I am lucky in life because I have worked with a lot of wonderful and talented people. Sherie Rene Scott is one of them. She starred with Lili Taylor in a magnificent revival of John Guare’s Landscape of the Body at Signature Theatre Company.
Before I scream from the roof-tops about how amazing the shows is and that everyone should go see, I have to tell a two stories.
On the night of the first preview of Landscape of the Body, a dresser was supposed to come out after Sherie’s first scene and help her into a robe as part of her costume change. Well some how the sleeve on the robe twisted itself so that she was literally trapped in this robe (which she was handed so she would have to walk around stage in her lingerie). The dresser doesn’t notice and goes off stage and there she is flailing about at war with the costume, the band is playing, she is flailing and after a full two minutes she just says “will someone f**cking help me.” This got the dresser back on stage and it took a full three or four minutes of the dresser tugging on the robe to get it off of her. Now during this whole time, Sherie Rene is cracking jokes like “someone please tell them this fit me this afternoon and I didn’t gain weight. etc.” The entire time the audience was laughing. When it was done and she was dressed she just looked at the audience cracked a few more jokes, told the music director to take it back, spun around and started the scene again. It was the funniest technical malfunction I had every witnessed. However after the show, I as a good General Manager ran backstage to check on my leading lady. I didn’t know whether the dresser would be cowering in the corner having been read the riot act or if my lead actress would be in tears. I opened the backstage door and was struck by the sound of loud laughter. Sherie Rene and the dresser were trying to show Kurt (Sherie’s husband) what had happened but couldn’t get the costume to twist in the same way. It was at that moment that I feel in love with her as an actress.
I remember we had an intern who like most interns also house-managed at night to earn some money. This intern was obsessed with Sherie Rene. During the one real song of the show the intern would rush to the lobby monitor and like a drooling fan would act out every dance move Sherie Rene was doing on stage. Now I could see the magic that Sherie Rene brought to the stage, it is hard to miss, but one night while watching this spectacle if the intern dancing and singing along to Sherie Rene on the Lobby monitor, it struck me that there was another layer to the magic of Sherie Rene Scott. She made being beautiful and talented look so easy and so natural that you could almost believe it was possible for anyone. You can’t help but love her when she is on-stage or off-stage. Her quirky attitude, quick sense of humor and chatty nature make the blonde bombshell into the girl next door.
And every bit of this was on display last night in her stellar show Everyday Rapture at Second Stage.
I can’t even go into how witty and wonderful the show is without giving too much away, but the premise alone says a lot. Scott grew up in Topeka, Kansas. She was half-Mennonite and as a youth attended Rev. Fred Phelps church (who rose to national fame with his gay-bashing antics during the Matthew Sheppard case and earned his own theatrical incarnation in The Laramie Project). She worshipped Judy Garland. And she wanted to be a star.
Everyday Rapture doesn’t follow the path to her self-described “semi-semi-semi” stardom as much as it is a spiritual quest of a girl who had a dream to perform. Using Judy Garland songs, other standards and songs of the great Fred Rogers (as in Mr.. Rogers on PBS), and a variety of other tunes we follow her to New York back to Kansas and finally to Broadway. From confusion and desire to peace and happiness — or as much piece and happiness as you can have as a actress!
The evening was funny, smart, and poignant – everything a night in the theater should be. It is not surprising that she had a helluva a team putting together the show with her – Michael Mayer (dear friend and fab director). Dick Scanlon wrote it with Sherie Rene. The design were fab (including work by friends Christine Jones, Kevin Adams and Brian Ronan). At I shouldn’t make it sound like a one person show, Sherie Rene was backed up by two talented singers and a surprise guest was part of the fun!
Just go see the darn show, so I don’t have to give anything away.
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