I am sitting in my dressing room about to go on stage at Carnegie Hall, narrating the concert opera of “Grapes of Wrath.” I am so excited bevause it’s such a powerful show with so much talent. Everyone has been so nice. For everyone, performing at Carnegie Hall is a life’s dream. I love this show. I hope one day the full opera can be done in New York as it was in Minnesota. I have loved getting to know Christine Ebersole. She is lit from within, basks in a golden glow–like marilyn monroe used to, but Christine is grounded and solid (and deeply talented to boot!) I can hear the musicians warming up. The stage manager just called 15 minutes. Feels like being on Broadway last year. I have missed it. I can hear the audience coming in. I will go down now to prepare and will blog at intermission about how the first act went.

See you then. X

Nothing like a little pressure!!! These people are all here tonight. And, I stayed out too late after last night’s show–a kind of goodbye party before the real goodbye party–Susan Kellerman, Don Amendolia, Diane Walsh, James Gandolfini, Sandy Duncan—what a good time. Not enough sleep though and today I taped the Letterman Show. At least I didn’t cry on the show when I talked about the play closing Thursday. I said, “usually you do these shows to promote a play at the beginning, not 2 days before it closes. But we hired the Republican National Committee to do our PR, so what can you expect.”

James Gandolfini (photo: Michael Rudd)

Andrea Martin, Me and Debra Monk (photo: Michael Rudd)

Sandy Duncan (photo: Michael Rudd)

So here I am, in my dressing room waiting for the audience to come in so I can use my opera glasses to try and see who’s sitting where.

Neil Simon. OMG. You must know this, but just in case-he’s the great playwright who wrote “Barefoot in the Park” and “California Suite” both of which I was in. I am a huge fan of Tim Robbins and Anna Deavere Smith.

Neil Simon (photo: Michael Rudd)

Tim Robbins (photo: Michael Rudd)

Anna Deavere Smith (photo: Michael Rudd)

I got a beautiful vase of flowers tonight from Patti LuPone. Wow!! I don’t even know her personally. She is a power of a talent and I feel very honored by this generous gesture.

Carole Mitchell is here too. Carole and her husband, Tommy, help look after my place in atlanta and my office and my daughter’s house and on and on. We’ve been together almost 10 years.

Carole Mitchell (photo: Michael Rudd)

Time to go. I’ll write more at intermission to say how it’s going.

###########

None of us feel the show is going well and we can’t quite say why. At least I haven’t forgotten any lines–yet–there are five scenes to go. I have to go.

No partying tonight. Tomorrow is a two-show day. Our last two-show days. After tomorrow we do our final show.

Sam Waterston (photo: Michael Rudd)

Bernadette Peters (photo: Michael Rudd)

Barry and Carole Hirsch (photo: Michael Rudd)

Marisa Berenson (photo: Michael Rudd)

See you next time.

I have been packing up my books and files and then came to the dressroom and packed up what I won’t be needing between now and Thursday. Tulea knows something’s up and is worried. I can tell. People with dogs will know what I’m talking about.

Now, half hour was just announced for our 3pm show and I am sitting alone in the room and feeling sad. In fact, if it would not ruin my makeup and put me in the wrong frame of mind to start the show I would let myself go and cry. I can hear Diane practicing–warming up–with various variations and I realize that from now on, when I listen to her CD I will cry. Every variation is so bound up with the emotions of the play.

Moises’s new play opens tonight in L.A. I have sent him flowers. He’s coming here Tuesday for the last four shows–or so I’m told.

It’s intermission and 2 dozen Montreal bagels were just delivered to me–a gift from Debbie Giser!!!! Some are poppy seeds, some are sesame seeds. Yum!!!! Thank you Debbie.

Marlo Thomas is in the audience today. I look forward to seeing her. It will be hectic backstage tonight cause I have to get my hair fixed and change makeup and then walk the red carpet for the Drama Desk Awards evening. I am presenting the award to the best featured actor.

Right now it’s during my long break between scenes. I have to say this has been a wierd performance. From the beginning. Can’t explain it. I feel wired, aggressive. I’ve been more hostile with clara, my daughter in the play, than I usually am. Top of the second act I got words all mixed up. Sentences reversed.

Pat, one of the stage managers, heard me say I felt strange and she said the whole crew was acting wierd, on edge. “This always happens when you get close to the end of the play. Separation anxiety,”
Pat said.

############

Marlo Thomas did not come backstage so, naturally, I assume she didn’t like the play or my performance and didn’t want to be embarassed. There have been time when I have seen a show and not gone back stage unless I’d been specifically asked. Now I know never to do that again because it causes paranoia.

But Debi Karolewski came back. Debi was my assistant for many years when I lived in California and had a production company. The job only ended because I married Ted and moved to Atlanta. She has remained in touch and close to the whole family.

Debi Karolewski (photo: Michael Rudd)

See you next time

What a night!! The show was about to begin. Michael was trying to put bows back into Tulea’s ears when she jumped out of his arms and ran on stage looking for me. There was applause. “What’s that about?” I asked. Someone said, “Tulea’s on stage.” OMG. A stage hand came and got her. And before I could collect myself, I had to go on.

After the show, my in-laws (Can anyone tell me the correct title for parents of your child’s wife or husband?) came back. Dee had seen it three times ands this was Boswell’s 2nd and he thought it was much better. He enjoyed looking through the opera glasses—they were seated from row mezzanine. Dee felt it gave her an even better appreciation of the sets and lighting. I so adore them. While they were there, Reem Acra came back with four friends (three were Lebanese, like her and one was her dance instructor!! Go Reem!!) She remembered meeting Dee when Simone was there for a fitting for her wedding dress. I have to say, Reem is about the nicest woman you could ever meet.

With Simone’s parents, Boswell and Dee Bent (photo: Michael Rudd)

With the wonderful designer Reem Acra (photo: Micheal Rudd)

My first cousin, Mary Shanley, came back with her daughter, Kate, and we all went out to dinner. Mary is one of three daughters of my father’s youngest sister, Jane. We had a good time digging into family roots (and secrets).

Kate and Mary Shanley (photo: Michael Rudd)

There is more I wanted to write about that I learned tonight –about what tends to happen actors as the close of a play draws near–but I must go to sleep. I have to leave for Montreal fairly early tomorrow.

See you next time.

Stage left is where the stage manager sits on a high stool, wearing earphones, the script in a loose binder with lots of notes and cues written on it. Above the “desk” are 3 monitors. Two of them are rather small. One shows the entire stage from the front of the house and one shows Diane Walsh, our classical pianist, from above as she plays. These images are in black and white. Then there is a larger screen (about the size of an old fashioned TV screen in the days of “Howdy Doody”) showing the entire stage from the front of the house in color. This screen can swivel to see different areas and close in for close ups. Linda Marvel is our main stage manager but she has trained Melissa and Pat and sometimes they “call” the show, allowing Linda to watch from the audience. In the absence of Moises, Linda gives us notes. Mostly they are technical (“This afternoon you came too far down stage and got out of the light) but sometimes they have to do with pace. (“The opening three scenes felt too back on their heels. You need to pick it up.”) She is very, very good at her work. I vaguely remember back when things for the stage manager were much simpler. Now, and especially given this technically complicated show, it’s a non-stop job with intercoms and you can’t talk to her for fear of distracting at a crucial moment.

Linda at her station

Melissa Spengler and Linda Marvel

I asked Diane Walsh one day, how she manages to keep her fingers so flexible and strong, because she has so many really challenging, unbelievably rapid trills to execute. She said, “It’s not about the fingers. It’s about the back and shoulders, that’s where the strength comes from.” I like to watch her play on the monitor when I am waiting back stage to make an entrance and I can really see, now that I am aware, how much she involves her back in her playing-her whole body, in fact.

I wasn’t expecting anyone to come backstage after the show tonight but, to my surprise and pleasure, Jessica Andrews, the woman who was at the event in Phoenix who first told me she’d seen the play and found it very powerful was here. She said, “I was right when I said this is a part made for you.”

With Jessica L. Andrews, the executive director of the Arizona Theatre Company (photo: Michael Rudd)

My dear friend for more than 2 decades, Barbara Pyle, also came back stage. She worked with Ted in the early 1990s to create the environmental TV series, “Captain Planet,” that is now appearing on MNN-Mother Nature Network. She remains a hard working, very knowledgeable environmentalist who has been through a lot of physical challenges. She’s proof of the saying, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

See you next time.

I have been thinking a lot about whether or not to continue blogging. I began this whole endeavor because I wanted to take people through the day-to-day process of doing a Broadway play—after 46 years. I also thought it would be a way for me to keep my own record of the process that I could refer to in the future when I needed reminding of who said what, of how I felt, of who visited me. I hadn’t thought much beyond that and there was a nagging concern that blogging was a form of ego tripping and/or not being “in the moment.” I am fairly convinced that the latter is not true. I find myself, oddly, very much in every moment, weighing its meaning in my life, asking myself if it has meaning beyond me that I might want to share. Obviously many things go on-in my head and objectively in my life-that I do not share. But I’ve had to think about it. Hence, as I look back over these last four months, my thoughts, activities, feelings, experiences feel clearer and more acute than usual. I attribute this, in part, to blogging although I realize it may also be because of the unusual nature of what’s been happening to me.

The ego part is less clear. Perhaps that will remain so, I don’t know. Is it ego or is it becoming more self conscious? We tend to think of the term ‘self-conscious’ as meaning something bad-as being awkward or uncomfortable with oneself. But the way I am using it, it means something rather different-a consciousness of self, how our presence impacts people, how much of who we are do we actually own. I spent most of my life lacking self consciousness. This is something Katharine Hepburn criticized me for-she, the ultimate example of self-consciousness. As I age, I think a lot about this and am aware that my becoming more self conscious also means I am taking more control over my life-what there is left of it. (And realizing all the while, that the notion of us having control is so relative it’s laughable).

All this to say that the blog makes me more self conscious, more aware of the different aspects of my life, what matters and what doesn’t; what might matter to someone else  and what might not. So—I am going to continue to blog. Maybe not every day. Maybe just when there’s something going on, internally or externally, that might be of use or interest. For instance, I leave this play (and New York) the morning of May 22nd. I leave for the Galapagos Islands with a boat load of friends and family for 8 days. I was just told that I will be able to blog from there!! When Ted and I split up, I made a list of things I wanted to do before I die that I could perhaps turn into fundraisers for the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention. In 2000, about a dozen rich and fit friends trekked with me to Machu Pichu. This Galapagos trip is also a fundraiser and there will much to report back on and photograph. My blogging support system composed of James Andrews and J.J. make it so easy and fun.

So, between now and the fall, I will be working on my book and then, God willing and the creek don’t rise, I am going to do a movie. Because it is not 100% certain I am not allowed to say what it is or who with, but if it happens, it will be rich soil for interesting blogging. After that, I will again do an eight-day silent Buddhist meditation retreat in Santa Fe and then, hopefully, another movie. Not a bad year for an old gal. I feel lucky. But, as I have said before, luck is preparation meeting opportunity.

My main concern is how blogging will impact my book writing. I have less than a year to finish my book about aging, “The Third Act: Entering Prime Time.” My editor wants to bring it out in September or November 2010 and, as I am a slow book writer (as opposed to blog writer which I do very quickly), I have my work cut out for me. I decided last night, by the way, to make an exercise program(s) for people in their third acts to come out at the same time. I’m excited at the prospect of getting back into the fitness arena.

Got to leave now for the theatre. Eva Mendes is coming this afternoon along with a group of young women from my high school alma mater, Emma Willard, who are being escorted by the wonderful school principal, Trudy Hall. Among the girls will be three “Fonda Scholars.” I am so looking forward to performing for them.

With Eva Mendes (photo: Michael Rudd)

Alan and Marilyn Bergman-the world famous composers and lyricists, few things could make me as happy as seeing how profoundly they were moved by the play. I have gotten to know Eva Mendes because she is my daughter-in-law’s best friend.

With Marilyn and Alan Bergman (photo: Michael Rudd)

Three Fonda scholar students from Emma Willard (photo: Michael Rudd)

I misunderstood and thought there were going to be young women from Emma Willard. Turns out there were the 3 Fonda scholars (2 juniors and a freshman) and the others were in the vicinity of my class–give or take.

Me and the whole Emma Willard gang (photo: Micheal Rudd)

Anna Mantero ’10 Jane Fonda Scholar

Annie Hudson ’10 Jane Fonda Scholar

Denise Meza ’12 Jane Fonda Scholar

See you next time.