Lysistrata Jones Star Patti Murin on Her Days as a College Cheerleader and Pole Dancing on Stage

After engagements at the Dallas Theater Center (where the show was originally called Give It Up) and inside a West Village gymnasium, Patti Murin is hopping back into a cheerleader uniform as the title character in the new Broadway musical, Lysistrata Jones. Loosely inspired by Aristophanes' classic comedy Lysistrata, the musical follows a group of college girls who decide to stop having sex with their boyfriends until they end the school basketball team's 30-year losing streak. Murin, who previously worked with Lysistrata Jones book writer Douglas Carter Beane on the rollerskating musical Xanadu, recently invited Broadway.com to her dressing room at the Walter Kerr Theatre to talk about her own experiences as a college cheerleader, the show's sexy dance moves and falling in love on stage.

It must feel great to play the title character of a new Broadway show. What do you love about the character of Lysistrata Jones?
I am the only person to have physically played her in a production, so she really is from my sweat and tears. She’s like my best friend. I feel I know her inside and out. She’s driven and passionate, but she’s so much fun. People would call her a bit of a ditz, and she is a little bit of an airhead, but she’s really smart. She doesn’t use her brain power on a lot of things that people would think are valuable, but she always needs to have a purpose and wants things from life. The whole reason she is [leading the cheerleaders' crusade] is because she wants everybody else to want something from life, too. She wants them to be the best they can be.

The character has so much energy. Is it hard to stay that peppy every night?
I’m pretty peppy in real life, so I think a lot of that energy is already in place. I just have to heighten it. The show is definitely not an easy show. It’s like a marathon. We kind of never stop moving in act one, the girls especially. If we’re not on stage we’re doing quick changes backstage. Act two is a little more dramatic and has slower moments, so we get a few more breaks, but then you have to get a little more emotional and deeper. Then the end is just a big explosion of happiness.

Do you have any experience as a cheerleader?
I was a cheerleader all throughout junior high and high school, and I was a cheerleader at Syracuse [University] my freshman year. The difference between high school cheerleading and college cheerleading is unreal. We’d have work outs, and not just practices, we’d have to hit the weight room because you have to be these little but strong packages of girls. I only did it for a year because I was a musical theater major and [as freshmen] we couldn’t perform, so I said, “Well, I’m going to try out for cheerleading then and perform for 50,000 people in the Carrier Dome.”

Are there similarities between performing in a football arena and performing on a Broadway stage?
They’re completely different, but you have to be comfortable being in front of a crowd for both.

This is the second project you’ve worked on with book writer Douglas Carter Beane. What is it like to perform his signature style of comedy?
The great thing about Douglas is he already does so much of your work for you. He hands you a present in his writing. If you can’t figure out how to make a line land, all you have to do is really say the words, and they’ll go right where they need to. It’s crazy, you feel like you're supposed to do a lot of work and deep exploration, but sometimes the answer is to just say the words. He writes for his cast which is something so fortunate for us. He comes up with jokes, and funny ones, in a second. I feel really blessed to have worked with him twice, especially on something new like this.

Not only is the show new, but it’s very different from a lot of current Broadway musicals.
We have a source material, but it’s not something everyone is really familiar with. When you say “Lysistrata” you can tell immediately whether someone knows who Lysistrata is or not. It’s a show that’s hard to explain, so we’re definitely coming up with our own little blurbs when trying to describe it to people. I usually say it's set in the world of college basketball and cheerleading, and that gets people interested. You can’t really put into words how fun, upbeat and energetic the show is.

So did you know who Lysistrata was when you first joined the project?
I did! I read it my freshmen year of college, and re-read it again during the Dallas run, but that was it. We veer off so far from the play, it’s like the show is based more on the Spark Notes of the play. So I’ve read it, but I’m glad I don’t know it that intimately because it wouldn’t do me any good.

Earlier this year the cast went to basketball camp to train for the show. How is your game holding up these days?
You have your hurdles to get past each night. There’s the first chunk of the show: our opening number is six and half minutes long and then we go right into a scene in the library, so I have to make sure I hydrate myself to last the first 18 minutes. Once I get past that I’m in my groove, but at the end of the show, when I have to come back and shoot the baskets, it’s a whole new level of nervousness. I’m not superstitious, but I do have routines I’ll go through every night. I’ll come off stage briefly before the scene where I have to make my important basket, and I have a big line that’s full of legal jargon, so I always say that to myself three times and then I’m ready. Then I head out and have to make that basket. Most of the time I get it on the first shot.

What happens if you don’t make the shot?
I keep going until I do! What’s crazy about it is usually if I don’t make it the first time, it then takes me three times because the second time I’ll be flustered and just throw the ball. By the third time I’ll actually bring myself to concentrate. The audience actually gets more excited when I make it that third time because the stress is building for them, too.

What’s been harder to pull off: making baskets in Lysistrata Jones or rollerskating in Xanadu?
Basketball probably. Rollerskating just becomes part of your movement. When I first went on [as an understudy in Xanadu] the rollerskating was the last thing on my mind. I knew how to rollerskate already, I had to worry about the Australian accent! That show was just a bundle of special skills.

Speaking of special skills, your resume lists that you can “burp on cue.”
My sister always makes fun of me for that. She’s an accountant and always says, “What, if I went into an interview and said that?” It’s mostly for commercials and stuff where you never know when the weirdest things can come in handy.

So has it ever helped you land a job?
No [laughs]. Sometimes they’ll ask me to prove it. It’s a talking point though and shows you have a sense of humor.

Are there any skills Lysistrata Jones will help you add to the list?
There’s a little bit of pole dancing in the show, so I requested we have a pole dancer come in and show us a few tricks, but nobody took me up on that [laughs]. My character doesn’t actually pole dance anymore, though. I was getting really good at it. I don’t know if I should be happy about that? I kept thinking, “Is this good that this is coming naturally?” I’m pretty sure this will be the only place I ever pole dance, though.

Your male co-stars must have loved that. How is it working with your leading man Josh Segarra?
I adore him so much. He’s one of the nicest, dorkiest and funniest guys I’ve ever met. My husband [Broadway veteran Curtis Holbrook] makes fun of me and says “I know, you tell me all the time how perfect Josh is,” but he is really one of those special people. He’s really good looking. He's just such a ball of love, has no ego and is so down to earth. We don’t ever really get to be nice to each other on stage, our characters have like one kiss in the beginning and then start instantly fighting, but we have so much fun together.

You and your husband met doing Xanadu together. Do you have any advice on how to navigate a successful showmance?
We actually had a bit of rocky start! We started dating and then broke up for six weeks, which was terrible. I think if it’s right, it’s right. If you can survive being together constantly, working together in such a pressured environment, it’ll work.  We just met each other and we knew that was it, right away.

See Patti Murin in Lysistrata Jones at the Walter Kerr Theatre.