Old Friends

One of the many great things about working in the theater is that people continually re-enter your life. I first worked with Whitney Bashor on a reading of Daniel Zaitchik’s gorgeous musical Picnic at Hanging Rock at Lincoln Center.

And then we did it again later up at the O’neill Musical Theater Conference.

She then played (stunningly) Clara Johnson for me in The Light in the Piazza at Philadelphia Theater Company winning a much deserved Barrymore Award for her performance.

I hadn’t seen her in quite awhile since life so often takes us in unexpected directions. But then we both were up at the O’neill this summer working on different shows. Our time there only overlapped by a day, but I did get to see her in the final presentation of the piece she was working on, Unknown Soldier by Danny Goldstein and Michael Friedman, and well to see her lovely performance and to hear her glorious voice--- there really is no more beautiful soprano voice out there as far as I’m concerned--- heaven. So of course I am thrilled that she is playing Katrina, the female lead in the other rep show The Hollow by Matt Conner and Hunter Foster. Yesterday was our day off and we went into D.C and hit the Smithsonian—inspiring as always to wander through the National Gallery. On the way back to Shirlingon we stopped at the Pentagon City Mall and, well, Whitney is as inspiring while shopping as she is singing or acting—her enthusiasm caused this to happen…

But you know, you can’t go wrong with great shoes. They last after all.