Chapter Eight
I had the chance to reacquaint myself with the subway in 1994 from April through December when I starred in a Broadway musical written by Willy Russell. Blood Brothers had been playing to standing-room-only crowds both on London’s West End and New York’s Broadway. Producer Bill Kenwright was preparing to put an additional production on the road starring the leading lady then on Broadway, Petula Clark. He had already established a model of success with interchangeable female pop stars with an alto vocal range in the lead role. Knowing that I possessed an alto range and acting experience, he wanted me to replace Petula on Broadway. No audition would be necessary. All I had to do was agree to a six-month commitment to perform eight shows a week and the role was mine.
I was fifty-two when I began my run as Mrs. Johnstone (pronounced Johnston). Being onstage for most of the show eight times a week left me with no time or energy for my own music. After every evening performance I collapsed into the back seat of a town car and was thankful to have such a luxury. I found moments of normalcy in folding laundry, going to my favorite restaurant for lunch, taking the subway around town, and, weather permitting, walking, unrecognized, around my city of birth. It was on one of those walks that I came upon the familiar faded reddish brown stone building in which I had studied drama, dance, and music at the High School of Performing Arts. I couldn’t go in because it was after hours, but from visible signs and posters I inferred that it was still a school, only now it had a business curriculum. When I peered in through the barred windows the old staircase looked exactly the same. I could almost hear and see my fourteen-year-old classmates hurrying to the next period propelled by a dream that drove them to the exclusion of almost everything else. I touched the cornerstone and silently conveyed the news that, after thirty-eight years, I was starring in a Broadway show.
Offstage, when I wasn’t walking or taking the subway, I spent most of my time eating, sleeping, or exercising. I needed to keep up my strength for what I considered a demanding role on a grueling schedule until I saw Glenn Close in Sunset Boulevard. Once I got to know my fellow cast members I realized that for them an eight-show-a-week schedule with the concentrated energy required for every show was not only normal but desirable. Playing Mrs. Johnstone was a lot more challenging emotionally than physically. In my own life I try to keep pain at bay, often to the point of denying its existence. Yet in order to be credible as a woman who suffered as Mrs. Johnstone did, I needed to draw on my own suffering. Every performance ended with my character in despair because her adult twin sons had just been shot to death. Mrs. Johnstone blames herself. When the boys were infants and she was a single mother of seven living in extreme poverty, a childless woman of means persuaded her to give her one of the babies by preying on her superstitious nature and fear that if she didn’t give the baby up she would lose all seven of her children. As the run progressed I found it increasingly difficult to step away from my character’s anguish. There couldn’t have been a worse time for me to be going through menopause. On the drive uptown one night, after a particularly harrowing immersion in Mrs. Johnstone’s misery, I watched the quarter moon set over New Jersey and wondered why I had allowed myself to be drawn back into acting when I’d already had a perfectly good career in music. But I had taken on the role, and I would not only see it through but extend my commitment through December 31, 1994.
In the rare quiet moments during my final performance that New Year’s Eve, I could hear the roar growing louder outside the theater as people converged on Times Square for the traditional dropping of the ball. The emotions of my character merged with my own. I was simultaneously elated to be playing Mrs. Johnstone for the last time and sad that she and I and the cast and crew were parting company. It was 11:45 when I took my final solo curtain call with the tears of both my character and me streaming down my face.
Fifteen minutes later I was drinking champagne in a cast member’s apartment near the theater with John, the cast of Blood Brothers, and their significant others. I heard the crowd counting down, loud and live, on the street below while I watched the ball drop on television. And then it was 1995.