Stephanie comments on how she got through PQ opening

[Popular]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 6:10pm

As you guys know, she opened PQ not feeling 100%. She has an amazing attitude about it!

"Block proved on opening night that her strength wasn't just for show. The most pressing, stressful and suspenseful question of the evening was "Who will turn up in the title role tonight?" Block had bailed out after about a half-hour of the last critics performance April 4 (her standby, Kathy Voytko, seamlessly assumed the role between scenes without ever stopping the show); also, Block had missed the two previous performances.

"It killed me," she admitted. "It. Killed. Me. But the stage manager [C. Randall White] put things in perspective for me when he said, 'I just want to let you know: We've done 98 shows. You've done 94 out of the 98. You're doing okay.' The bottom line is that it's live theatre. I would love to be a movie star where they say, 'Okay, go home. We'll just do your take three days from now.' But, with live theatre, what are you going to do?"

Before she threw in the towel Wednesday night, did she ask herself what would Liza do? "Yes, of course. And Liza, I'm telling you, would probably do it all. The beauty about Liza is she's Liza — so she can tell a story as Liza, she can stop singing and say, 'I don't want to sing this anymore,' and the audience would still scream and cheer. When you're playing another character, you're kind of a slave to that other character to serve it well."

The culprit was a viral infection that had insidiously snaked its way into the company and finally found the star. "When you live with a cast, they become like family," Block said. "If Mama gets sick, the baby's going to get sick, and the baby's going to give it to Daddy, and it keeps going around the family. Our family started getting sick about six weeks ago, and it was just untimely that it happened to get to Mama right when she's opening."

She was speaking from a place of personal triumph, having heroically made it through the opening-night performance, looking and sounding good while doing it — and now she was meeting the press in the Apollo Lobby of the labyrinthine Hilton Theatre. "There's always an awareness and a control that you want to have as a singer — and, unfortunately, that wasn't there for me tonight," she confessed, "but I put that aside and said, 'All I'm going to focus on is telling the story. I'm going to give my heart. I'm going to give my soul. If that means I'm going to talk some notes, then I'm going to talk some notes. If I can sustain the performance — it doesn't matter as long as I'm staying true to Grace and staying true to the storytelling — I think that I'm going to be able to reach the audience regardless.""

Click for full Playbill article Updated On: 4/6/07 at 06:10 PM

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 6:14pm

mind over matter

[otis33]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 6:38pm

God bless her. She's the epitome of professional.

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 7:05pm

Unless that "professionalism" made matters worse and she ends up missing more shows because she had to go on last night. By the way, were there steroids involved? That was rumored to be a possibility.

[otis33]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 7:11pm

So she takes a few shows off to get better. Just read that Christine Ebersole is taking a week's vacation to rest up. It happens.

But, agreed, SG, hope that pushing through last night didn't make matters worse for her health.

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 7:16pm

There is a difference between being too sick to perform and making a decision to miss a show in order to get better and taking a deserved and scheduled vacation after a very long run. That is what vacations are for, to rest up. Stephanie has obviously been working her butt off and was understandably excited to open the show, but if she risked her health and future performances for ONE performance that is not the "epitome" of professionalism. I wish her the best though.

[Popular]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 7:18pm

It couldn't have been an easy decision but judging from the curtain call pictures I don't think she'll regret doing the show, even if it means taking off tonight to get rested for the 2 show day tomorrow.

From what I heard, she DID opt to not push certain notes and spoke/sang them instead.

It's a tough call, either path she would've chosen had pros and cons. At the end of the day, she's the one who knows her body the best and has to live with the decision. Updated On: 4/6/07 at 07:18 PM

[WishingWells]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 7:50pm

If it were me, I would miss a week of shows to be able to experience opening night with friends and family watching. And except for the lst note of Women, I could not tell if she spoke, or cut notes short. She sounded awesome! Anyone know if she went on tonight?
Updated On: 4/6/07 at 07:50 PM

[ashley0139]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 8:06pm

I don't like the choice of words "bailed out" by the author of the article. That presents a connotation of the fact that she wasn't even trying. But that's beside the point.

I applaud her for working through last night. Must have been difficult.

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 4/6/07 at 9:39pm

Completely unrelated, but Patrick Wilson looks damn cute. I wish he would come back to Broadway.

[kaycee]

Posted: 4/7/07 at 12:13am

Don't we all wish Patrick would make his way back to the stage!

[Phantom2]

Posted: 4/7/07 at 12:23am

So happy SJB made it through the night. She's a super trooper!

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 4/7/07 at 12:27am

Having seen the show three times, she sounded amazing opening night.
She seemed to know exactly where she could hold back and heck, even Grace o'Malley would have maybe coughed being on that ship in that damp air.
Her Opening night performance was a joy to see.

As far as what Liza would have done, I love me some Liza May,
but she would have done a line and said, "This one's for Mama"

And Patrick pissed me off, he didn't even wear a tie to Opening Night!

[Phantom2]

Posted: 4/7/07 at 12:41am

Hey, she played Liza.

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 4/7/07 at 12:48am

I loved her Liza.

[miss pennywise]

Posted: 4/7/07 at 2:00am

I saw her tonight (Friday, 4/6)...I would never have known she was sick. She was perfect.

I feel so bad about this show because I think the reviews were unnecessarily mean-spirited and exaggerated. I have seen shows that were worse by far and got much better reviews, but that's life (in the theatre) as it were.

I actually enjoyed the show--granted, I went in with low expectations and thinking it would be awful--but still. If I hated it, I would be saying so.

Maybe I root for the underdog, I don't know, but I hope this show finds an audience and has a run that is better than what the critics think it deserves.

[TBone]

Posted: 4/7/07 at 2:24am

I was at the show tonight as well - my second visit after seeing it exactly a week ago. And I have to agree, if you hadn't known she was sick you wouldn't have been able to tell at all, even with the two or three times she let out a little cough. She got better and better as the night went on!

[helloagain]

Posted: 4/10/07 at 12:12pm

I was at the same performance miss pennywise, and completely agree with your comments. Stephanie was shining, my friend that I went with had seen the show many times and said that she was not at her best, but she seemed wonderful to me. I felt that after reading the reviews she had even taken some of the points(most were ludicrous & unfair)but she held back slightly and I think it only added to her performance. I had read in another post that you had an annoying child standing on her chair and was wondering if it was the same annoying child i had what row were you in?

[SorryGrateful]

Posted: 4/10/07 at 12:26pm

She sounds like such a lovely person. I really do like her very much.

[bwayguy22089]

Posted: 4/10/07 at 4:39pm

I saw her in previews and she was AMAZING! I only wish she had gotten a bigger song for herself. But its alright, I saw her No Good Deed when she played Elphaba and thats a theatre momment I will never forget :)

[bardolator]

Posted: 4/11/07 at 8:08pm

Oh, man, I KNOW. Her "No Good Deed" was scary (in an entirely good way). That's one of the things I love about Stephanie J.; I start out being excited to see *her* but then, within a few bars, get absolutely sucked into the character she's playing.

Some actors who can lose themselves that completely in a character seem--how shall I say this?--sometimes seem not to have very strong personalities of their own, offstage. Not so, here. I'm glad I enjoy watching a performer I can also really LIKE.