little girls who loved Mary like I did (I actually saw the show years before I was in it, and always wanted to play Mary.) A lot of young girls would celebrate their birthday by coming to the show, and I always felt so honored to be a part of something that was so special to so many people. 

A few years later as a high school junior backstage at a show.

"Mary-Mary" reunion with Rachel. (I'm a lot taller now :)) 

"Twilight: The Unauthorized Musical Parody" - new website!

Come check out www.twiparody.com for all the latest news on "Twilight: The Unauthorized Musical Parody"

Merry Christmas 2013!

Merry Christmas everyone! (And happy holidays! Though since Hanukkah was so early this year technically this is the only holiday left I can wish you a happy/merry of. Except for New Years. But I'm too early for that so... :))

I promise I will have a new post up soon! I've been really crazy with pre production for a couple of projects, so please forgive the long absence. But I will have lots of fantastically interesting things to read soon!

xoxo ~Ashley

Top 5

A director friend of mine asked me to do a blog of my “top 5’s” – my top five favorite/most influential plays, films, TV shows, etc. A few other people have asked me the same question periodically, so I thought I would write them down, with a brief discussion as to why I like them so much. I find that some of my “top 5’s” are somewhat random and obscure, and if nothing else, I would love share them in the hopes that others might check them out.

PLEASE NOTE: These are my personal top five lists. This is not intended to be a list of the shows, etc. I think should be on everyone’s top five list, and I am certainly not arguing that they are the best films, plays, etc. of all time. They are the shows etc. that have had the greatest influence on me, that I love the most, and watch/read again and again. I believe strongly in their artistic excellence, but am writing this as a personal taste list. Not a world wide definitive list. Some are in order of preference, some are not.

Top Five (Non Shakespeare) Plays

(In order – with #1 being my favorite)

1.)   “Our Town” – by Thornton Wilder (I was very fortunate to first be exposed to this play by seeing it (when I was about nine) and not knowing anything about it going into it. I think this play can easily get ruined by forced reading in school. Experiencing it live at an early age left a huge impression on me.)

2.)   “The Pillowman” – by Martin McDonagh (This brilliant dark comedy about a writer in a totalitarian state being interrogated about the similarity of several recent child murders to the plots of his short stories had a tremendous impact on me when I saw the original Broadway production (several times.) Exploring the nature and power of storytelling this piece left me deeply moved, and thrillingly frightened - and inspired me to literally read Mr. McDonagh's entire body of work.)

3.)   “Eurydice” – by Sarah Ruhl (One of the most beautiful shows I've ever seen - "Eurydice" tells the myth of Orpheus from Eurydice's point of view. Set in an Alice in Wonderland-like Hades, in Sarah Ruhl's hands the story becomes about the nature of love between a father and a daughter just as much as between Orpheus and Eurydice. The beautiful scenes where Eurydice doesn't remember who her father is, but he knows her all too well are heartbreaking. And the piece plays with the beauty of language in a way not found in many contemporary plays.) 

4.)   “Arcadia”- by Tom Stoppard (Fun fact: the wonderful background music by Corin Buckeridge is the ringtone on my phone) (I first saw this show when it was revived on Broadway in 2011. Oddly knowing nothing about it going in (I went to see a friend who was in the cast,) I was mesmerized by the story and language. Set in the same house following two interconnected stories set over one hundred years apart - "Arcadia" is a challenging play, and that's one reason I like it so much. It intellectually challenges me every time I see or read it. The theme of the things we hold most dear never really being lost is stunningly revealed, and the play elevates math to the stuff of poetry.

5.)   “Frankenstein” adapted by Nick Dear for the National Theater of Great Britain. (This adaptation in which Benedict Cumberbatch and Johnny Lee Miller alternate in the roles of Frankenstein and The Creature really goes back to the heart of the source material, but tells the story principally from the Creature's point of view. Genius acting, direction, and design come together in one of the most stunning pieces of theater I've ever seen - taking such beautiful risks (the first 15 min. or so is all but completely silent physical work performed by the Creature - expressed in the script by the single stage direction (paraphrased): The Creature comes to life. This show is part of the National Theater Live series and has had encore performances all around the country. I highly suggest checking it out.

Top (Four) Shakespeare Plays

(I’ve divided it up into my favorite in each genre – hence four instead of five.)

Tragedy – “Hamlet” (The David Tennant film is my all time favorite) (I mean, it's "Hamlet." Is there anything to say? This play gets to the heart of the human condition in a way nothing else does.)

Comedy – “Twelfth Night” (I like my comedy a little dark and tragic - and "Twelfth Night" is anything but fun and games. The show opens with Viola having lost her father and brother, and having to dress as a boy just to survive being alone in this new land she finds herself in. Olivia is in morning for seven years because she has also lost her father and brother. Malvolio ends the play quite tragically - there is no happy ending for him. Viola is almost murdered, and the show ends with the heart wrenching reuniting of Viola and her twin brother Sebastian. And yes, there's comic hilarity in between. I like my comedy with a little tragedy and (like in "The Pillowman" - my tragedy with a bit of comedy.) 

Romance – “Cymbeline”(Literally Shakespeare does "Snow White.) (This is a beautiful, tricky play that is terrifically close to a fairy tale. And personally, I think Imogen beats Rosalind as one of (if not THE) strongest female character.)

History – “Richard III” (Check out “Looking For Richard” by Al Pacino) (Richard III is unique as a Shakespearean villain. He's not out for revenge, like Iago, he's not manipulated like Macbeth, no, Richard III does what he does because he's bored, and he can. He reminds me of Moriarty from the BBC's "Sherlock." He's incredibly smart, charming, and gets off on manipulating, and bringing down the people around him. He makes the audience complicit in his actions, tells us exactly what he's going to do, and then manages to manipulate us TOO as he's doing it, then turns to us and says: "See what I just did! Wasn't that awesome?!" We don't sadly watch him ruin his life, we, somehow, enjoy the destruction he causes, even as it destroys him. 

Top Five Musicals

1.)   “Wicked”(This is a very personal show for me, and had a great impact on me for a lot of reasons when I first saw it with the original cast. I know the show has gotten some flack, but I just think it's so beautiful, and explores a type of crusader-like character that we don't get to see very often.)

2.)   “Into The Woods” (I mean, it's Sondheim does fairy tales. Who's surprised here? :) )

3.)   “Damn Yankees” (The first “adult” musical I ever saw, and ever performed in. The show that introduced me to Gwen Verdon, Bob Fosse, and the idea that musical theater could be a serious, adult art form – and didn’t just consist of shows for children (my earlier experience with musicals had been, appropriately, “Annie,” “Peter Pan,” etc.)

4.)   “Pippin” (A beautiful, moving, commercial but experimental show that brings together two of my favorites - Stephen Schwartz, and Bob Fosse.)

5.)   I’m still saving this spot ;) Haven’t decided yet.

Top Five Films

(In order – with #1 being my favorite)

1.)   “Pan’s Labyrinth” (I don't even know what to say about this film. It's so beautiful. And I really appreciate that it doesn't shy away from (what I term) a "Lord of the Rings-esque" ending. To me, LOTR has the best ending of any story I've ever read - because it's beautiful, but real. You don't return from a great trial unchanged. Things don't go back to the way they were. There is hope, and love, but there is also a truly great cost. The ending to "Pan's Labyrinth" is joyously bittersweet. And I think expresses a part of the human condition that is incredibly difficult to explore. I saw this film multiple times in the movie theater - and that's a very big deal for me.)

2.)   “The Lord of The Rings” – esp. “Return of the King” (See above.)

3.)   “The Little Mermaid”(This is my all time favorite story, and was my first exposure to the amazing Howard Ashman. Enough said.)

4.)   Tie between “Apollo 13,” “A League of Their Own” "Heavenly Creatures" and “The Wizard of Oz.” I know, I’m cheating. (These are all just really good, brilliant films.)

5.)   “Mirrormask” (Like “Till We Have Faces” (see books) – you will either love this movie, or hate it. There’s no in between. It’s a little “trippier” then the films I tend to generally go for, but in this movie, it really works.) ("Mirrormask" was my introduction to Neil Gaiman. Asked by Lisa Henson to do a "modern day "Labyrinth"-like film" Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean have come up with a remarkably out of the box film. Where as "Labyrinth" is so bad it's brilliant, "Mirrormask" is just brilliant. I think it mixes one too many stories together (it's kind of "The Prince and the Pauper" meets "Alice in Wonderland" meets "The Wizard of Oz") it's a testament to the film that I don't really mind.

Top 5 Books/Stories

(In order – with #1 being my favorite)

Note: This is a REALLY hard one for me to pick only five.

1.)   “Till We Have Faces” – by C.S. Lewis (This book will either become your favorite book ever, or you’ll hate it. There’s no in between.) (A retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche (the earliest basis for "Beauty and the Beast) - Lewis considered this his greatest work. A study of sacred vs. profane love, I still don't think I fully grasp this book - and it's one of the reasons I re read it so often. And it describes certain emotional experiences in a way I've never heard better described.)

2.)   “The Little Mermaid” – by Hans Christian Anderson (actually, lets just list all the classic fairy tales – collected works of the Grimm Brothers, and Anderson esp. as #2) (This is pretty much the only fairy tale that doesn't have a happy ending. No, she doesn't get the Prince in the end. This is a beautiful story about the true nature of love, and sacrifice, and it's always spoken to me in a very special way. And as we all know, I adore fairy tales in general.)

3.)   “The Giver” – by Lois Lowry (This book does two things stunningly right - it creates a truly seductive distopian world that, ironically, kind of works. Yes, it's a distopia - meaning there are a lot of dark things hiding below the surface, but this is a world that has successfully gotten rid of poverty, hunger, unemployment, class, and race distinctions. At the same time it explores issues of the power and danger of choice, and the nature of emotion and humanity. There are no crazy chase scenes, no trying to topple a regime - just a little boy who has to learn how to feel. And must decide whether feelings are in essence dangerous, or liberating.

4.)   “The Great Divorce” – by C.S. Lewis (A short book - you can read it in one sitting. This story dares to explore the idea that the damned are in fact damned by choice. What could cause someone to chose a life in hell? Turns out, for reasons that are uncomfortably relatable. Whatever your religion or spiritual beliefs, this is a brilliant book that gets to the heart of what sin and salvation are - and it's much more complicated then we like to think.) 

5.)   “Never Let Me Go” – by Kazuo Ishiguro (This book has some of the most emotionally moving passages I've ever read. I won't give away the plot - big twists and spoilers, but in essence it concerns three life long best friends: Cathy, Tommy and Ruth who live their short lives from beginning to end through out the course of the story. Having, or not having time is a big issue - and the relationship between Cathy and Tommy was so moving to me, I even named a character in one of my plays in honor, and reference to the Tommy in this book. There is a film version - that I must recommend for the beautiful performances of Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield - but important parts of the plot, and much of the language are left out - so please read the book first.)

Especially honorable mentions: “Matilda” by Roald Dahl, (If you ever want to know what I was like as a child, read "Matilda.") “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte, “Walking on Water” by Madeline L’Engle, “Alice in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll, “The OZ Books” by L. Frank Baum, “A Wrinkle In Time” and “A Wind In The Door” by Madeline L’Engle, “To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee

Top 5 TV Shows

(In no particular order)

1.)   “Dead Like Me”(A sadly short lived series, Georiga Lass is a rather sullen eighteen year old who ironically is forced to get her life together only when she dies and is recruited as a grim reaper. Beautifully deals with life and death in a tragi-comic setting. And did I mention it stars Mandy Patinkin?)

2.)   “Slings And Arrows” (A send up of the Stratford Shakespeare festival in Canada - each season follows one main, and one secondary show being put up by the festival - and real events backstage mirror the themes and events of the Shakespeare play being put on (season 1 is "Hamlet" - in which the ghost of the old artistic director begins haunting his successor and protoge Jeffry Tennant, season 2 is "Macbeth," and season 3 is "King Lear." The show stars brilliant Canadian actors (including a beautiful Rachel McAdams before she was famous.) And if that's not enough to convince you, check this out: 

3.)   “Sherlock” (A modern update of the classic "Sherlock Holmes" stories - you must see this show to understand it's brilliance. Each season consists of three hour and a half length episodes - so it's more like three movies a season then a series of episodes. And it stars Benedict Cumberbatch (see "Frankenstein" above.)

4.)   “United States of Tara” (Starring Toni Collette this show is about Tara - a kind, smart American wife and mother who has multiple personality disorder. Also a tragi-comedy, the show gives Collette the opportunity to play characters as diverse as a slutty teenage girl "T," to a gentlemanly red neck man named "Buck." A tour de force performance. Brilliant, and deeply moving.)

5.)   I’m using #5 as my collective “Sci Fi” category – including: “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” “Stargate Universe,” and “Dr. Who” (spec. the David Tennant years)

Also a very special honorable mention must go to Shelley Duvall's "Faerie Tale Theater." (Starring the likes of Robin Williams and Vanessa Redgrave - yes, in EVERY EPISODE, "Faerie Tale Theater" masterfully tells the classic fairy tales - and ones you've never heard of before, highly accurately to the original source material.

Top 5 Authors (not playwrights – for that, see top plays)

(#1 is my favorite. The others are in no particular order)

1.)   C.S. Lewis

2.)   Madeline L’Engle

3.)   Neil Gaiman

4.)   J. R. R. Tolkein

5.)   I am still debating who should take this spot ;)