Saying Yes
Amanda McBroom is all about saying yes these days. The accomplished performer and songwriter, who won a Golden Globe for writing the haunting song, "The Rose," is now performing off-Broadway in A Woman of Will. Faced with a deadline, the show is about a lyricist that reaches out to Shakespeare's leading ladies for guidance. Here, McBroom shares the exhilaration and fear that can pour forth just by deciding to go for it.
I walked into the Chelsea Studios rehearsal space and I started to cry. It was not because of all the beautiful young men and women in their dance clothes and audition dresses with their books of music one up song, one ballad and their resumes and their impossible determination. Although I remembered my face wearing that same bright, ruthless expression so long ago, when I was carrying my resume and my shield of dreams. It was not because I knew how long and hard and ridiculous their journeys would be, and that anyone who remains in this business after the age of 40 is either stupid or very brave. It was because a dream I had pretty much abandoned was finally coming true. I was going to my first rehearsal as an actress in an off-Broadway musical that was going to open in New York! Wonder of wonders! Miracle of miracles! About damn time!
A Woman of Will had been a dream in progress for five years. She started as a song, based on a picture hanging in a gallery somewhere on Martha's Vineyard on a hot summer day. I saw a painting of a small girl in a Victorian dress standing in a river, looking out of the frame and into her future with such a serious expression. And I thought, "That's Ophelia before Hamlet came into her life and blew it apart." A song was born from that picture. And then another--a song for Gertrude, Hamlet's mother--explaining why she fell in love with Hamlet's uncle.
I took these songs to my dear friend and collaborator, Joel Silberman. We talked about creating a song cycle of Shakespeare's heroines. What would Titania, Queen of the Fairies, or Katherine the Shrew sing if she were alive today? Many an afternoon and bottle of wine led us to the determination that this was not the recipe for a concert, but a play. So we wrote it, and wrote it... and wrote it. Hello, Cleopatra. Goodbye, Desdemona. As the ladies came and went, we discovered how totally contemporary and relevant they are to any woman trying to make sense of the world we are attempting to live in today.
We decided to tell the story of one woman, a modern woman, in the middle of life, in the middle of crisis, in the middle of the act of creativity, wondering if she has any value in this century of iPods and Botox. And all these women from the mind of Will Shakespeare come to her rescue.
My friends kept saying YES. The Universe kept saying YES. So finally I had to say it, too.
YES is, I believe, the message of this play. NO stops everything. NO is safe. NO is uncreative. NO keeps you watching reruns of Survivor. NO is not good for the heart.
Every day I am in rehearsal, I hear my heart saying "OK. This is scary. This is fraught! So...if not now, when?" And with such clear artistic vision around me, Joel, our director, and Thommie Walsh, our beloved choreographer, my friend from the only other time I was on the boards in New York in Seesaw, who always says to me "Of course you can dance!" and the rest of our dedicated, creative family--all of us running around with the Y-word tattooed to our foreheads--it's no wonder I burst into tears. And explosions of laughter.
My hope is that those who come to see A Woman of Will, no matter the gender, will laugh, perhaps shed a tear or two, and walk away with a touch more compassion for themselves and each other, and a big old YES tattooed somewhere on their hearts.
And I hope they will all tell their friends!