The Flip Side

Week 5: Washington, D.C.



2008 got off to a rollicking start at the "Spamalot" New Year's Eve party. This company knows how to have a good time, folks! The cast, crew and management all put on the dog and gathered for a festive evening of drinks, jokes and the Electric Slide. After the intense uphill climb of learning the show and trying to get comfortable in my performance, the release of just enjoying the company of smart and talented people was so welcome. Really made me feel that I am now one of the team. I walked around topping off champagne glasses and at one point taught the younger members of the cast how to do The Hustle (I was after all the hustle champ of my temple youth group!). You can see from the photo how very GORGEOUS the women in this company are. The three beauties around me are, from left to right, Tera-Lee Pollin, our lovely Assistant Dance Captain and swing, Lyn Philistine, our Lady of the Lake understudy, and Esther Stilwell, the Lady herself. Being flanked by leggy brunettes, I must tell you I felt very Billy Flynn taking that picture!

The first day of the New Year was quiet for me, a day of rest. I have been organizing things in preparation for our travel day next Monday to Schenectady. This will be my first bus trip with the company and I am looking forward to it. So today I puttered. I have been delighted to receive lovely notes from people who have come to see the show here in D.C. and would love to share an excerpt from a lovely lady named Nancy McCarthy, who took the time to write me what she termed "an honest-to-goodness fan letter:"

The last time I wrote a fan letter was in 1974 (assumably before your birth, when I was a tyke myself) to Carol Burnett. She actually wrote me back. It set me on my own acting path. You are my second fan letter, as your energy and sparkle on stage at last night's performance solidified the continuation of my quest to remain on stage. In the midst of tremendously talented performers, you shown the brightest for me, because if I can sit in the second to last row of National and tell the color of your eyes, it's because they are open, responsive and full of joy. That sets you on a singularly high level, and I hope somewhere in your mind and life you keep that nugget of knowledge harbored safely to return to it in rougher moments. You have joie de vivre and have picked the right avenue, I believe, not only for your own rewards but for those of us whom you'll never meet but whom you've touched.


You can't imagine what an honor it is to receive a letter like this, unless it has happened to you. Nancy is pursuing acting in addition to her work as a journalist, while she and her husband help their son, who has a rare blood type and a form of autism, to go through his medical treatments. To know that my performance brightened their lives means the world to me. I was watching a great documentary on Jerry Herman and his shows on PBS, and George Hearn was talking about the theatre and what it can do, the bridges between people that it can create, and he said: "The theatre gets IN--to your heart." What more does one need when embarking on a new year and an exciting personal and professional adventure, than to know what you do makes a difference?