Hey everybody!
I recently started rehearsal's for Sondheim's Into The Woods at Broadway By The Bay. I'm playing the role of Cinderella, and it looks like an awsome cast!! We're having such a good time. For those of you who don't know, Sondheim is some of the must difficult music there is. So we have two entire weeks of music rehearsal. That's strictly music, 6 days a week, before we ever even start looking into blocking, and getting it on it's feet. It's fun. It's a great challenge, and everybody in the cast seems to be fully up to the challenge. Actually, the woman playing Jack's Mother, Linda Piccone, was nominated for a critic's circle award for the very same role. She and I worked on My Fair Lady together. She was Mrs. Pierce to my Eliza Doolittle.
She and I are conspiring to start backstage gin rummy games backstage again. We went nuts in MFL playing rummy. It was so much fun! It was one of those throw-your-cards-down-on-the-table-and-curse-your-neigher-with-all-the-love-in-your-heart kinda games. There were a whole bunch of us that would play ritualistically every night, and it was non stop bickering, yelling, laughing, and cards flying off the table onto the floor. Good times. We'll see how this cast fares. :-)
So, back to Into The Woods. Our photo shoot in on Friday, so hopefully I'll have some PR shots up for you soon. They're taking shots of a few different scenes including me with my shoe. In this case, a golden slipper. Not the Disney glass slipper, but a golden slipper.
One of the things that I love about this show so much, as that Sondheim and Lapine really did their homework on their fairy tales. They go back to older versions of the stories that are sometimes less well know to modern day audiences. For example, the tale of Cinderella may have originated as far back a the first century BC, in the tale of Rodophus, written by a Greek historian. There are so many versions of this story. There's a medieval Indo-Malay story of Anne De Fernandez, where the prince finds a golden slipper and traces it all the back to her. This story includes evil stepmother and all. For more history on Cinderella stories, go to the Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinderella
Well, I need to eat dinner before I run off to rehearsal, so that's all for now. But please feel free to drop by the Broadway By The Bay website for more information on the show. It's gonna be a good one! The link is in the right hand navigation bar. Enjoy!
