Meet the Team: Anne

The best thing about making theater in New York is meeting people who make theater in New York. In the few short years I’ve been making work here, I’ve been privileged enough to collaborate with dozens of incredibly talented individuals, not a dud among them!

This one is no exception.

Anne danced her way into my life at an audition for my theater company’s show Readymade Cabaret (no, literally, she danced… we made them DANCE at auditions even though it was a theater performance. To this day I assume she’s a professional dancer – right, Anne?) and I have been desperate to keep her here (in my life) ever since! Not only is she a wickedly talented actress, she’s also become a dear friend, and I count myself very, very lucky to know her.

I easily could have made Type What Now a solo show, and forced you all to stare at my face for 90 minutes, but to be honest, that was never really on the table. From the moment I visualized the play, I knew I wanted someone else for you guys to look at. And let’s face it, she’s pretty easy on the eyes 😉

OK, I promise I’m done being a mega objectifying creep. To be honest, what I love most about Anne is how versatile and game for anything she is. We really put her through the ringer in Readymade Cabaret (see above photos!!) — she played a rat, Oedipus, and about a million other characters, and when she wasn’t doing that, we had her standing on a chair, leaning awkwardly against a column. And dang, did she make it look effortless.

I haven’t made it any easier on her for Type What Now — I was working on the program this afternoon and spent a good deal of time wondering how to bill her — right now, her “character” is listed as “Everyone Else”. That’s right – I play myself, and Anne plays LITERALLY EVERYONE ELSE. I haven’t counted all of her roles, but she’s got a lot, and she’ll be acting her tail off in order to populate my story.

Behold one of the ridiculous texts I send to Anne at a frequency that is embarrassing to admit:

Who else could you send that to, and have them answer you “No problem!” (which she did, by the way).

This play is not easy for me. I haven’t acted in…oh, years (with one exception made for someone I love very dearly), and this material literally could not be more painful to present. Quite frankly, I don’t know if I could make it alone onstage, doing this thing by myself. As I’ve woken up in cold sweats about this project over the last few weeks (no joke), one of the few moments of relief I have is remembering that, when it comes to standing on that stage, I WONT be alone: I’ve got someone I love and trust very much backing me up. Hey, if worst comes to worst and I pee myself and run offstage in shame/horror, Anne can just explain that diabetes does that to actors (no, really… err…I promise…) and then smile at you all until you forgive me.

In the meantime, I leave you with a few more sneak peeks, featuring one awesome lady: