With my mentor Dr. Michael Carrera

Last night there was a gathering at the Harvard Club to celebrate and honor the 25th anniversary of the Children’s Aid Society Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention program created and run by Dr Michael Carrera. It is one of the (if not THE) most successful programs which has been replicated all around the country. It wraps itself around the young people in the program for seven years–from when they enter middle school until they graduate high school, instilling in them the knowledge that they have a future that includes a job, health care, a savings account, college. They learn that they have value, potential, skills. Several of the alum spoke movingly about how the program made a difference in their lives. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Dr Carrera has been toiling in this youth development vinyard for 50 years!!! And I was proud to be there to help him celebrate. Some of the things I have heard him say that influenced the work we do in Georgia: “Young people may not remember what you do but they will never forget how you made them feel” and “These children aren’t at risk, they are at promise.” He speaks of what we do as “above the waist work” and says “it’s less about what goes on between their legs and more about what goes on between their ears.” I know from my 16 years with GCAPP how true this is.

After the event, I had dinner at Orso’s with New Yorker writer Hilton Als, he is doing a profile of me for the magazine and we are becoming friends. It was fun being with him back at Orso’s where I went almost every night after my Broadway show. I missed seeing Jeff Daniels (he’s still in “God of Carnage” and we were too early) who was also a regular there as was Geoffrey Rush. Wow! Writing this is making me miss the camaraderie and fulfillment of being on Broadway and I wish I was back in a play.

I am about to catch a flight to Dallas where I’m doing a fundraiser for The Women’s Media Center. Hilton’s coming with me. My dear friend, Helen LaKelly Hunt, has helped assure this will be an extremely successful event. She is also the driving force behind an effort called Women Moving Millions, motivating women donors of means to give $1 million or more to the many Womens Funds and foundations around the country. Since the initiative began 2 years ago they have raised $180 million all of which goes to benefit women and girls.

See you next time.

I’ve been writing this over the course of today. Here’s how it started:

It was fun having Oprah sitting right next to us-Samantha Mathis, Susan Kellerman and me. Gayle King and her daughter were with Oprah. Both of us were sobbing at the end and I had to pass her tissues. It’s a truly powerful and important play about the war in the Congo and what it has done/is doing to women. This is what Eve Ensler’s organization, V-Day: Until the Violence Stops, is focusing on. In fact, Eve is in east Congo now, at the hospital where Dr. Mugwege receives the raped and brutalized women and sews them up. V-Day has recently broken ground on the ‘village’ we are erecting to house 100 women. There are so many women flooding into the hospital they aren’t able to stay and completely heal, so the village will provide a safe place next to the hospital for further physical and emotional healing. They will receive therapy and learn microentreprenurial skills. Some of the actors in “Ruined” saw Eve when she testified about the Congo in Washington D.C. recently.

Phylicia Rashad’s daughter is in the play, her Broadway debut. She is brilliant-beautiful and talented (as is her mother). She can sing like a dream, too. This is a must see play! Derek McLane, who did sets for “33 Variations” and is nominated for a Tony for them also did “Ruined”-again, brilliantly

I asked Oprah to follow my tweets and she said she would. I follow her. I was the second person she interviewed for her “O” magazine. It was during that interview that I realized I had to write my memoirs. I told Oprah that last night.

Oprah and fabulous actor in “Ruined” Simon Shabantu Kashama

Back stage after “Ruined” with the cast, Samantha, Susan, Oprah, and I am there, behind somewhere.

Samatha, Susan and I had dinner after at Trattoria del Arte and closed the place down.

Don’t we look happy?

I am discombobulated today. Partly because I took a pain pill last night cause my knee hurts so bad. The pill has thrown me for a loop. Went to see “Reasons to Be Pretty” by myself this afternoon. Unfortunately Thomas Sadoski, who was nominated for a Tony, was replaced by his (very good) understudy. I was hoping to see him but I was told his wife fell and cut her head and he was with her in the emergency room. Good priorities. Still, I found the play riveting. Strange. Not easy. But riveting.

I took pictures of people taking pictures of me in front of my Times Square hotel as I waited for my friend, Lisa Birnbach to arrive and pick me up. It’s funny cause normally I go around anonymously. Then I went with Lisa to the Tony cocktail party at which Phyllis Newman was honored. The Phyllis Newman Women’s Health Care Center is one of the beneficiaries of Broadway Cares. I’ve known Phyllis from decades ago. She and Adolph Greene were close friends of my fathers. Zach Grenier (my beloved Beethoven, also a Tony nominee) was there, and Moises Kaufman, our writer/director, and Roger Friedman and Michelle Lee and Lucy Arnez and Oscar Eustis, Director of the Joe Papp Public Theatre and many other friends. It was fun and, once again, I felt embraced by this wonderful Broadway community.

After that, Lisa and I saw “The Norman Conquests: Round and Round the Garden,” the third in the trilogy. I loved it and wished I had seen all three. Scott Peacock and Alice Waters sat right behind us. Scott’s going to be at the Tonys tomorrow. A cheering section.

To end the day we had dinner with Jeff Daniels, his wife Kathleen whom I had not met before and who is smart and lovely as I would have expected and Jeff’s manager and friend, Paul Martino. We’re all looking forward to the swag tomorrow at the Tony rehearsal. It was Jeff who first told me about swag. Jeff and the others in “God of Carnage” have all re-upped for continuing the play in the fall after a 6 week break. I wasn’t sure they would but, clearly, having a good, reliable and fun job to count on till the year’s end is not to be sneezed at-not in these times.

Rehearsal is fairly early so I’m off to bed. I still dream about the play and still feel the Galapagos ship rolling under me. I’ve probably forgotten a lot of stuff from today but too bad. I’m pooped.

See you next time.

Jessica, Ann, Ben, Rita and Richard are all in the audience tonight. I think all of us actors are doing well, but we are looking at each other and asking: “what’s up with the audience?” Don says, “They just haven’t arrived yet. They are the quietest audience we’ve had in a long time-except for the coughing. It kills me because, of course, I want it to be especially good because my friends are out there. Maybe they are really into it and just not responding as some do. We’ll see at curtain call. Sometimes we get surprised at the curtain call. Ann Roth has done costumes for me in so many films from “Klute” to “Nine to Five” and many others. She is extraordinary. I got to know Jessica in the 1970s when I got her to join me and Sissy Spacek to testify about the importance of small farmers before Tom Dashle’s subcommittee on Agriculture. All three of us had recently done movies about people who live and work the land. Jessica’s testimony was especially moving. Rita Taggert Wexler was in “Coming Home” with me, playing a nurse and we were cheerleaders together in the 4th if July scene. She then married the great cinematographer who filmed “Coming Home,” Haskell Wexler. We were together last year in Vienna for the Film Festival.

Jessica, Ben, Me and Ann Roth (photo: Michael Rudd)

With Ben Vereen (photo: Michael Rudd)

With Richard Tomlin, Lily’s brother, Ben, Me and Tennessee, Richard’s partner (photo: Michael Rudd)

With Rita Taggert Wexler (photo: Michael Rudd)

Ben Vereen was briefly part of the cast of the FTA Show. He joined us at the fund raiser in Quincy Jones’s back yard in Bel Air where we performed the show. I have not seen him since his accident.

After the show, Ann, Jessica and I will join Jeff Daniels, Bruce Weber and his partner, Nan Bush for dinner.

Weeeeelllll. I was so wrong. Turns out people loved the show. A LOT!!! Ann Roth was really moved by it-everything about it. Ben couldn’t stop saying how he loved it. Robin Morgan’s son, the musician Blake Morgan, came back for a second time and said it was so much better than in previews. Everyone was really excited by it. Whew!!! Especially Ann. I so wanted Ann to like it.

I am home now after a really fun, interesting dinner. I am so happy to have gotten to know Bruce Weber and Nan. AND-I didn’t realize that Jessica has become a photographer and has a book of her work out. I plan on getting it tomorrow. Ann told me she is truly gifted which doesn’t surprise me at all.

Lily Tomlin sat near us at Orso’s with her brother. She’s in town for tomorrow’s opening of “9 to 5: The Musical” We will walk the red carpet together. I can’t see the show because I will be doing my own but I want to “do” the carpet in support of Dolly and the other actors in the show who are so extraordinary.

See you next time.

To say I had fun at dinner last night after the show would be an understatement! Jeff Daniels, Dianne Wiest, Paul Martino, Tommy Tune, Philipp Meyer, author of the new novel “American Rust,” Edie Vonnegut, Kurt’s daughter, Esther Newberg, who had a dog just like Tulea. Stayed too late (it was impossible to tear myself away any earlier) and had to get up at 8am to get ready for 2 TV shows, one of which, with Jeffrey Lyons, will be on those taxi TVs starting tonight. Susan Sarandon was at the restaurant and says she’s starting to have fun in “Exit the King.” My old pal, Peter Duchin was there, too, and Christine Lahti-and so it went. I felt so great, so a part of the Broadway community. Paying for it today, but so what. I’m ready to hit the stage and kick ass. Those folks will get their moneys worth, trust me.

Dianne Wiest (photo: Michael Rudd)

Tommy Tune (photo: Michael Rudd)

See you next time.

Today marks the second month we’ve been performing before an audience. Some people who saw it a month or so ago tell us the play is even better now. That’s how it feels.

Dianne Wiest is in the audience tonight and so is Tommy Tune. I’m having dinner afterwards with Diane and Jeff Daniels and other friends of Jeff’s. I’m excited about that. I don’t often have the opportunity to socialize with fellow actors.

Tonight is also when Lincoln Center is filming the play for their archives. Knowing this has us all on our toes.

What else? This week “9 to 5: The Musical” began previews and word of mouth is really good.

I need to get ready for my entrance and I won’t have time to write more tonight so—

See you next time.

Last night Kerry Washington saw the play and came back. She loved it. We will be making a film together later in the year and are good friends. She was so happy for me, seeing me in such an exciting, strong play. She just finished a film co-starring Annette Bening and Naomi Watts. This may be the film that allows her to show what a powerful, deep actor she is. We hung out in my dressing for about an hour.

Today, Siegfried (of the famed Siegfried and Roy illusionist team) came back after the play full of praise for everyone involved. I forgot to get a photo with him. Dang!

Last Sunday, after our 3p show, Samantha and I went to the opening of “God of Carnage” starring Marcia Gay Harden, Hope Davis, Jeff Daniels and James Gandolfini. It was terrific. They were all extraordinary.

This afternoon, for the first time, someone’s cell phone rang during an important scene toward the end of the play. It really threw me and Zach and I was so furious I felt like leaping off the stage and strangling the person. You have no idea how that sound can throw an actor out of a scene. When I mentioned this to Siegfried, he said he could see that it upset us and commented that he’d have threatened to sic his tiger onto the guilty party. Some actors are known to stop a show when that happens and yell at the person-Patty Lupone, Brian Dennehy and Jeremy Piven, for example. Don’t know if I’d ever have the guts but today I was surely angry enough.

Sil Reynolds and her daughter also came back after the show. Sil is a therapist. She and her daughter do Mother/Daughter workshops at the Omega Institute. She was stunned when she got backstage. “Jane, I had no idea the play dealt with a mother/daughter relationship like this.” She was rocked. “This is so like what my relationship was like with my mother…and hers with her mother-my grandmother.” If these challenges are a generational thing, Sil has surely broken the pattern with her own daughter. They seem so joyful about working together. And they are about to do a book on the subject called “From Both Sides Now.”  

This is a photo taken last week with
the gang of gal friends from Atlanta

See you next time.