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.

Boy did we have fun last night! I didn’t know that so many folks from the cast and crew would come to Sardi’s for the unveiling of my portrait. As you may know (or not) the walls of Sardi’s are covered with portraits of Broadway actors. Nowadays they are portraits. In former times, they were caricatures. View the difference between my portrait and my father’s caricature.

The owner of Sardi’s, Max Klimavicius, threw a fabulous party for us. I was intending to go home early–after all I was up at 6am yesterday to leave Montreal. But I couldn’t tear myself away. It’s not often that all of us get a chance to chill and share stories.

My dear friend, Robert Osborne, who hosts the Turner Classic Movie channel was there looking dashing. He has lost a good bit of weight and it really becomes him.

My portrait (photo: Bruce Glikas)

Standing in Sardi’s next to Dad’s caricature (photo: Bruce Glikas)

Dick Pollak, Diane Walsh, Me, Cletus Karamon and Melissa Spengler. Cletus is the “Production Electrician” on “33 Variations”. (photo: Bruce Glikas)

That’s my agent, Joe Machota in the middle. Pretty good looking guy, yes? (photo: Bruce Glikas)

Our Producer, David Binder, Don Amendolia with Tulea, Samantha Mathis, Me, Susan Kellerman, Diane Walsh our pianist, and Linda Marvel, our stage manager on either side of my newly inaugurated portrait. (click photo to enlarge. Photo: Bruce Glikas)

My portrait and my dad’s. Hmm. Guess I am happier (Photo: Bruce Glikas)

Don and Tulea (Photo: Bruce Glikas)

Susan Kellerman and Jeff LaHoste, 20 year partner of Moises Kaufman. (Photo: Bruce Glikas)

With Dr. Barry Kohn. He’s is the doctor who treats actors pro bono whom I have blogged about in the past. (Photo: Bruce Glikas)

Michael Winther, Linda and Samantha (Photo: Bruce Glikas)

Sardi’s owner, Max Klimavicius and me with newly unveiled portrait (Photo: Bruce Glikas)

With Michael Winther. He, by the way, is responsible for “33 Variations” winning the Broadway Cares skit and is about the nicest person one could ever meet. Played one of the husbands in “Mama Mia,” fantastic singer. His new CD is “Song’s From An Unmade Bed.” Right now he is understudying Beethoven and Diabelli. (Photo: Bruce Glikas)

We had a good matinee today. Tonight my beloved friend and Zen teacher, Roshi Joan Halifax is coming. I’ve been waiting for this since the beginning. For me, this play is very Zen. Besides, one of the things Joan focuses her attention on (and her writing and teaching) is death and dying. She spends much time with the dying and I have learned a lot about this from her. One of my bloggers asked if in my next book on aging I intend to also focus on death and she sent me some suggested reading. I have read what she recommended and much more and, you bet, I intend to focus on death. I do not like the way we in the United States tend to avoid any discussion of death. We seem to want to deny our mortality or at least not be reminded of it. All cultures are not like this. I think, especially, of Mexico where they seem to include the presence of death even in their festivals. I think our denial robs us of living a meaningful life. Just as noise gives meaning to silence and sadness gives meaning to happiness, so death gives meaning to life. I try to stare death in the face, make it my friend and ally. I envision my dying–sort of like rehearsing for it. I want to be intentional about my dying just as I try to be intentional about my living. The dead and the living are woven together in this play and, for me, the final minuet says to me that no one really dies. We live on in other’s hearts and prayers and imaginations. Just as the cells that make up our bodies are composed of cells that have existed for eons, part of the stars, so, for me, we maintain a presence after our death–an energetic, cellular presence. Moises has called this up in this play and it speaks deeply to me just as, I think, it will to Joan.

Joan Halifax (photo: Michael Rudd)

After the play, Joan and I and another friend of hers will go to dinner. We have a lot of catching up to do. I will dedicate my performance tonight to her.

Now for my between-shows nap.

See you next time

Had a fun time with Sally Field and my Atlanta friends, Helen and Laura. I enjoy the lasting ties I have made with people from Atlanta, which has been my home for only 18 years. Sally and I just soaked each other up-we always have so much catching up to do about our family lives (she is a very involved mother and grandmother) and our acting lives. I could see all over her face how happy she is for me that I am in a strong, hit show and that I am really happy doing this. She reminded me of those 15 years when I thought I’d left the business forever. “See, Jane! You really are an actor!!” For complex reasons, I feel very close to her even though we don’t see each other that often. But when we do, it gets intense real quick. Fun!

So, I said that today I’d write about my fellow actors. I have come to really love and appreciate actors from doing this play with these seasoned performers. They’re not in it for fame or money. It’s in their blood and bones. They are totally reliable, steadfast, loving, funny and sooooo talented. I know this is one of the things that drew my Dad to theatre.

I have the great pleasure of standing next to Don Amendolia every night before the show starts. Both of us are usually in our places in the wings before places are even called. I am dressed in a sharp contemporary suit and he, as a rising music publisher in the mid-1800s, is dressed in a snappy, velvet jacket and ruffled shirt. Two different centuries side by side about to appear on stage together. It is his character, Anton Diabelli, who wrote the original waltz that inspired Beethoven to write his 33 variations. For 200 years Diabelli’s waltz was considered mediocre and my character, the musicologist Dr Katherine Brandt, is obsessed to find out and write a monograph about why Beethoven did this at the end of his life when he was going deaf and was ill and writing his most famous, important works-the Ninth Symphony and the Mass-why devote 3 years to all those variations on a mediocre waltz.

Don’s home is in New Jersey but right now, for this run, he’s here in the city. He can sing (beautifully), dance and do many styles of acting. In this play he is wonderfully over-the-top as he pantomimes his frustrations to Beethoven who is going deaf. I am often in the wings waiting for an entrance, watching the scenes and Don always makes me laugh. On top of all that, Don is also a director.

But being able to stand next to him every night before the show starts is a real pleasure-and reassuring. He’s a glass-half-full kind of guy, a perfect antidote to my tendency to fret about how the house (audience) looks, etc. He seems to almost chomp at the bit so eager is he to get out on stage. “Oh, I’m going to have such a good time tonight!” Like me, he likes to know who’s in the audience and as I can’t see as well as he can and am always complaining that I can’t find a particular friend or celebrity, he gave me some opera glasses last night and I had a ball scanning the crowd. (This totally shocked Sally who doesn’t like knowing who is out there.)

Right before the house lights go down, we look across the stage and there, regular as clockwork, silhouetted against a blueish light, is Colin Hanks, waving overhead to us. Sometimes Samantha is there to. But always Colin. And right before we go on, Don and I whisper “En bocca del Luppo” to each other: “In the mouth of the wolf.” The opera’s equilvalent to “Break a leg. We haven’t missed this little routine once in the 2 months we’ve been performing.

At the top of the second act, I make an entrance from back stage center and walk slowly down to the footlights. I’m usually in my place early and so most of the other actors cross behind me to get into their positions. First Don with an upbeat comment about how great the audience is or what a fun time he’s having. I tell you, I kvell at the sheer joy he derives from his profession. It’s contagious. Then comes Colin, squeezing behind me (it’s a narrow space) who usually whispers, “See you in Bonn,” because in the second act that’s where he has come so he can be of help to my daughter (Samantha Mathis). Colin plays a male nurse. Last, comes Susan Kellerman who plays Gertie, the keeper of Beethoven’s archives in Bonn. She gently pats my shoulder as she passes and says “Give ‘em hell” or “You go girl.” (Usually in her character’s German accent)

There are some scenes that I’m not in but that I get to watch from off-stage while I wait to make an entrance. I try to get there early so I can watch most of the scene and see the different audience responses. It’s amazing how very different they can be and how that doesn’t necessarily predict what the curtain call will be like-on their feet cheering or more subdued. There are some scenes that make me laugh so hard I’m afraid the audience can hear me.

Like when Samantha and Colin bump into each other early in the play while they’re waiting to get their computers repairs. Or the scene in the second act when Susan tells Samantha she wants to find me a male prostitute, “I think he should be a Turkish man, zey are very gut with women. Zay take zere time.”

That’s all for now. I’m going to nap with Tulea. Oh yes, turns out I lent “Man on Wire” to Don and he forgot to return it so today the kids and I watched “Himalayas”, an award winning movie that showed the terrain I will trekking through in a year and a half. I dropped the kids back off with their mother who is in a media training session at the Women’s Media Center. When we left, my apartment looked like a cyclone hit it due to the grandkid’s fondness for making forts using every pillow, bolster and blanket in the place. “Man on Wire” will have to wait till Sunday.

See you next time

OMG! I kid you not and I twittered about it earlier but, no kidding, during curtain call Tulea escaped from her (new) dog sitter and came out on stage. The timing was kinda terrific. I cannot image what it would have been like had she come out during a scene. It’s even possible that there were those in the audience who thought it was planned. But no! I had to scoop her up as I left the stage. Anyway, here’s what I wrote before the show started:

I was happy to get back to the theater and the cast for rehearsal today. I really missed everyone. Susan Kellerman (plays Gertie) isn’t feeling well so she went home to try and kick whatever it is and we spent much of the day rehearsing her scenes with Caitlin, the understudy for Susan and me. What a challenge it is to have to come on and play a role on such short notice but clearly, Caitlin has been paying attention and knows her lines.

Obama’s signing his stimulus package into law as I write. I prayed this morning that it will do what’s needed. Like many people, I wish he had just gone and asked for all that he really wanted (and what may well be what’s needed) rather than concede things to the Republicans (the tax cuts) when they didn’t support him anyway. I bet we won’t see that mistake again!

I’m glad we had the chance to run so many of the scenes (because of Caitlin because I noticed that with those 2 days off my brain is a little noodle-like. The body feels good but the mental alertness is lacking.

A friend from the days of my marriage to Ted Turner, Siobhan Darrow, is seeing the show tonight and will come backstage with her journalist husband, It was Siobhan who made Ted’s vision of The World Report into a reality and it was amazing. Any country in the world no matter how small could send in a national report that would be aired on CNN. The only requirement was that it be in English. There was an annual World Report Conference that brought the reporters from around the world to Atlanta to network, to learn more about TV journalism and how a large newsroom works. Many of them came from newly created democracies and had scant experience of what free press could be like.

So I am writing this now, after a few glasses of wine and I am back home after passing a wonderful hour with Siobhan and Shep in my dressing room. I felt bad about keeping Demitri, our stage door manager, there late but he says he has to stay till midnight anyway. So no harm done.

Siobhan and Shep backstage with me after the show.

Backstage after the show with a dear friend from decades ago, Bobby Zarem, on the left; the famous and wonderful casting doyen, Bonnie Timmerman and screenwriter Scott Prendergast (“Kabluey”).

I wrote earlier that my brain was like a noodle after 2 days off. Well, what I feared (and twittered about) happened: I totally forgot some lines in the first act and riffed while all alone front/center stage but managed to give the right cue for Colin and Samatha to enter. Then I forgot my cue in the next scene with Samantha—that was weird. And again in a later scene with Colin and San (that’s what we call her), I got to thinking about not being able to move cause of my illness and forgot to react to a pain that Sam thinks she’s caused so Sam and Colin just kept going with the physical therapy they’re giving me. Sam later told me she could see Colin’s neck turning red as he panicked, till I finally realized the arm therapy had been going on for many minutes in silence and FINALLY jumped in with my line. I almost burst out laughing.

STILL… the very savvy people who came back stage said they found the play to be powerful, inspiring, moving, thought provoking. Moises brought some friends back and when I apologized to him about screwing up his lines he said, “If you keep rewriting my lines I’ll have to pay you royalties.” What a mensch Moises is. I so love working with him.

To sleep. And yet to dream.

See you next time.

You might wonder why, at age 71, I am launching my first blog. Well, good friends of mine (Rosie and Lily) have been avid bloggers for a long time and I’ve noticed that what they offer is interesting and provoking. Provoking is good—provoking ideas, thoughts, laughs, compassion and just plain fun. I like to provoke. I have interesting friends, an amazingly diverse and interesting life and family, great photos. There’s a lot to get into on a blog.

So—I had breakfast in Atlanta in the beginning of January with my friend, Matt Arnett. Matt really wanted me to meet a friend of his whose kids go to the same school as my grandchildren because he thought this tech-savy friend might be able to help my Georgia-based Non-profit, The Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention improve its website. (More about that another time). Actually, we never even got around to G-CAPP because I got so inspired to start my own blog. Matt, James (that’s his name—James Andrews) and James’s wife Sherrelle Kirkland-Andrews, pointed out to me that there’s such malarkey floating around the net about me. Why not begin to tell my own story, my thoughts, and activities (past, present and future) rather than letting others—sometimes hostile others—try to put out their own spin on me. That’s part of it. But the idea also occurred to me that I was about to launch into a new adventure in this third act of mine and that it might be interesting to bring people along with me.

The adventure is that I am returning to Broadway for the first time in 45 years. Why not try, with this blog, to convey what it’s like… day by day…the excitement, scariness, the highs and lows.

So, although I’ve just gone online today, I have, in fact, been blogging for three weeks now and you can follow all the posts from the beginning by clicking here.

Today, during lunch break, I took my dog, Tulea, for a walk and it really hit me how much I miss my dad. When he returned from his stint in the Navy after WWII he went straight to Broadway to star in “Mr. Roberts.” He played that role every day for four years, never missing a performance! It was not customary in those days—the 40s and 50s—for movie stars to go back and forth from Hollywood to Broadway. But theatre was Dad’s great love. My brother and I grew up knowing and respecting this about him. He loved the immediacy of playing before a live audience. The instant feedback. He was meticulous, always doing exactly the same things, the same moves, the same inflections, every night. I have heard this from so many of his fellow actors.

Now that I am doing theater again after a huge absence, I can’t help but wish he was still here with me–to see. Not that he would give me advice. That wasn’t his style. But I wish he knew that I’ve come back to his place of love.

There have been days during these weeks of rehearsals when I seem incapable of doing the same thing over and over…even twice, never mind for 4 years! I wonder how he was able to do it. I want to please him…still. Do we ever get over this need to please the parent we were closest to?

* * * * * * * *

Moises Kaufman, the writer and director, has us doing run throughs more frequently now and it helps so much to experience the sweep of the play. We begin tech rehearsals in the actual theatre—the Eugene O’Neill–next week (gulp!) so we are starting to fine tune and lock in the blocking.

I love watching the other actors in their scenes. So funny, so touching, so outrageous! I like how we are melding together as a unit, all watching out for each other. Colin (Hanks) has had a cold for several days and last night he had to fly to Las Vegas to perform a scene he did with the actors in the TV series “Mad Men.” We’re all worried about him and he left with all of us bombarding him with special remedies for stopping colds.

I couldn’t resist taking this picture of Don Amendolia who plays Diabelli, the music publisher whose small waltz is the inspiration for Beethoven’s great opus, 33 Variations. That’s him behind the paper, sleeping with Tulea during a break.

Susan Kellerman, who plays the librarian in charge of the Beethoven archive, is insisting that I grant them all visiting rights with Tulea when the play is over. “Over”! What a concept.

Tomorrow I have an early costume fitting so I’m off to bed.

See you next time.