Leigha Horton :: Green room
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*Every performance involves a section wherein a majority of the cast, including me, stands frozen on stage for approximately eight and a half minutes. Over the course of 58 performances, this adds up to 8.22 hours. The following is an excerpt from last week’s thought process:

Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd FREEZE! Here we go. Helllllooooooo second-balcony EXIT sign. We’ve become chums, you and I – I bet never has anyone spent as much time staring at you as I have – the audience can see my eyes better this way – although I don’t know if anyone in the audience can see my eyes anyway because of these crazy glasses – it’s probably all reflection. Whoa boy – this is going to suck today – my feet are KILLING me. Son of a…OW! I hate these shoes. Hate them. Hate them. Hate them. Hate them. Seriously – three-inch heels on a raked stage along with huge gaps in the billboard platform which are perfectly great for falling into – whose bright idea was that? They’re awfully cute shoes, though. Wow – what a total “Sex and the City” viewpoint – ‘gee, I’m dying here, but the shoes are cute!’ I can’t believe I got my foot stuck in that billboard crack today – that was sure embarrassing. I wonder if anyone noticed. AUGH – HAND SPASM! Dang-it. I wonder if anyone noticed. Oh, and there goes the feeling from the toes – going, going, going, numb – DAMN. Tomorrow I’m freezing with my feet facing the other direction – maybe that will help – this is seriously going to kill once we unfreeze – I wonder if I’ll even be able to walk without falling over – whoa, what’s that kid doing up there? – don’t look, don’t look, don’t look – oh, he’s just jumping – WHY DID I LOOK? – relax, it was only a couple of feet over and it was so far back, I’m sure my eyes didn’t noticeably move – it’s not like they can see my eyes anyway – or can they? – ITCHY NOSE ITCHY NOSE ITCHY NOSE ITCHY NOSE itchyitchyitchyitchyitchyitchyitchyitchy STOP THINKING ABOUT IT itchyitchyitchyitchyitchyitchyitchyitchy UM, UM, UM, UM, UM, EDWARD NORTON IN THE ILLUSIONIST SUPER HOT MEXICAN FOOD FOR DINNER SOUNDS GOOD SHOULD STOP AT KOWALSKI’S NO WAIT UNTIL MORNING ‘CAUSE THAT’S WHEN THE CUTE PRODUCE GUY IS THERE okay, no more itching – god, I hate that. Holy Hannah if this damn scene was any longer I would just die – yes, this is the longest freeze known to mankind – maybe this is punishment – maybe this is a director’s way of passively telling us that he hates us – WHIT – WHY DO YOU HATE US? I bet onstage freezes are from some director’s ancient oral history – “if you dislike your actors, choreograph an obscenely long freeze in uncomfortable positions – that’ll show ‘em. And if you can put them in heels and have them on a rake, all the better.” Ohmygod girls, please don’t do any dramatic pausing here, for the LOVE OF GOD, DO NOT GET DRAMATIC AND PAUSEY. Oh. My. God. My. Feet. Are. Dying. It feels like daggers jammed straight up through the balls of my feet up toward my ankles. Dying. Thinkaboutsomethingelsethinkaboutsomethingelsethinkaboutsomethingelse – I should come up with a cool limerick for Rick for tomorrow’s mic-check – he’s gotta be so bored with me by now – “there was a sound guy named Rick” – oh, bad idea – only dirty things rhyme with Rick. No, wait – quick! That’s not dirty! “There was a sound guy named Rick, who needed a mic-check but-quick.” Oh, god, this is stupid. Rick, you’re not getting a limerick buddy – get your yuks from someone else, bucko. Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow – My feet feel like they’ve been plunged into a vat of boiling oil. Thinkaboutsomethingelse. Okay, uh, uh, uh, OW, uh-what’s on my to-do list these days? I need to continue getting in shape, maybe I should sign up at the Y again – I really can’t afford it right now, but on the other hand I could certainly take some of my savings and pre-pay for six months – oooh! that might be a good idea! – and I think that if I sign up in January they waive the joiner’s fee – I wonder if that works for people who have already been members – I hate the gym – yes, I love it when I’m there, but it’s the getting there that’s the problem – OH! LUVERNE IS COMING DOWN THE LADDER -WE’RE ALMOST DONE! – SWEET! Don’t look at Luverne don’t look at Luverne don’t look at Luverne don’t look at Luverne GAH! WHY DID I LOOK? I wonder if anyone noticed. Please hurry please hurry please hurry please hurry please hurry I can’t believe Whit made this freeze even longer right before we opened – we would have been unfrozen by now – we would have been unfrozen by now – we would have been unfrozen by now – I wonder if I’ll be able to start walking this time without hanging on to the billboard? OWWWW! I think not…damn. And, and, and, and, HERE IT IS GLORY TO THE HEAVENS WE CAN MOVE – OH MY GOD MY FEET OWWWWWWWWWWW!

I’m in a spot for H&R Block on YouTube called “Plastic”…it’s only been up a week or so and has already been viewed over 60,000 times. I think it’s because people think I’m naked.

I will admit, however, that reading the comments has been a painful lesson in turning the other cheek – while most of them are pretty complimentary, there are a handful that are either clueless (they didn’t get the joke), or hateful (vicious remarks about my looks). On the other hand, it’s a relief to finally cross getting called a “screwed up hillbilly” off my list of Things-To-Do! HA!

We had our first school show this morning, and never have I laughed so hard backstage – it was hilarious! A very strong exercise in concentration, they were a sea of squirmy bodies, fully-vocalized questions, and waves of coughs. This was participatory theater whether we liked it or not. At one point I even thought about an escape plan should they unexpectedly become rabid and charge the stage. This was a whole new ballgame of awesomeness.

When the show began with a blackout I quickly learned that the kids have very strong feelings about blackouts, so they proceed to scream their little brains out until the lights come up. Full-on, 400 kids between the ages of 6 and 10, screaming their tiny screams as loud as their voices will go. There are four blackouts in our show, and every single one elicited the exact same response. I can hardly write this because I’m still laughing about it – it was so weird. I couldn’t tell if they were terrified; if it just seemed like the right thing to do; or if some were terrified and others found the sound more bearable if they, too, were screaming. Whatever it was, it was shocking and hysterically funny.

I can’t wait to see if this is a trend.

The official Tale of a West Texas Marsupial Girl opening night was last Friday – and I believe it was a success. I must admit that the notes we received the day prior left me feeling rather lost, so I went through the performance taking into account as much as I could, but also surrendering to my own personal instincts and just giving the audience what I felt was right. It paid off – the director and I spoke at the after-party; he hugged me and said it was my best performance yet. I hit the marks he had set forth for me, but I also found the comedy and played it. Phew.

Now if I can only keep it up – we had two more performances on Saturday, two more on Sunday, and now only 55 performances more to go! Aiyee!

Turns out our two dailies, the Pioneer Press and the Star Tribune, were also in the house that evening…the Pioneer Press’ article is overwhelmingly positive, and the Star Tribune’s article is underwhelmingly positive (the title makes it seem like a negative review, but on the whole it isn’t…plus he calls me out in the last sentence – woo-hoo!).

Here are the articles in their entirety:

Pioneer Press:

Posted on Sun, Jan. 21, 2007

A TIMELESS TALE, DELIVERED WITH TEXAS TWANG

BY DOMINIC P. PAPATOLA
Theater Critic

The story of the girl who’s “different” and struggles to find her way in the world is an old one. And in that respect, the Children’s Theatre Company’s world-premiere production is a wholly conventional one. But “Tale of a West Texas Marsupial Girl” delivers this timeless tale with a twang and a strut.

The title tells you most of what you need to know. Marsupial Girl — she’s never given a proper name — is born with a furry pouch that can capture and hold all the sounds in the world. Such a strange accoutrement makes her a freak in her small town. When naive individualism and a bow to conformity don’t work, she lashes out at her world, her friends and her family. It all comes out OK in the end, but not before some Texas-sized tussles.

Local audiences have seen playwright Lisa D’Amour spin these bent, fish-out-of-water yarns before. But they’ve probably never seen her do so with such blithe ease, such a warm and unencumbered heart, or such a disarmingly kooky sensibility.

The pleasing result of her pen this time is, I suspect, a combination of the fact that she’s writing for a young audience, that she had the estimable, mainstreaming dramaturgical services of the Children’s Theatre staff and that, in musical collaborator Sxip Shirey, she chose an aesthetic partner equally as willing to engage in some highly idiosyncratic and imaginative play.

Shirey and D’Amour create a funky, twangy, swamp-rocky musical where beat-box melds with country music and where interjections like “Holy puppy on a peach tree!” come out of characters’ mouths sounding real and right. Director Whit MacLaughlin coaxes it all to the stage with cheerfully preposterous glee.

Anna Reichert brings a just-right, disingenuous appeal to the title role — she wears her emotions on her round, expressive face and sketches Marsupial Girl’s joys and travails with subtle honesty.

But it’s Luverne Seifert — playing a singing, hoo-hawing narrator named Dr. Pouch who lights the fuse on the story and keeps it sizzling. Windier and more unpredictable than a Texas twister, Seifert’s antic creation — delightedly working a sound-generating thingamajig here, leading the audience in a dippy call-and-response there — guides us through this weird world. He makes it all seem … well, if not exactly normal, then at least like a whirlwind worth riding.

Is the script drum-tight? Not really — one more rewrite probably would have gotten it to a long one-act instead of a two-act endeavor with an intermission. Are all of the characters scrupulously realized? No — in fact, once you get past Marsupial Girl and Dr. Pouch, D’Amour tends to fall back on conventional archetype.

There’s the loving, weary mother (warmly realized by Autumn Ness), the busybody ladies of the town (Leigha Horton and Marvette Knight, noses perpetually out of joint), the mean girls (led by Jessie Shelton as a rhymes-with-witch-in-training named Libby) and the avuncular old man who’s the voice of reason (the rock-solid Gerald Drake, of course).

But is “Tale of a West Texas Marsupial Girl” an ever-resonant old lesson wrapped in a bright, unique and toe-tapping package? You bet your ten-gallon hat it is.

Theater critic Dominic P. Papatola can be reached at dpapatola@pioneerpress.com or at 651-228-2165. IF YOU GO

What: “Tale of a West Texas Marsupial Girl”

When: Through Feb. 25

Where: The Children’s Theatre Company (mainstage), 2400 Third Ave. S., Minneapolis

Tickets: $34-$13

Call: 612-874-0400

Capsule: Familiar fable told with Texas spice

Star Tribune:

Last update: January 20, 2007 – 10:51 PM

Inventive ‘Marsupial’ lacks coherence

The narrative, though strange, is familiar, but the staging becomes jumbled.

By Rohan Preston, Star Tribune

Add to the Elephant Man, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Phantom of the Opera, a girl with a pouch. Director Whit MacLaughlin’s staging of “Tale of a West Texas Marsupial Girl” has some highly inventive touches, from set designer Donald Eastman’s Southwestern, carnival-touched milieu to Richard St. Clair’s costumes and poofy wigs. And the singing, dancing and swaying cast at the Children’s Theatre sells this imaginative play by Lisa D’Amour hard and well.

But because this stylistic mishmash does not cohere into something greater than its interesting parts, it’s hard to buy it.

D’Amour is a complex, engaging writer known for her experimental works. “Marsupial Girl,” which opened Friday in Minneapolis, is her foray into the world of children’s theater. Its plot, about differences large and small, resonates.

As the marsupial baby grows and her body pocket becomes furry, she uses it like both backpack and at-will voice box. She discovers early that she can catch and store sounds in her pouch, an ability that becomes important when her community recoils from her, closing down her world.

The ostracized Marsupial Girl eventually begins to behave like the scary freak and monster that they insist that she is, capturing the voices and silencing the critical, misunderstanding community.

As strange as “Marsupial Girl” may seem — and there’s more than a touch of the gothic in MacLaughlin’s staging — its outsider narrative is familiar. It is in the telling of “Marsupial Girl” where the jumbled elements make the production list. The staging, infused with Sxip Shirey’s twangy hip-hop compositions, seems to be of too many minds.

It uses Adam Matta’s clever beat-box percussion overlaid with guitar and mouth harp that suggests something hip and urban. It also deploys straight musical compositions that make you think of Broadway. Then there is the nod to spelling bees, with characters holding up letters.

That would be disconcerting enough without a mother (played with deep affection and knowing by Autumn Ness) who did not name her child. Perhaps she was so traumatized to have such a baby, she could not come up with a name. That lack of naming creates a dramaturgical distance from the main character, a feature that’s similar to one that we saw also in “Anon(nymous),” which premiered at the Children’s Theatre last year.

Thankfully, Anna Reichert, who plays Marsupial Girl, gives her the life that makes us care about her.

In fact, the cast invests this story with much energy and enthusiasm. The roster includes Luverne Seifert, whose Dr. Pouch is a gung-ho guardian angel-type figure who narrates; the ever-resourceful Gerald Drake as a doctor and community member; and Kelsie Jepsen as a schoolteacher.

Nadia Hulett, Jessie Shelton and Teresa Marie Doran are credible as Marsupial Girl’s youthful cohorts, while Leigha Horton makes an auspicious Children’s Theatre debut in a variety of roles.

Rohan Preston • 612-673-4390 • rpreston@startribune.com

©2007 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.

Tonight is the big night! Tale of a West Texas Marsupial Girl officially opens at The Children’s Theatre Company – granted, we’ve held public previews all week in addition to rehearsals, but for some reason they haven’t felt like real performances despite relatively full houses. Knowing my family is going to be in the audience tonight definitely raises the stakes.

I have many, many stories to share about rehearsals and shoe problems and quick changes and a bleeding scalp and recording the pre-show turn-off-your-cell-phones announcement, but didn’t have enough energy (especially during the 10- to 12-hour days of tech week) to write them in coherent sentences – I’ll have much more time after this weekend to go back and fill you in on the beans.

Until then, I leave you with some light reading – preview articles from the Star Tribune (including a photo gallery) and the Pioneer Press.

Cheers,
Leigha

Craig tagged me, and now I must comply:

1. I once sprained an ankle, smashed a shin bone, and ended up with four bruises in the shape of a giant square on my torso after tripping on a platform and landing on an old audio speaker during a tech-rehearsal black-out at The Theater Garage. They got out the glow-tape after that.

2. I performed in one show that was so abysmal that I don’t list it on my resume, despite being called out in the press review as being one of the few saving graces.

3. I love my current headshot because it was taken when I was at the heaviest weight I have ever been (a whopping 153), but you can’t tell because of the angle. The Monster of Phantom Lake was shot during the same time frame – after having a good cry upon seeing my double-chin and squishy body onscreen, I was inspired to start my return to normalcy (17 pounds down, 15 more to go).

4. Despite outward appearances, I am one of the least artistically confident people I know. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t question my talent/ability.

5. I have yet to settle on monologues I’m comfortable using at auditions. I’m barely half as comfortable singing, yet I have four songs I could happily whip out at any given moment.

BONUS:
6. When I discover songs that I love, I spend an embarrassing amount of time imagining what they would look like if I staged them in a musical.

Your turn! I’m especially interested in seeing this topic addressed by Rik and Bill (and Foster and Cooper, but they’re both traveling and therefore have more worldly things to write about these days – lucky ducks).

Two posts in one day – can you believe it? I can’t either. But this is important:

August and January are, by far, the best months of the year for theater in the Twin Cities. So much so, they make me downright giddy. August, as you all know, marks the esteemed Minnesota Fringe Festival; and January, as you might not know, marks the Walker Art Center’s Out There series – four straight weekends of new multi-disciplinary works by national and international artists. This stuff is gritty and shiny and inspiring – it’s how I was introduced to the director and the playwright of the show I’m now in at The Children’s Theatre. And if that weren’t cool enough, there’s Inside Out There – a masterclass with that week’s artists every Saturday morning at 11 am – for a measly $6.

Seriously – $6 to meet and learn from some fantastic artists making fantastic work – this is Connection Central here, folks.

I don’t work for the Walker anymore, so I don’t have an ulterior motive – just a significant desire to see an incredible program reach as many Twin Cities artists as possible. So GO! And then tell me all about it (my rehearsals directly conflict with the classes this year). Call the Walker, right this very minute, 612.375.7600, x 4, and make your reservations. You can thank me later.