Jane, Zooey and Blake - Oh, My!

So here I am chilling and decompressing after my final performance as Mrs. Paroo in "The Music Man." On a whim I decide to do a "Which Celebrity You Look Like" facebook app which took my profile picture (which is me AS Mrs. Paroo) and instantaneously posted three celebrity matches for my character's face:  Zooey Deschanel, Jane Fonda and Blake Lively.  

Well, you know, maybe in my everyday life I look like Carol Burnett, Vicki Lawrence,  Bette Midler or Joy Behar. But once I put on the Ascot Opening Day hat, that little hairpiece, and my high-necked blouse, I am suddenly morphed into these stunning celebrities who will never, ever be asked to play Mrs. Paroo.  Not even Jane Fonda has that on her resume.  

Especially confusing is the inclusion of Blake Lively (who?) on the list.   Never has there existed on the earth an individual who looks less like me, with her long blond hair, and delicate features.  So what did this app see that I am missing?  At least Zooey Deschanel is a brunette, although I suppose she wouldn't be any happier with the comparison than Blake would.  

And, it seems that I look more like Jane Fonda in her Barbarella days when dressed like Mrs. Paroo than I do like the present day Jane Fonda.  

                                                                             
So, let's think about this.  They're all younger than me (including the sex-kitten version of Jane Fonda from the 60's) so perhaps Blake or Zooey could play me in the movie of my life, you know, as my younger self.  

Of course, this prompted my husband to say that he thought of me as more of a Sophia Loren type, only younger (of course), but this was from the man who loves me.  I'm pretty sure she would never be asked to play Mrs. Paroo either.  Then my son said that I looked like my "talented self."  You know, I'll take that.

The Accidental Walker

I once took a test that measured a person’s eye-hand-foot coordination, and the result was that I had none.  It’s not that I can’t walk and talk at the same time; it’s just that it doesn’t come naturally.  I am, when it comes right down to it, the very definition of a klutz.

As you can imagine, this meant that I never exactly sought out athletic pursuits over my lifetime, and the athletes didn’t exactly seek me out either.  I was always the second-to-last one picked in school for the team (I had one classmate who was, unbelievably, even worse at sports than I was), but not only didn’t I mind, I understood perfectly. My gym teacher in high school told me that I was the only person he knew who could strike out in kickball.  This wasn’t technically true, because my last-picked classmate also was capable of this achievement, but the point is that I wouldn’t have picked me for the team either.  Truthfully, I would have been happier if I wasn’t on the team at all.

Every time I do give in and try to “play the game” I am in effect courting disaster.  I can predict potential tragedy in the near future, the same way you know that when people in a soap opera are seen riding in a car that a terrible accident is in the offing. I will fall in the river, or break my pelvis when the horse throws me.  Of course, sometimes I am just walking when these kinds of accidents happen.

So, I am conditioned to equate exercise and sports with pain and injury.  Therefore, I never look forward to even the exercise that I actually enjoy doing, like calisthenics, some of the easier yoga poses, and walking on flat surfaces in moderate temperatures.  When I decide that it is necessary to include some kind of exercise in my life as a wellness measure I have to trick myself into doing it, because I will never do it automatically.

My husband and I joined a gym a few years ago and were doing our weight training and cardio up to three times a week.  In order to accomplish this, we had to pack our gym bags with our work out clothes when we left for work and go straight to the gym after work.  You see, no matter how fabulous we felt from our time in the gym, we would not go back out if we came home first and we never quite got to the gym on the weekends.

When I started doing daily exercises for my knees and back, I would lie in bed in the morning and think about getting up and doing my exercises while watching the weather report, sometimes for 30 minutes, or more.  When I realized that most of my exercises are done lying on my back, I started doing them IN bed during the weather.  I now do them faithfully 6 days a week (because Sunday is a day of rest).

It’s the same thing with walking, which I actually enjoy.  I will park in locations that force me to walk a little further to get to my destination, or walk to the gas station across the street from my workplace to get my coffee.  When I worked in downtown Pittsburgh I had to walk to get anywhere at lunchtime which was perfect for an accidental walker like me.

 

In Cranberry, where I work now, you have to get in your car to get anywhere at lunchtime.  I had to get more creative, and plan my accidental walking.  I put together a crazy little route circling the little shopping center that is parallel to my workplace.  It is about three fourths of a mile, but closer to a mile if you walk around the driving turnaround area and down and back up the “sidewalk to nowhere” that someone inexplicably built in front of the Firestone auto service station.  

Now, I look forward to it and every day is a great day for a walk, except when it is snowing, below freezing, or in the midst of a torrential downpour with thunder and lightning.  But only at lunchtime.

The Impossible Sandwich

In case you don’t read my blog on a regular basis, well, shame on you!  You may have missed my compelling, sad tale of my seemingly fruitless quest for a Tuna Cheddar Melt from Eat n Park, which I first published this past April.   You see, on Easter Monday I really, really wanted a Tuna Cheddar Melt sandwich advertised on the restaurant’s website only to arrive at the restaurant to find that it was a Lenten Special.  It was perhaps the only time in my life that I was sorry to see Lent come to an end.

Anyway, I wrote a lengthy comment of complaint to the Eat n Park website and ended with a plaintive plea that the restaurant reintroduce the Tuna Cheddar Melt as a regular menu item.  Several weeks later, I received a nice letter of apology from the restaurant, and a $5.00 gift card for the confusion.  Not one word about adding the sandwich to the menu, though.

Despite my ongoing ache for the taste of the Tuna Cheddar Melt, I resigned myself to the fact that you can’t always get what you want and thought that I would perhaps live out the rest of my days without ever getting no satisfaction.  Yes, my life was now like a Rolling Stones song, or two.

Then it happened.  I went on the Eat n Park website one day, and they were having a 7 Days, 7 Deals, 7 Dollars Special where they were featuring a different sandwich for $7 each day of the week, and Friday’s special sandwich was…. the Tuna Cheddar Melt!  I decided on the spot that I would have one that very evening.  Luckily, I held myself back from getting too excited, because when I got home and told my husband the good news, he gently reminded me that it was Tuesday, and the Tuna Cheddar Melt was the Friday special sandwich.

Drat!  I would have to wait three more days before achieving the dream.  Then I started to question myself.  Had I idealized the Eat n Park Tuna Cheddar Melt?  Would the sandwich be as good as I remembered it to be?  What if it were a huge disappointment?

Friday finally came, and I had a plan.  I had rehearsal that evening, so I would order a Tuna Cheddar Melt to take out.  I programmed the local Eat n Park’s phone number into my cell phone so that I could make the call just as I left work.

 

The Tuna Cheddar Melt was everything I remembered it to be and more. With its lightly buttered toast and the melted cheddar and the slices of tomato on the tuna salad, it is the perfect tuna salad sandwich.  I plan to buy one every Friday until the Special is over.

I’d like to think that my impassioned plea to Eat n Park that sad day in April brought back the Tuna Cheddar Melt, even for a short time.  But I doubt it.

Kids and Dogs

There’s an old saying in theater:  “Never work with kids or animals.”  Honestly, I don’t know what these people are talking about.

Take this production of The Music Man I’m rehearsing for right now.  The roles of Winthrop and Amaryllis are double cast which means that I am working with four kids between the ages of 8 and 10.  These children are remarkable.  They are like little sponges.  All four of them have been off book since their first rehearsals. They know their lines, they know their songs, they remember blocking and choreography.

One of our Winthrops is being played by a girl, but no matter.  She has figured out exactly who Winthrop is, and was explaining his “intention” to me during one of his scenes.  Both of our Amaryllises (Amarylli?) are juggling their roles with other performances.  One is also in rehearsal for her role in A Chorus Line Jr. performing “Noses and Butts” (which was, um, something else in the original show).  The other was gone from rehearsal for about a week because she was busy playing one of the orphans in the Pittsburgh CLO’s production of Annie.  Yes, that right – she is performing with star-of-stage-and-screen Sally Struthers one week and with me the next. 

Not only are these four utterly prepared and quasi-professional, they are just the nicest kids you might want to meet.  They are polite and respectful, yet friendly and charming. And they are all just SO cute!

Dogs are another story altogether.  The townspeople of River City don’t let their dogs on stage, but I have worked with some pretty fetching canines in the past (no pun intended).

When I was in Cheating Cheaters, (one of John Patrick’s more minor works) I worked with Pirate, a HUGE Newfoundland whose resume (and program bio) were also large – much larger than mine, in fact.  Pirate was adorable and sweet, and along with stealing the show, he also very much stole the heart of the theater director/stage manager, who went so far as to build him a ramp because his hip dysplasia made the few steps from the green room to the stage difficult for him to maneuver.  “Well, I‘ve done as much for actors,” she explained tersely to anyone who questioned her.

That’s the thing about kids and dogs -they are going to steal the show and people’s hearts. 

Maybe that’s why I’m not supposed to want to act with them, but honestly, what do I care?   Goodness knows I’ve been upstaged by adults before, some of whom didn’t even remember their lines.  If the kid or the dog is a pleasure to work with and is reliable, that’s good enough for me.  If I don’t have to improvise on stage, they can HAVE the scene.

Getting My Irish Up

The Music Man and I go way back.

I grew up watching the 1962 movie version which starred Ronny Howard as Winthrop.  Ronny also starred as Opie in The Andy Griffith Show, and was one of my favorite TV stars. Of course, The Music Man also starred Robert Preston and Shirley Jones, and while I came to the party for Ronny, I fell in love with everything about The Music Man.  

My favorite character was Marian, and I owned the movie soundtrack, which I listened to over and over again.  I would sing “Goodnight My Someone” along with Marian and Amaryllis, fantasizing about my future someone and the idea of playing Marian someday.  I was kind of a world class fantasizer as a kid; too bad they didn’t hand out awards or grades for that sort of thing.

I went on to enjoy The Music Man on stage several times over the years, including a professional production  put on by the Pittsburgh CLO in the gone-now-but-never-forgotten Civic Arena, starring Gary Collins as Harold Hill and his real-life wife Mary Ann Mobley as Marian.  My admiration for the show just grew.

The Music Man was the first musical and second show I was cast in in 1998 after I decided to take up performing in community theater as a hobby on a middle-aged whim.  I was thrilled to be a Pick-a-Little Lady in Stage 62’s production, which featured a cast of 69, ranging in age from 9 months old to late 70’s.  I never remembered having more fun than I had doing that show, I made a couple of dozen good friends, and I was pretty much hooked on community theater as a hobby ever since.

So, when I found out that RMU Summer Colonial Theatre was planning to do The Music Man this summer, I was beyond thrilled.  While I generally don’t go into an audition with designs on any particular part, and I love the show so much that I would be happy playing a lamp post, I nonetheless like to prepare for auditions so that the director might be able to see me in a part that I might be able to play.

In the case of The Music Man, one of the older female characters was Mrs. Paroo, Marian’s mother, and she had a thick Irish accent.  So, obviously, this meant that I needed to channel my inner Irishwoman for the audition, and use an Irish accent during the cold readings.

The only problem was that I don’t really have an inner Irishwoman (funny, my inner bitch is always right there waiting to come out for a part) or an Irish accent, or a knack for dialects at all, so this was a little more complicated than I first thought.  I borrowed my husband’s “Foreign Dialects” book.  I listened to every You-Tube recording of the late, great Pert Kelton who originated the role on Broadway and played it in the movie.  I went on line and downloaded every bit of Mrs. Paroo’s dialogue that I could find, and I practiced and practiced.

A funny thing happened on the way to the audition.  I realized that I loved Mrs. Paroo, and really, really wanted to play the part.  This was ironic because I didn’t feel like my Irish accent was terribly strong, and figured I wouldn’t get the part anyway.  Of course, the cold reading was a scene that I hadn’t found on-line, so I was winging it.

Okay, now for the happy ending.  I got the part.  Obviously, Barbara, our esteemed director, saw my potential, or something.  Whatever, I am grateful to her, and am having a wonderful time preparing to play Mrs. Paroo, the most delightful Irishwoman ever written for stage or screen.  Oh, and I am playing the mother of Winthrop (who first brought me to the show) and Marian (who I fantasized about playing when I was a kid).  Theatrically, it doesn’t get any better than this.