20.1.10

Vanities: A New Musical


Alright, so we're finally back to theatre, after a few random posts that had nothing to do with the reason I started this blog. I got an email from Amazon this morning. You know, the kind that they send you because they think they have something you might want based on things you've ordered before. Well this time I think they've got me. They sent me a link to a new show that is being released on CD for the first time since its Broadway Debut last year. This new show is Vanities: A New Musical. When I saw it I immediately thought I was seeing things because I've done a play called Vanities and I thought it wasn't possible that someone had made a musical based off of it... but I was wrong. That's Broadway for you. As much as I love it, there is so much recycling that is done with old shows that you're hard-pressed to find something truly original that doesn't feel familiar. For example, Wicked is just another take on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Rent is La Boheme redux, West Side Story is Romeo and Juliet modernized... you know what I'm talking about. This is not to say that I don't love each of these shows, because I do, I'm just yearning for another Urinetown sometime soon... like nothing you've ever seen before.

Anyway, the point of this post is that, although I do get annoyed with the recycling that gets done these days, I am very excited to hear this recording because this play was so much fun to do. I was 17 when I played Mary and oddly enough, although the women playing Joanne and Kathy were in their thirties I played the most adult role in the show and I had a blast! Mary is an interesting character to play. She's the most disenchanted with the group from the beginning, the most sexually promiscuous and eventually ends up being the curator of an erotic art gallery. She's also bisexual. I don't think I fully understood all of the content of the show at that point in my life, but I'm really glad that I did the show. I remember the director, Rosie Petulla, calling my mom to ask her permission for me to be in the show (there weren't auditions for this show) because there was some cursing for my character. The other girls in the show were Sheila Lackey Plymire and Amy Dittman and it was really fun.


This is from the first act, when the girls are in high school... obviously. They are cheerleaders at a Texas high school. The characters are (from what I can tell) Mary (Left), Kathy (Center) and Joanne (Right).


This picture takes place ten years later when the girls are in college and still friends.


From what I can tell from this picture it's from the third act, and another decade has passed. The girls end up reconnecting, but it's not without tears. It's a fantastic show and I'm really hoping to be able to play Mary someday in the musical version. Because that would be SO fun to play her again... and be able to sing while doing it. :-)


And yes, for any of you Disney Channel fans, that redhead is Anneliese Van Der Pol from That's So Raven. It's nice to see her making it on Broadway, she has a beautiful voice.

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