Brighton Beach Memoirs

Although I had "minor leads" and "line leads" before, this was my first actual LEAD in a play and I had a ridiculous amount of fun doing it. The cast was essentially the same as Imagination Station '88 (which we were still performing throughout this show), with the exception that Andi became our stage manager instead of a cast member. This was the first time I can remember someone getting slighted from a cast because she didn't look like one of the family as opposed to lack of performance merit. She took it like a pro though, and everything worked really well backstage.

Onstage, we were having a blast. Terry and I were already close from all the IS work, so playing brothers was not too much a stretch. Sparrow and Amy were our cousins, sharing the same house -- we had some "West Virginia" thoughts about the two of them... The feuding sisters that Beth and Steph created were just too close to reality. And speaking of reality, the set on this one kicked much ass. We actually built a cutaway section of a two-story house to show the upstairs and downstairs action. And the faces we made during the dinner scene were genuine. The "liver" was rye bread, the potatoes cold as hell, and the peas... we won't go there.

Apparently, this is the show that really put me on the map. I do admit, I have a thing for comedy. This was a fantastic forum to bring it out. Seemingly innocent lines and actions came back to haunt you a couple of scenes later, and being allowed to do a Bueller-esqe narrative (the role of Eugene was originated on Broadway by Matthew Broderick) gave you an extra chance to poke the audience in the ribs. After this one, I remember hearing my name whispered at auditions as I made my way to the stage. I had finally found my social niche.

One of the biggest regrets I have is that we couldn't find a way to fit Pesch in on this show. Terry did a fantastic job, and I didn't want to give up Eugene (but I would have), so the only other way to do it was to have one of us play the father. I think I could have done it, but I'd have really missed doing the narratives.

In a retro to Imagination Station, one of Steph's things was to read a letter from the Irish woman across the street explaining why he couldn't make a date with Beth's character, Blanche. Steph started and faded as I picked up the letter content, and as the letter finished, I faded my voice back down and Steph came in over me (a la the "Mother's Letter" bit in IS). I really liked doing those type pieces with her.

Favorite memories? Let's see... The "French postcard" that was supposed to have nude pix on it, so I taped some cutouts from a Penthouse onto the card? Spiking the loaf of bread I had just brought from the store in a football fantasy? No, the first was something more subtle:
Andi's birthday was the 2nd of October (or was it the 6th?) and we had a performance that night. Coincidentally, the last line of the play was "October the second, six twenty-five pm. I have seen the Golden Palace of the Himalayas. Puberty is over! Onwards and Upwards!!!". I remember picking her face out of the crowd back by the lights booth for that line on her birthday.
The other was toward the middle of the show. I was offstage in the "bathroom" and basically just standing behind the door waiting to go on. Sparrow was supposed to be in her room on the other side of the stage, and after the main Kate/Blanche scene was done playing, she was supposed to walk down the hall, open the bathroom door, and catch me... shall we say, "red handed"? Anyway, the scene was long and as I said, the set was a two-story house, so under the set comes Sparrow, weaving between the support beams for the platforms. We had a whispered conversation, being so quiet that we literally had our heads next to each other, mouths near ears. She smelled so damned good that I still have flashbacks. I don't know how it ended up happening, but we're suddenly having a frantic kissing session. We were just getting into it when the professional in each of us heard the lead-in lines we had been waiting for. She quickly and quietly scuttled back to her side of the stage just in time for her entrance. We never spoke of the incident.