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TUS Interview I was interviewed by a member of The Usual Suspects for the ongoing Interview Project. I know most of my readers aren't TUS posters, so I thought I'd reproduce the interview here for your...information? Enjoyment? Uh...to fill this space? An Interview With MelissaInterviewed by Neilo You are a person who, it is safe to say, enjoys a good read every so often. Can you remember when you started reading? Must your chosen reading material carry you away to worlds somehow better than this one we occupy, or do you prefer something a little more realistic? I must ask you which book would have to be pried, like Charlton Heston’s musket, away from your cold, dead hands. I started reading when I was about two and a half, according to family legend (okay, to my mom). I was sitting on my dad’s lap while he was reading the paper and I just started to read an ad aloud. By the time I was four I was reading on a second-grade level. When I was little I read everything – cereal boxes, can labels, street signs, anything in front of me (actually, that’s still true – but I try to not read them aloud now). I once spent most of a family camping trip in my tent reading and they vowed to never take me again (and kept that vow, much to my joy – I hate to camp). I like a mix of fiction, and am attracted both to fantastical worlds and realistic ones. When I started reading “adult” books they were usually in the fantasy genre because that’s what was on my dad’s shelf. Anne McCaffrey, Katherine Kurtz, and Roger Zelazny took up many, many hours in my preteen and early teenage years. I didn’t really move into reading realistic fiction until late high school and college. I don’t read a lot of nonfiction, although if I get interested in a topic enough I’ll plow through a number of books in succession – I’ve done this with the Trojan War, the Holocaust, ancient Greece, and horse racing, among others. Mostly I read fiction (a mix of classics and current fiction), and recently I mostly read fiction for school. I don’t like super depressing books or overly violent books, and horror novels freak me out the way horror movies do. When I’m feeling depressed or stressed or vulnerable I turn to simpler reads. My “comfort” reads are usually young adult books or classics I’ve read several times, like Anne of Green Gables and Jane Eyre. In the bathroom I’ll read the more than occasional romance novel. Often in stressful school and work periods I come home and feel like I can’t read anything even resembling difficult, and that’s when the re-reads or the Nora Roberts books (or the re-reads of Nora Roberts books) come out. The book I love most, my number one desert island book, the one book I would save if all other books were going to be destroyed – I guess that book would be Watership Down by Richard Adams. I have read it upwards of sixty times or more. I grew up with it, or maybe it grew up with me. I read it for the first time when I was eleven and most recently about four months ago; I read it at least once annually. It was the first book I ever took down off my dad’s shelf and asked to read, and I did that solely because I liked the title. Of course at eleven I didn’t get any of the allusions, but as I read it over the years I figured out a little more each time. Now I view it as I do an old friend – there’s something about it that makes me happy in a way that nothing else really can. Correct me if I’m wrong, but there’s a strong ethos of public service (military and police) within your family history. Did you ever consider the public service aspect of any job that you hold or have held? My dad is a retired U.S. Navy Master Chief Petty Officer who officially worked in photography and unofficially worked in intelligence. My late paternal grandfather was a Seabee who fought in the Korean War. My Uncle John is the Chief of Police in the township where I spent my adolescent years and both of his sons are on the force as well. I thought long and hard about joining the Navy. I know my dad would have liked that, and there was a time when his opinion was very important to me. My junior year Annapolis tried to recruit me. They gave me the hard sell, playing on my family loyalties (“It would be a great honor for your father if you were to try to get the appointment,” etc) but I knew I wouldn’t be able to hack it at a service academy. I didn’t even like running the track in gym – I couldn’t imagine what I might do in a basic training-type situation. My senior year the Army got into the game, sending me mail and calling my house and my guidance counselor and once following me to work (that creeped me out). A well-placed phone call stopped all active recruiting, and I never looked back. I’m very proud of the way my family has served our country, and we were lucky – the horror stories you hear about the way service employees are treated by the government never happened to us. Would you prefer to drown in filthy lucre? I think I would make a terrible rich person. Well, a terrible stereotypical rich person, anyway. I am horrified by how much things cost. I can’t imagine paying $30,000 for a vehicle (or even $20,000 – I like my Honda Civic just fine) or $400 for a pair of shoes or $200 for a pair of pants. If I was drowning in filthy lucre, I might shop at Ann Taylor and Banana Republic rather than the Loft and the Gap. I certainly wouldn’t buy a fur, Manolo Blahniks, or a Hummer. I don’t understand restaurants where the meal costs over $100 a person for just the food; the concept of being an expensive “foodie” freaks me out. Spend enough on one meal to feed a family of four for a month? I’d rather go for sushi and give that extra money to Philabundance. This is the first time in my life that money hasn’t been a day-to-day worry, and it’s really hard to get used to. I can’t pretend that this is because I stumbled into some amazingly lucrative career – I work for a nonprofit. However, Greg’s career in law academia is a good and healthy one, and we have a nice life. It is hard to get used to – I still think every personal purchase to death, whether it’s $10 or $100, and maybe I always will. Don’t get me wrong – we are by no means rich. The estimates coming in for the exterior house painting our house has needed for four years are horrifying, panic inducing amounts, for one thing. But I no longer wake up in the middle of the night in a panic because I don’t know how I’ll put gas in my car to get to work, let alone make my car payment. There are times when I wish I had a lot more money – not for myself, but so I could take care of my family. My parents and brother all struggle financially. I worry about my parents in particular all the time, wondering how they’re going to make it through retirement (if they can ever get there). If I were rich, they’d never have to worry about money again. If not, how would you like to see your career progress over the next decade or so? I’m 31, and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. I’m currently working for a nonprofit that runs training programs for other nonprofits, and the job is not exactly fulfilling. The work is pretty dull and the pay not very good. However, I love my coworkers and my boss, and we have tremendous benefits – two weeks of vacation plus 12 days (including weekends) at Christmas; a boatload of sick days; 14 paid holidays; free medical benefits; free tuition (I work at a university). All of those good things outweigh the dullness of the work. But it’s not a career. It took me so long to get my undergraduate degree that I’ve wondered if I’ll ever actually have a “career.” I’ll quit this job after we have a baby (no concrete plans at the moment) and stay home for a few years, and after that…I’m not sure. I’m getting my M.A. in English and that is a long process, because my schedule and my need for sanity only allows me to take one class at a time. I could easily parlay that degree into teaching high school English, and I’ve been tinkering with that idea for a year or so. When I direct theatre I typically work with teenagers and they drive me insane but I love them madly – I definitely couldn’t teach anyone younger. I’d like to teach college but I don’t think I’ll be getting a Ph.D. both because it would suck up long years of my life and I don’t know that I’m willing to make that sort of lengthy time commitment. Also, I am married to a career academic – do you know how impossible it is to find two university jobs in the same area? If you want to teach university in the humanities, you have to be willing to go to Idaho or Arkansas or wherever the jobs are. I’m not willing to do that any longer. I’ve long wanted to be a children’s librarian. You need an MLS to do this, however – an ALA accredited MLS, which is the real difficulty. The only program in my area is more information systems based and doesn’t offer a single course with the word “book” or “print” in the description or title. I could get a degree online, but I’m not sure I have the academic discipline necessary to do that – I thrive in a classroom setting. So for right now the plan is: work at the nonprofit, quit and have a baby eventually, and then figure out what I really want to do when I’m ready to be in the workforce again. Finish my degree in the meantime. Try and enjoy life. I‘d love to know a little more about your journalling activities, past and present. In an earlier online incarnation, you took down your journal because you felt that your thoughts were wilfully misinterpreted by people who purport to care about you and then fashioned into a club to beat you with. This lead to your withdrawal from the journaling scene for a while. What I have to ask, really, is how do you reconcile your love of privacy with keeping what amounts to a record of the inner you in the most public of places? It grows harder every day. It’s been well over a year since I journaled on a regular basis. My journal has been found by a lot of people – more than most journalers I know. I have close friends who have journaled for years and (to their knowledge) have never been found. I’ve been found by professors, old high school classmates, old coworkers, friends of Greg’s, and, thanks to my mom’s unfortunate Cosmo-fueled slip at a party, family members. That’s what caused me to pack up and move to a new domain, and I haven’t been very prolific since the move. It’s not just that, though. I’ve had friendships suffer because of the journal - not because I write nasty things about people, but because in the past I have had friends who fell into a habit of catching up on my life via the journal rather than via me. And I have had things misinterpreted and then turned back around on me. I don’t feel it’s something I can really complain about, though – the latter, anyway – because if I choose to do it, then I need to accept the consequences. Journaling has brought some really wonderful people into my life, and I am reluctant to give it up altogether. I don’t want to only keep a blog because I don’t like the blog format. I’ve been wrestling with this question for a long time, and as you can see, I’m no closer to an answer. I enjoy my journal. Greg enjoys reading it and is very encouraging. I like having the record of my thoughts and I like the connection with people through my writing. I have no idea any longer how to reconcile that with the feeling of being over-exposed. As soon as I figure it out, I suppose, I’ll start writing regularly again. You are altogether too modest about your achievements in the production and direction of ‘amateur’ theatre. A recent, fact-finding Googling brought to light a fair amount of coverage in the NJ/PA press about shows you have helmed. I saw a documentary recently about the English singer/actor, Denise Van Outen, who is appearing in an updated version of ‘Tell Me On a Sunday’ and her director in the West End production appeared (to my untrained eyes) to have sod all to do, once opening night had passed. Would you ever think about making the break into this area on a full-time basis? Even if you would never consider such a thing, let’s hypothesise about what you would bring to the Great White Way! I thought about it, long ago. It’s really hard to break into professional directing. You have to start early and be willing to starve, much like acting. You have to go to a really good school or have really good luck or a crapload of contacts – well, actually, you need all of those things. You need to be willing to travel anywhere to direct, at least in the early part of your career. The choices I’ve made over the course of my life – not always good ones – didn’t allow for this. At 31, married and settled and ready to start a family, the chance has passed me by. At least in the “big fame” sort of way. Maybe someday I’ll have a job directing at one of the big professional theatres in Philadelphia – that’s not unattainable. I’m not counting on it, though, and frankly I’m happy directing my small shows in community theatre. The bulk of a professional director’s job is done before opening night, but in most cases the director continues to attend performances, give notes, reblock if necessary, etc. When a show has been running on Broadway for a long time those visits are less frequent or are often handled by assistants, but when there are major casting changes the director is brought back in to work with the new people. Also, a good professional director has another job that begins right after the first show goes up, so they rarely have free time. I think I’m a pretty good director. I always have huge amounts of doubt while rehearsals are going on but in the end the show always seems to come out well so I should probably work on that whole doubt thing. I have a great eye for casting, which is one of the most important pieces. You could be the most visionary director who ever lived and cast the wrong people and your show would still be terrible. You need the right people to carry out your vision. I do most of my work with teenagers and in many ways I prefer that. Teenagers are easier to mold – adults can be difficult to direct, especially in community theatre where egos are always overblown and people often have an inflated idea of their own talent – and there is a joy in watching them grow and knowing you had something to do with that growth. The last show I directed was You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown and I consider it a near-perfect directing experience. The cast and I loved each other to distraction and the production was much praised by the staff at our theatre and the audience members. I’m prouder of it than I am of anything else I’ve done. What would I bring to the Great White Way? Isn’t that every director’s fantasy! Shakespeare, probably. I mean, that’s kind of the theatrical Holy Grail – for me, anyway. I wouldn’t tart it up with some ridiculous setting choice; directors who don’t bother to really think the themes through and set Julius Caesar in a third world country just because they can really burn my butt (I actually saw this production; when Caesar was shot with a machine gun I got up and left). If I’m really dreaming, then I need to tell you that I’d direct Much Ado About Nothing – no fancy stuff, just honest directing and the beautiful, beautiful words – starring myself as Beatrice (my dream role) opposite Hugh Jackman as Benedict. Or Kyle Maclachlan. Colin Firth (or Viggo Mortensen, or Denzel Washington, whose performance in the movie was so wonderful) could be Don Pedro. Orlando Bloom would make such a pretty Claudio. I’d also love to bring back Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses, which is the single most amazing piece of theatre I’ve ever seen. I wouldn’t want to direct it, though – I’d want to be in it. If I was going to bring a musical to New York, it would have to be West Side Story (which I think is the most perfect musical ever crafted – every note, every word is a wonder), although someone’s reviving that next year. And in relation to question 4, I put this following fluffy question: Stephen Sondheim or Andrew Lloyd Webber? And why? Stephen Sondheim, by a landslide. Their composing styles are completely different. Webber is all about the big schlock power ballad – he’s sort of the Celine Dion of musical theatre composers. Everything is huge and loud and repetitive and his musical themes often repeat themselves ad nauseum, not just within the show they were written for but in other shows as well. Most of his music sounds reminiscent of most of his other music. If I’m being truly honest, I need to tell you that I hate 95% of what Webber has written with a fiery passion. The mere thought of Cats makes my skin crawl. Jesus Christ Superstar? Aspects of Love? Sunset Boulevard? Starlight Express (trains? on roller skates?) And, God forbid, Phantom of the Opera? Hell might just be these shows running in repertory for all eternity, and me forced to watch. Webber’s written a couple of songs I like (Unexpected Song, Only You), one show I like (Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat) and one show I feel lukewarm about (Evita – but please don’t talk to me about the movie). Other than that I really wish he would go away, and I wish people would stop calling him “Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber.” Yes, I know he was knighted by the Queen. No, I don’t care. Now, Stephen Sondheim. My beloved Stephen Sondheim. Into the Woods was my first Broadway show and I firmly believe that seeing it first saved me from the period of slobbery Webber love most teenage musical theatre fans go through. The name of my second journal, Pl@nning A Sky, was taken from my favorite Sondheim song – Finishing the Hat from Sunday In the Park With George (my favorite Sondheim show). It’s a song about the artistic process, about loving what you are doing so much that it consumes the moment, consumes you for the moment to the exclusion of the entire world. Sunday isn’t a musical about a healthy person – the Georges Seurat Sondheim portrays is a hugely flawed human being – but in that one moment, Georges sums up (I believe) how we all feel when we get lost in something we love. Finishing the hat So I was going to tell you how it’s his lyrics that really get to me, but then I started thinking about the melodies behind those lyrics. And then I started thinking about the structure of his shows. And the people he chooses to work with. With Sondheim, you’re getting the whole package. You’re getting beautiful, lyrical, grownup music that reaches inside your heart and head and pulls out a full range of emotions. You’re getting that surrounded by a compelling script and starring smart, charismatic people with fabulous singing voices. (Okay, maybe not Bounce – the new one. I saw it in workshop form and was far from impressed. Considering the workshop was directed by Sam Mendes and starred Nathan Lane and Victor Garber, it was quite a crushing disappointment. And in the interest of full disclosure, I have finally come to realize I just do not like Sweeney Todd. But no one’s perfect, not even Sondheim.) One of the most glorious theatrical experiences of my life was last year’s Sondheim Celebration – the Kennedy Center did six Sondheim musicals in two sets of repertory and I was able to see four of them (Merrily We Roll Along, Passion, Sunday In the Park With George, and Sweeney Todd). With the exception of the last, each production was exquisite. Magic. That’s what theatre should be, really. Magic. I'm willing to answer more questions if there are things readers, especially new readers, might like to know. Send me an email.
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