A Tree Grows on 46th Street

On Monday I bounced into rehearsals for the next phase of production for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. The script was revised by Elinor Renfield with further revisions by Susan DiLallo to reflect the story from Betty Smith's original novel, which had been tweaked in the 1951 musical to suit Shirley Booth's comedic talents. Emily Skinner is playing the role of Aunt Cissy for our reading and Stephen R. Buntrock stars as Johnny, and they are incredible performers!

I play Jill, a brothel girl who makes a pass at Johnny though he's married to Cissy's sister, Katie, played by the beautiful Pamela Brumley. What a gorgeous soprano! The sensational Sara Wordsworth plays Meg, a fellow brothel girl, and Diane J. Findlay is our fesity madame, Nellie. Mick Bleyer, Jeff Brooks, Kathy Calahan, Kenneth Cavett, Tom Flagg, Andy Gale, Susan Jeffries, J. Maxwell Miller, Deborah Radloff, Tom Alan Robbins, Ashley Robinson, the lovely Emma Rowley (currently Baby Louise in GYPSY and our "tree," Francie), Steve Sterner, Kevin Vortmann and Darcy Yellin complete the cast.

I can't say enough about the entire cast except how brilliant they are. Everyone is immensely talented.

We had music rehearsals on Monday with music director, Mark Janas, and boy, is this music gorgeous!!! Arthur Schwartz's music immediately transports the listener back to the early 1900s and Dorothy Fields' lyrics are lovely! It is such an incredible pleasure to be singing this material.

Tomorrow our director Dan Wackerman will be guiding us through the show with blocking. We also have rehearsals on Friday and then we perform this staged reading on Monday. Wow!

It is so cool to be performing at the Theatre at St. Clement's again. I had played The Singing Nun there a year and a half ago, and this little theatre is such a welcoming space.