Upcoming NYC shows presented by The Times Square International Theater Festival

Written 9/20/11 on a plane to Calgary to perform A Time to Dance at Fire Exit Theatre with Corps Bara Dance Theatre.

As I revisit A Time to Dance for the first time in a year – not having looked at it, performed it, or had it at the forefront of my thought because I always think of Lilia! as my primary piece which seems like the easy sell. The grandmother-granddaughter relationship, the Academy Award nominated actress, etc.

As I revisit A Time to Dance, I am so touched by that piece – the heart of the story, the life of my aunt Lisl.

Do you ever feel like the good in your life gets clouded over with distracting cares, irritations and annoyances, by the little foibles and imperfections in yourself and those around you?

Well, my Aunt Lisl was like that. She could be scary sometimes. She’d have these sudden outbursts accusing my cousins and me of being spoiled, for instance. She’d endured tremendous hardship as a sickly child without parental affection. And when she saw parental affection expressed toward us, and the slightest hint of parental disrespect in return, she would explode. These explosions tried to color my view of her.

In writing the piece, I included an explosion, and the feedback I received from those who heard the excerpt was so discouraging, I realized people don’t want to hear about that stuff. She was so delightfully charming without it. They couldn’t get enough of the other side of her.

My portrait of Lisl is very much an idealistic view. Perhaps her own take on her best self. It’s not dishonest so much as how I imagine she would like to be viewed, how she views herself and frankly, how the public would like to view her.

So, in having weeded out the negative scary part, I’m left with the ability to hear her stories, her perspective, her life from the purest standpoint. I suppose, it’s how we all would like to be remembered and thought of – with our faults behind us, dropped from the record – the way we really are – or would like to be.

As I hear her pure story without distractions of the darker moments, I’m struck by how much beauty there is. Because the good is all true. None of that is fabricated. It’s just with the bad struck from the record. Condemned, cast out.

This is not only how she would like to be – but how I would like to be. When I review my history, I want only to recognize and acknowledge the good in it, and discard the less than stellar, have it struck from the record, unable to haunt or cause rumination. To be there only for the purpose of the lessons to be learned.

Her words, as I go through the script this time around, hit me. “To move is to live, to express life, individuality, vitality!” she says.

I’m humbled by that. Especially as I think of the seductiveness of a sedentary life in front of the computer. And how video games have people going on virtual adventures. But is there actual movement – expression of Soul in a virtual adventure?

I’m struck by Lisl’s premature birth before incubators were invented, and how everyone sat around waiting for her to die. “But I won’t die!” she muses.

That absolute spark of life. That vitality that animated her always, that made her entertaining company until her last day on earth, that prompted her to dance the Macarena at her hundredth birthday party —  That drive to live, to move, to instigate children (who didn’t know they had a foot or an arm) to gain dominion over their limbs and bask in the joy of rhythm and movement with her – to discover the life that animates us all — (winning her a lifetime achievement award from the American Dance Therapy Association) –

I’m so moved by that, as I’ve spent so much time over the last year in a sedentary position with my laptop, answering the fire hose deluge of emails, learning to forgive myself for not keeping up with them despite heroic efforts.

I’m moved by Lisl’s description of her papa Julius who viewed her as an extra mouth to feed, and in his desire to feed it, sought opportunities beyond familiar territory to build bridges, resulting in wealth for many people through the manufacturing of snap fasteners. The expansion of that business enabled the extended family to come to America when their lives were threatened in Austria.

That spark Lisl embodied, that desire to live – opened the way and built lives for so many others. Her life, when distilled, truly is an illustration of Life in its most essential form and meaning. Giving – doing – being. Thriving. Forgiving. Learning from mistakes. Being able to laugh along the way. All those things are true about Lisl.

A Time to Dance will be presented by The Times Square International Theatre Festival on January 17, 20, 22, 2012 at Roy Arias Theaters, Off Broadway Theater, 300 W. 43rd St. & 8th Ave. in NYC.  Click for tickets.  Festival info:  www.tsitf.com

TECHNOLOGY

One of the first items of business to accomplish, after being greeted warmly by Barbara and Peter in their flat near Victoria Station (discovery spot of the infamous handbag in Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest”), is to acquire a SIM card for my old AT&T cell phone for press and publicity purposes.

We find a Vodafone store a couple of blocks away. The trick is to successfully unlock my phone using AT&T’s unlock code, emailed instructions, and a new SIM card within three attempts or the phone will permanently lock, requiring the purchase of a new one.

The store clerk is friendly, helpful and after deciding on the best calling plan, Steve reads the instructions aloud as I carefully make the first attempt to unlock the phone – in vain. The store clerk offers to make the second attempt, and also fails. Steve offers to make the third attempt, but the stakes are so ridiculously high at this point, I can’t bear to jeopardize our marriage. At least if I fail, he’ll temper the blow with kindness. So with a prayer and perspiration, I successfully unlock it on the third try. It’s one of the most triumphant hours of the trip!

Then, there’s the question of WiFi access. On previous trips, I’d tried everything to access the Internet from my aunt and uncle’s flat, including climbing out of my bedroom window onto the sixth story rooftop, only to find a dozen secure networks I couldn’t access. I’d walked up and down the street clicking the “view wireless networks” button on my computer every few feet as I held it high and low for the best receptivity to quickly download and upload emails.

This trip, Steve brought a wireless router to plug into Peter and Barbara’s DSL connection. Then, he ingeniously discovers that, unbeknownst to them, they have one already installed with network password printed on the back. In a flash, he has our computer and iphones connected, which means practically free local and international calls throughout the flat over Skype – a major contribution to the production budget!

INTERVIEWS

With technology in order, I’m ready for press interviews.

The first is a dream in North London’s Ham & High board room with a well-researched journalist, whose thought-provoking questions reflect a deep respect for the subject of my play and my work. She remarks how well-located the show is for North London’s enclave of theatre-going German Jewish refugees, then asks for several photos, and promises to send a reviewer to opening night. I walk out refreshed and excited, with a renewed sense of purpose. She does not disappoint. Her beautifully-written article is a full-page with three photos.

For the second interview, Steve plans to come with me and hang out at a coffee shop. I email him our destination address, and we set out for Victoria Station during the morning rush.

Once underground, I make a b-line through the crowd, toward the turnstile and onto the escalator, New York-style. Only then do I look back to find Steve nowhere in sight. People are packed on behind me.

Did he get ahead of me? I look down the jammed escalator, but don’t see him. Could he have gone to the wrong train line? No, he knew where we were going. At the bottom, I pause to study the crowd above. People pour past me. Maybe he’s on the platform already. I search. The train comes. What to do… I can’t be late for the interview. He has the address. It might be ages before another train. What kind of a wife am I? I knew he would wait for me.

I thought of Katharine Clifton in Michael Ondaatje’s novel The English Patient, who perishes in a cave waiting for her lover to return, determined to prove her devotion. Would Steve want me to do that? No.

I board the train and trust he’ll meet me at our destination. At least they speak English in London, should he run into trouble.

I emerge from the Camden Town station and find a free WiFi espresso shop a couple of doors down from the newspaper. With moments to spare, I dash inside to email Steve an apology, then head for newspaper reception.

The tousled reporter eventually appears, gives me a limp handshake and looks toward the door. “Let’s go for a cup of coffee, do you mind?”

“No!” I reply with as much energetic charm as I can muster, grateful for the opportunity to patronize the espresso shop.

He turns in the opposite direction, and we walk a couple of blocks around the corner to a fluorescent-lit falafel place with two brown Formica tables. “I know the guys here,” he explains. “Coffee?”

“Herbal tea, please.”

“We only have black,” says the moustached man behind the counter.

I order black tea, we sit down and my companion pulls out a steno-pad.

“I have no idea why you’re here,” he states matter-of-factly.

“Oh! You didn’t get the press release?”

“It’s probably somewhere. We’re bare bones at the paper. Thursdays we work on the art pages (today was Thursday). The other days we work on the rest of the news.”

I shower him with appreciation for taking the time to meet with me.

He remains unmoved. “You’ve got a good publicist. He’s always after me about something.”

I explain why I’m there – to perform a solo show about my relationship with my grandmother, Austria’s first female architect who fled Hitler and became a factory worker in America, then an Academy Award-nominated actress.

OK, I noticed his last name is Jewish, and I was really hoping he’d tap into the Hitler refugee aspect of the story, but I’m not sensing it means anything to him.

Then he off-handedly drops that his grandparents emigrated from Austria to the United States in 1938. He’s half-American, raised in the UK.

Bingo a connection!

“Are your grandparents still alive?” I ask with sincere interest.

“They live in the same nudist colony in the Southern part of the States that they’ve lived in since immigrating.”

A nudist colony. I should be interviewing him.

“Are you close to them? Do you ever visit them?” I ask.

“No.”

Dead-end on that topic.

I can’t imagine anyone in my family living in a nudist colony for a day, let alone 70 years.

He asks why I think anybody would be interested in seeing a play about my Austrian grandmother. My response prompts him to write a couple of stenography lines on his blank pad, before announcing he has to get back to the office. I leave behind all but two sips of my tea.

Steve’s waiting for us at reception. The very sight of him blots out the weight of a lack-luster interview. I introduce the reporter who nods and disappears through a door.

I have much to learn about personal and professional prioritizing.

It turns out Steve’s Oyster Card ran out of money at Victoria Station, so he’d turned back to top it off. He forgave me, and I promised to keep a better eye on him.

The interview result is pleasantly surprising. It’s a cleverly written, highly engaging 8-sentence piece, with small photo of me at the bottom (and large photo of the reporter at the top).

Now that preview articles are out, I call the theatre to arrange a tech meeting. The artistic director answers. “The phone’s been ringing non-stop with reservations for your show!” she gushes. “I’ve never seen anything like it. In 40-years, we’ve never had this many advance reservations.”

My heart leaps for joy. The bow of promise stretches as far as the eye can see.

We set up a meeting…

… Continued in part 3 of Performing Lilia! in London

THE SEND-OFF

In the wee hours before our plane took off from San Francisco to London Heathrow last September, google alerts notified me that Spoonfed, an online London events publication, had featured Lilia! as one of the five “biggest” London shows opening in October. This came as a welcome ray of hope after a series of bumps in the road leading up to this production run.

As we boarded the plane I was further awed by the fact it had been chosen alongside the stage version of a film my grandmother had starred in: Flashdance The Musical opening in London’s West End.

Flashdance had been a pivotal career move for my grandmother, introducing her to a new generation of movie goers in the 1980′s. It was her first R-rated film, much to the bewilderment of her church-lady contemporaries, but thrilling to the underage me. “Libby’s grandmother is in Flashdance.” The kids at school were wowed.

“Apparently there’s unappetizing language in it,” Grandmother mused, “But I don’t understand the meaning of those words. I was drawn by the character who is a positive influence on the young girl.”

Upon arriving in London, my excitement is heightened when I discover that David Mamet’s stage version of his film House of Games, in which my grandmother originally starred, also is running in the West End. A scene in Lilia! is devoted to the story of her experience working on that film.

The synchronicity is striking. Yes, the time is ripe for Lilia! to be welcomed with open arms by London audiences.

Indeed, the red carpet was lovingly rolled out by my uncle and aunt, Peter and Barbara (Lilia’s son and daughter-in-law), who’d been rooting for a London production since its UK debut at the 2001 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. They were hosting Steve and me in their glorious apartment while promoting Lilia! to their extended network of friends.

Equally awesome was the groundwork laid by my English friends Neil and Brenda who happened upon my play while vacationing in New York. Neil researched prospective London theatres for me, hand-delivered scripts and press packets to artistic directors, and made initial introductions which led to my 2008 UK tour to Manchester and Leeds, and now this three-week run.

SECURING THE THEATRE

In 2009, while visiting London, Neil and Brenda invited us to a production of Jean Genet’s The Maids at the small Hampstead (London) theatre, which became home to Lilia!

Tickets were cash-only at the door, sold by the founding artistic director who’d been running the place for decades. Incense pervaded the space and theatre seats were piled high with cushions of various sizes, shapes, patterns and textures. The walls were adorned with old photographs, posters, diplomas and props. The place teemed with character. Beaming with pride, the artistic director reverently delivered her introductory curtain speech.

Afterwards, Neil introduced me to her as the American playwright/performer whose play Lilia! he’d dropped off the year before. She nodded warmly.

“When can I see your play?” She queried. I returned the following morning to perform it. Her response was: “Let me know when you’ll be over here again. I’d love to produce Lilia! for a week.”

I was delighted, but told her I was looking for a run long enough to be reviewed.

“True, press won’t come unless it’s a minimum of three-weeks,” she admitted. “But a one-woman show doesn’t generate audiences. Believe me, people don’t like them over here. They think one-person shows are boring, just a talking head with no interaction. I can’t get audiences in the door even when the show is good. One week or nothing. I’ve got overhead to pay.”

She finally agreed that if I paid her overhead upfront, she’d run Lilia! for three weeks. Fair enough, I’ll get sponsorship, I thought, to cover overhead, a publicist, airfare, technicians, promotional materials, etc.

Easier said than done. Asking for money is hard. My “fundraising letter” produced many “Congratulations you’re going to London!” responses. I suppose I was trying to avoid another note like one I’d once received saying: “Here’s a little something to tie you over until you get a part-time job to support what you love.” That’s the ethic with which I’d been raised. “Earn a decent living by making a positive contribution to society. Don’t give a man a fish. Teach him how to fish. Never expect a handout!”

My non-profit sponsor Artistic New Directions, on the other hand, had taught me that friends and family love supporting our artistic projects, and that fundraising is a normal part of working in the arts. Half-subscribing to both points of view, my letter request shyly hid behind a burst of exciting news.

The Austrian Cultural Forum in London nobly stepped forward with financial support and included Lilia! in their event mailings. A few other shining individuals came to bat, as well. Thank you! All contributions totaled just over half of one week’s theatre overhead. Tempted to be disappointed, a dear friend encouraged me to expect ticket sales to cover the rest.

I loved that idea. After all, didn’t I believe Lilia! was a show worthy of audiences? In Edinburgh, nearly the entire production was paid for by donations beforehand, but sometimes I had only one or two audience members in a 140-seat theatre. How much better to have full houses than financial assurance!

It’s tough taking on the role of producer. At heart, I’m a practical business person. And one of the basic rules of business, as I understand it, is balancing supply with demand. If you produce a widget, put it out there, and no one buys it, it’s easy to conclude there’s no demand for it. So you rethink your approach and your product, find out what consumers need, and figure out how to supply that instead, or look for a new career.

It takes patience and persistence to produce a show like Lilia! and to keep it going year after year. It contradicts every ounce of business sense I have.

So why do I do it? I suppose I could be producing widgets to sell. People might pay me, use them, come back for more. We’d exchange pleasantries.

Yet, Isak Dinesen writes: “Through all the world there goes one long cry from the heart of the artist: Give me leave to do my utmost.”

With Lilia!, I feel that I’m giving something of who I am, something more soulful, profound and unique than a widget I might produce and sell. The heartfelt exchanges I’ve had with audience members continue to inspire and reverberate to my core.

(With all due respect to the innovative suppliers of widgets essential to our lives!)

So in the end, after a mighty struggle, the artist in me wins out over the practical business person.

And at the moment we arrive in London, my heart is full of expectation for good. There’s so much promise! The Spoonfed top-5 inclusion is great. On top of that, my publicist has lined up interviews with:

• BBC radio
• Spoonfed
• The Camden New Journal
• Hamstead and Highgate Express (Ham and High)
  (Click titles to read or listen to interviews )

All signals say, “Green light, go!”

… Continued in part 2 of Performing Lilia! in London

Because it delights me to no end to experience how people respond when I perform. I am naturally not someone who puts myself in the public eye. I tend to be quiet and retiring, and relate best to people in small groups of 4 or less.

However, in larger groups, beginning with the first acting class I took when I was 14, I discovered something magical occurred when space was drawn for me by the audience of the class. I seemed to have the ability to enable the audience to live with me through my experience on stage. Their perception of what I was going through seemed to affect them on a profound level. It had something to do with the pause that hung in the air. It came from the stillness. Out of the stillness, the deep listening.

The focus that came as I applied myself to the work had a contagious effect. It drew them in to forget themselves and their situations and join me on the point of a diamond. There. With. Me. Fwump!

That focus which we all felt gave me infinite freedom to go anywhere uninhibited. Because we were all right there on an adventure together. Sitting on the precipice with infinity before us, ready to fly through and to and from infinite possibility.

In those moments, on stage in class at The Neighborhood Playhouse, there was no beginning and no end, but the eternal now. And I felt everyone’s breathlessness, perched on the edge of their seats.

There was no ego. Only wonder and discovery and exploration and adventure and freedom. Yes. Freedom. To fly. When I felt this from others in those moments… that this was happening… when I felt their focus and all of our forgetting ourselves for the purpose of what lay before us, it was then that I knew I must continue with this work.  In this way I could know people as they really are, feel the very heart of them without layers of personality and social pretense, but our pure self-forgotten essences.

It is that purity, that energy which feels to me like true beauty. To feel what it is to breathe together. Inspiration. Expression. That realm of freedom and possibility where limitations are lost and we all become present in the room. At one. Together.

Those are the moments worth living – the moments apart and aside from individual personal accolades and glory and achievement and superiority and inferiority. Those are the moments of the naked soul. Where comparisons no longer exist. Status goes away and we are all refreshed, washed clean. Baggage dropped.

I do what I do because I can. Because I feel what that’s like and it feels so deeply like truth itself. The truth outside of location – palace or slum, street or 91st floor. It feels like a pulsing, living, vibrant existence that means more than all we could ever accumulate.

It’s the opposite of accumulation. It’s a shedding. A simplicity. A heart to heart communication where we remember we have a heart and simultaneously understand that everyone possesses compassion, humanity, understanding. Unnecessities are shed.

It’s this that I’m passionate about. That I feel deeply about. Having the opportunity to do this makes me feel alive. It makes me love humanity and myself.

Writing the Artist Statement: Revealing the True Spirit of your Work by Ariane Goodwin

Lately I’ve been reading Ariane Goodwin’s book Writing The Artist Statement: Revealing the True Spirit of Your Work and jotting down ideas.  I came across this passage:

“Many artists, who create worlds out of images or sounds or movements, think their worlds exist in a different universe from the world of words. In fact, this illusion is so powerful that many artists believe that their creations have nothing in common with words.”

I assume the author is addressing visual artists and dancers who don’t use words in their work. In my work, words are intertwined with sound and movement to create images in the audience’s imagination. Words are the propeller, the backbone, the instigator for everything else.

I make no attempt to address the author’s complex topic in the riff that follows.  I merely use it as a launching point (an excuse) to talk about my grandmother, which I love to do.

With Lilia!, in which I play my grandmother (Lilia Skala), I embody a woman who dissected words for a living. She was strongly against the idea that actors were creative artists. “Playwrights are the artists,” she insisted. “I merely breathe life into their words.” And that she did.

She studied every word in a script. She read every definition in the dictionary. She let every syllable hang and ripple across her tongue. She placed it in just the right location in her mouth as she tasted it, felt its vibrations, studied its tonal placement aurally, sonorously, physiologically.

She broke each word down, examined its root(s) and origin. She translated it into German (her first language, which she explained was full of onomatopoeias) and experienced it there, then back into English, until the sound, meaning and feeling of the words within the playwright’s context were fused together and embedded in her conscious and subconscious being.

“Learn the words well enough so that you can forget them,” she advised. “Only then is it possible to be completely free in performance.”

Her depth of study was especially important to her since English was a language she was only introduced to in her mid-forties.

She didn’t have a natural ear for music or accents, though she longed to be an opera singer like Maria Jeritza, whose performance in Turandot at the Vienna State Opera first inspired her to go on the stage.

She studied music, she studied voice, but had trouble with pitch, so mostly talked her way through the musical roles she played: Mrs. Peachum in Three Penny Opera or Fräulein Schneider in Cabaret.  She was so engaging and dynamic (like Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady), that audiences always forgave her.

Here’s a clip of her singing in Merchant Ivory’s film Roseland for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award.

Playboy Magazine wrote “If Lilia Skala doesn’t receive an Oscar nomination for her performance, they ought to stop giving the award.” (She didn’t get nominated.) She told me that when she learned of the review, she headed straight for a newsstand to buy copies. The man behind the counter gave her very strange looks indeed.

My grandmother never lost her Viennese accent. After 55 years in the US, she clung to it like a protective cloak.

“I love your accent,” people would say.

“I give it to you!” She always responded, explaining it limited her roles. “Hollywood doesn’t know what to do with an old woman with an accent. They think we love to scrub floors and have ten children.”

Liz Dixon, the voice and speech coach she sent me to for coaching told me, “I worked with your grandmother relentlessly to get rid of her accent. She could have done it if she’d wanted to. If you watch her in the film Charly, you’ll hear she had almost no accent because of the work.”

I was skeptical. “If she doesn’t want to get rid of it, why does she work so hard to do just that?”

“I can’t tell you,” said Liz. “She’s the Viennese grand dame. I think she likes being that.”

You mean my grandmother might not always say what she means or be fully aware of herself? This was a concept I wasn’t ready to accept.

It wasn’t until after she was gone that I met a third cousin of her generation on my grandfather’s side who knew her from Vienna. He was in his late nineties.

“When Lilia was here,” he told me, “I let her know I was working on my memoirs. I said, ‘Lilia, you’ve had such an interesting life. Why don’t you write your memoirs?’ And she responded, ‘Oh, Hans, what’s the point? We never tell the truth anyway.’”

“Never tell the truth? You mean… all those stories, lectures, points she’d made, illustrations she’d given were heightened or edited or revised? They weren’t ‘the truth?’”  Then, it occurred to me that in making this observation, Grandmother was perhaps being more truthful than ever.

Let’s face it, we all revise history to some degree consciously or unconsciously as we view it through the lens of wisdom and experience. It’s easy, from the perspective of the younger generation, to look up to the older, wiser, accomplished mentor and put her on a pedestal, which I admittedly did.

So, it was eye opening to discover (after Grandmother was gone) a letter amongst her memorabilia written in the 1950s, upbraiding her for acting in a television program sponsored by Camel cigarettes. Those were the days of live television when actors stepped off the set during commercial breaks and talked directly into the camera to plug the sponsor.

Grandmother had done that?!

She also told me she’d never received a bad review in her life. When she was gone, I discovered a review she’d saved from her Broadway run of Medea and Jason. The production was panned and her performance was described as “downright operatic.” The reviewer meant that as no compliment.

I wonder if, because she never had an inferiority complex and because she’d always wanted to be an opera singer…  if she considered that review flattering. Or had she written it off as insignificant and forgotten it? Until reading it, I imagined I’d be falling short if ever I received anything but accolades. This new perspective meant a lot to me.

Here I am going on about my grandmother in my repeated attempt to define my relationship with my artwork. And yet my grandmother is the one who nurtured the artist in me, who valued art beyond all but God and religion. To this day, 17 years after her passing, she is the most towering influence on my artistic life. I admire her and am proud to have known her. It’s difficult to separate my love affair with all that is artistic from the love affair I had with her.

By the way, I agree with her approach to words. My experience in performance has been that when I’m at one with them, I can forget myself and let them play freely over sound and breath and movement in a moment to moment discovery together with the audience, that inevitably touches the heart.  I know there’s art in there somewhere.

Principia 3rd Grade Thank You

While in St. Louis to perform Lilia! at Principia Upper School, I offered to talk to classes about aspects of what I do. To my surprise, the first to take me up on it was a third grade teacher whose class was gearing up to deliver monologues about famous African Americans.

My first thought was, “Hmmm… third graders. What can I possibly give them?” I expected to be talking to high school drama classes.

The kids sat cross-legged on a rug in their classroom watching me with adorably wide eyes as we chatted. They expressed concern about their first time performing in front of an audience. Their teacher smiled on with compassion.

I performed a couple of scenes from Lilia!, then told them how my grandmother was an actress, but that was definitely NOT what I wanted to be. No way! I wanted to be a visual artist – a sculptor or painter.

Suddenly, it all came flooding back. I was their age when I first encountered acting.  I told them the story.

One day, my dad took me to the house of a lady in town who taught acting classes. She made grand gestures and spoke with rounded, elongated vowels. I clung to his hand and said nothing while she spoke to him over my head. I was relieved when we left.

“Maybe you’d like to take acting classes from her,” my dad suggested.

I shook my head NO, hoping that would be the end of it.

In third grade, I was going to a new school called Elisabeth Morrow. One rainy morning there, the drama lady my dad and I’d visited entered my classroom.

“Class,” said Miss O’Callahan, “We have a special guest today. An actress.”

The drama lady pulled out a red telephone and instructed us to come up to the front of the room one at a time and improvise a telephone conversation with an imagined person on the other end.

NO!

Here I was, the new kid. The quiet one. Elizabeth. This was my first year using my real name to avoid the teasing I’d received at the old school with my nickname Libby.

Kids used to sing: “When it says ‘Libby, Libby, Libby on the label, label, label,’ you will like it, like it, like it on the table, table, table.”

One by one, the other children went up to the front of the room. Liz went up, and Lizzie – the other two Elizabeths in class (I insisted on the full “Elizabeth”), Peter, Carl and everyone else.

I heard nothing anyone said because my heart was pounding too loud.

Soon, everyone had gone but me. I shrank with all my might into invisibility. The drama lady glanced around the room as I prayed for dear life:

“Don’t call on me. Please don’t call on me, please…”

Her eyes skimmed past me. Then she inhaled deeply and announced, “All right, that was everybody. Thank you very much.”

I could hardly believe my ears. I expected classmates’ heads to turn and say, “No, wait!” Peter, the loud-mouthed class clown would surely blow my cover.

But no one saw me. No one noticed.

The drama lady lifted her red telephone off the desk, placed it in her bag and exited with a grand flourish.

My life was spared!

A few days later, Miss O’Callahan announced our class would be putting on a play called The Missing Turkey Lurkey. Carl, the chubbiest boy would play the title role. I was cast in the chorus, dressed as a pilgrim. Miss O’Callahan reviewed our lines with us daily.

When my dad found out, he was thrilled and immediately called my grandmother Lilia, the actress. On her next visit, she commanded me to recite my lines, which I did:

“When the frost is on the pumpkin and the fodder’s in the stock,
You can tell Thanksgiving’s coming without looking at the clock.”

“No, No, NO!” Exclaimed my grandmother. “You’re rattling off the words without meaning. Think about what you are saying!”

With rapturous feeling, she demonstrated the poetic lilt, carried away by the images and sound of her own voice:

“When the frost is on the pumpkin and the fodder’s in the stock,
You can tell Thanksgiving’s coming without looking at the clock.
For all the leaves are turning brown and many trees are bare,
And there’s a sort of spicy smell a floating through the air.”

There was no way I was going to say the lines like that in unison with the rest of the chorus. I’d sound ridiculous, plus it would ruin everything. I ignored her direction completely.

My 3rd grade production of 'The Missing Turkey Lurkey' (I'm the pony-tailed pilgrim, back row center)

In sixth grade, my dad took me to a local drama school to watch a class. I sat frozen as kids my age got up and improvised.

“Would you like to sign up for classes here?” My dad asked afterwards.

“No way! I can’t think of what to say in real life, let alone on stage in front of an audience.”

Then, in seventh grade, I befriended a new girl who moved to town named Charlotte. She was shy, too. We went to see Fantasia together. On the way home, we talked to each other in accents. It was so fun, I forgot to be self-conscious.

“I’m going to sign up for Saturday acting classes at The Neighborhood Playhouse in New York,” she told me. “Wanna do it with me?”

Well, gosh, if Charlotte was shy and she was OK doing that, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Plus, my ten year-old sister was already taking the train into New York four days a week for classes at the School of American Ballet. It would be exciting to have my own reason to go to New York.

I told my grandmother I wanted to go to the Neighborhood Playhouse. Delighted, she immediately called and set up an interview. We went together, and I was accepted.

A few days before classes began, I called Charlotte. ”I’ll see you on the train Saturday morning,” I said.

“I missed the interview appointment deadline,” she told me. “I won’t be going.”

What?!

It was too late to back out, so I went alone.  None of the kids knew each other the first day, so everyone was shy but ready to jump in, which I did. I loved it and have been hooked ever since.

Some of the third graders looked back at me thoughtfully, others smiled. I assured them those feelings of nervousness were really just feelings of excitement. How I would have loved to have been there for their performances to cheer them on!

A few days later, I received a package of beautifully handwritten thank you notes from those kids (see below). Here I was hoping I’d managed to give them something of value – a boost of encouragement, and their letters turned out to be enormously encouraging to me, letting me know I had indeed helped them. My heart grew about forty times bigger. I was so inspired by the power of their letters that I immediately wrote the class to express how much they’d meant to me.

I envision this artist statement capturing the spirit driving the work into existence, an infectious passion that might be felt by those coming into contact with it.

Obviously there’s abundant interest in shows that touch on “timely” topics – political and social issues, world events, pop culture. These shows sell tickets, and producers are drawn to them. They’re often brilliantly written and performed, funny, moving, intriguing and educational. They win Pulitzer prizes. They’re sexy!

I’ve spent countless hours musing about how to make my shows sexy, how to be sexy, what that special key is for drawing audiences.

The Official Preppy Handbook by Jonathan Roberts, Carol McD. Wallace, Mason Wiley and Lisa Birnbach

But the bottom line is, for me to strive for “sexy” goes against my very nature and education. It’s counter-intuitive.  My mother always said, “Go for classy, not sexy.” It seemed less fun, but how could I argue? Classy seemed by far the higher goal. Classic wins out in the end.  This was while growing up in Darien, CT, backdrop for The Official Preppy Handbook.  (Small wonder the book now sells on Amazon new for $129.) I associate preppy with classic.

Going for classy over sexy meant no one ever asked me out on a date in high school (the fact that I was too shy to talk to boys didn’t help). My bolder sister finally asked out a co-worker who replied “No way, only the Pope would be good enough for you!” I believed my Aunt Lizi when she told me there was no reason why I shouldn’t marry a prince like Grace Kelly did.

Aiming for classy over sexy meant a much harder road to hoe.

My ingenious publicist, who persuaded The New York Times to review Lilia! (and who later became a successful producer) said to me, “I love Lilia!, but it’s not a populace piece. It’s rare and refined. That won’t fill seats.”  He went on to produce the stage combat-heavy version of Patrick Swayze’s cult film Road House to sold-out houses off-Broadway. He knew the key to filling seats.

But the artist’s statement isn’t about filling seats, it’s about artistic vision, which is why it becomes all the more important to articulate with work like mine.

The fact is, Lilia! and A Time to Dance aren’t “timely.” They won’t fit into that regional theatre or grant purpose mandate.

They are “timeless.” 

They’re about my relationship with my actress grandmother, and about my great-aunt who was a dancer. They’re about the strength, stamina and persistence of two very different women who survived two world wars, immigrated to a new country, took on a new language, and re-started successful careers from scratch in the middle of their lives. Immigrants done good in America. One became the recipient of an Academy Award nomination. The other received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Dance Therapy Association.

Both women inspire and encourage through their stories, and in the case of Lilia!, through my grandmother’s mentoring relationship with me. They illustrate what we’re all capable of when we aim high and strive to give our very best to the world.  They remind us to laugh at ourselves when we fall down, to pick ourselves up again and redirect our aim.

To give. To give.

Broadway Playbill for ZELDA starring Lilia Skala and Ed Begley (1969)

Occasionally, I receive emails through my website. Usually, they’re related to a performance someone has recently seen. A few weeks ago, there was an email from an actor who’d worked with my grandmother, Lilia Skala on Broadway back in 1969 when he understudied Robbie Benson in the play Zelda. That program used to hang on my wall with Plasti-Tac back in junior high when I first became interested in acting and fascinated by my grandmother’s career. The Playbill has a photo of her and Ed Begley on the cover, which I thought was pretty cool. “Grandmother on the cover of a Broadway Playbill!”

He said he’d come across my website, that he was returning to show business as a dad, after leaving it as a kid. He wanted to be added to my mailing list. I sent him an email back letting him know I’d added him, and thanking him for writing.

He emailed again and said, “Somewhere in my house I have an old autograph book, (and I collected everyone’s when I was a kid) and I’ll never forget her written words. To this day I have them memorized:

To be a good actor is fine; far better to be a good man.
[ - Lilia Skala ]

“Sounds like her, no?”

The answer is yes. Yes. What resonates with me is how he remembers to this day her words. People ask me how I can remember what my grandmother said well enough to write a show about her. It was harder NOT to remember what she said. When she opened her mouth, profound pearls of wisdom dropped out. You wanted to sit up taller, to wake up wider, to imbibe them. To soak them in. To bask, bathe, saturate yourself with them.

Admittedly, some people were turned off because they found her preachy.

Recently, I saw Josh Kornbluth’s thought-provoking one-man show Andy Warhol: Good for the Jews?. In it, he talks about needing to see himself in his father’s eyes in order to know who he is. Yes. Yes. I knew what he meant. Some of us need preaching. Some of us need to be reminded of who we are, or we might float away. I spoke to my grandmother at least once a week for the last ten years of her life. She always encouraged me to call collect, and I did.

I wanted to climb up inside and view the world through her eyes, through her wisdom and experience. I wanted to embody all of her strength, stamina, discipline, drive, persistence, determination and infinite confidence in herself. She always said, “I never had an inferiority complex.”

Whoa!

“You care too much about what others think of you,” she would tell me. “I never cared about that.”

I wanted her greatness. But greatness was something she was born with. It wasn’t defined by others. She always had a sense of it. In later years she attributed it to God, and viewed it as native to all of us. When I was in her presence, she gave me the sense of possibility that I too could be great. That I too had the same potential and indeed had already been endowed with innumerable talents.

Though occasionally, she would say, “You can be very grateful that you have two eyes, two ears, two arms and two legs. You can be very grateful that you are normal and come from a good family.”

And I would think, “What do you consider normal? I don’t know how my family looks to you, but…”

What she said was always with measured weight, full of significance.

She strove to be good. Always. To be good was to utilize her talents to the fullest, and to encourage others to do the same.

After Grandmother passed on, her sister Lisl said, “Lili was an angel, Honey. An angel. The way how she died in her sleep after a Christmas party. She was an angel. She wasn’t always easy. But she was an angel.”

Mowgli and Kaa in Tears of Joy Theatre's "Jungle Book" photo by Kathy Fry

Last night I performed a 20 minute excerpt of Lilia! at Tell It On Tuesday in Berkeley, CA.  In one scene, I share with my grandmother the exciting news that I’ve just been offered a year contract to tour with Tears of Joy Puppet Theatre.

“Puppet Theatre?” She frowns. “Are they union?”

“They can’t afford to be,” I tell her.

“How much do they offer to pay you?”

“$500 per month, plus $30 per diem for meals and hotel.”

She’s flabergasted. I assure her my costs will be cut in half by sharing a hotel room with the other puppeteer.

“Another young lady puppeteer?” she asks.

Uh-oh.

“You would share a hotel room with a strange man? Horrible! What kind of organization is this?”

She goes on to argue a thousand reasons against going, from hairs in the hotel bed and whiskers on the sink, to horrors of a far more dangerous kind.

Ultimately, I cancel the contract and spend a year working as a stand-in for Janine Turner on the TV show Northern Exposure.  It pays slightly better and sounds more glamorous to those who wouldn’t know otherwise.

Libby on 'Northern Exposure'

Grandmother urges me to quit the job after two weeks.

“Everything you could learn as a stand-in, you’ve learned already. You’re wasting your talent.” I ignore her and stay the full season. This is my boot camp.

“Come back to New York. There’s no reason why you can’t start out starring on Broadway. I did it,” she challenges.

That was you, Grandmother.

Usually at the end of the puppet theatre scene, when I relent to her arguments and agree not to take the job, the audience gasps in disappointed protest. Last night was no different.

Then, an amazing thing happened at intermission.  An audience member tapped me on the arm and said, “I toured with Tears of Joy Theatre. Your grandmother was right.”

“What? Really?”

I’ve performed that puppet theatre scene so many times over the years without encountering a single person who’s heard of Tears of Joy, that the story has become the stuff of myth and legend. I’d forgotten it was a real company with real people who’ve given their lives to it.

“Did you have to share a hotel room with a strange man?” I asked. She nodded. “A bed, too?”

“Not usually,” she said, awkwardly.  ”There were also good things about Tears of Joy.”

“Oh, I’m sure, I’m sure! Like what?” I longed to hear what I’d missed. But, suddenly the lights came down, intermission was over, and by the time the lights came up again, I’d lost track of the puppeteer.

I used to muse that I might have become Julie Taymor (fellow Oberlinian), had I ignored my grandmother and entered the world of puppets. Though with recent Spiderman issues, the metaphor doesn’t lend itself to my old wistfulness.

I excitedly told the story to my huband Steve over dinner. He asked, “Did she look like Julie Taymor, Basil Twist or another reknowned puppeteer?”

No. On second thought, the well-received puppet show ”Lemony Snicket’s The Composer is Dead” just closed a couple of blocks away at Berkeley Repertory Theatre.  So, you never know…

P.S. On the subject of puppetry as great art that would even take my grandmother’s breath away, here’s a TED talk by the inspired puppet masters who brought to life the National Theatre production of War Horse.

Lilia Skala & Luise Rainer on Lux Video Theatre, 1953

While in London performing Lilia! last Autumn, I wrote a personal note to 100-year old Luise Rainer, inviting her to the show. At the time, I had no idea whether she had worked together with my grandmother, fellow Viennese actress Lilia Skala. Audience members occasionally ask if they knew each other.

Last week, I discovered a photo of the two of them on TV snapped from a friend’s livingroom. Written on the back in my grandmother’s distinctive handwriting (she married my grandfather because of a handwriting sample) are these words: ”Luise Rainer and I on a Lux show in the 1950s, live TV, first time together after we were on the Reinhardt tour together in 1937.”

Voila! They toured together with Max Reinhardt. The Lux Video Theatre show was “A Bouquet for Caroline” aired live in 1953.

I haven’t heard back from Luise Rainer. Maybe I should send her this photo and arrange for a future performance at The Austrian Cultural Forum London so she’ll have another opportunity …