Martha Plimpton: My First Actual Showbiz Musical

About the author:
She’s won accolades—and a pair of Tony nominations—for performances in plays ranging from Shining City and The Coast of Utopia trilogy to last season’s dazzling combo of Cymbeline and Top Girls in which she played a female Pope and a 15-year-old girl. She survived child stardom The Goonies! and successfully carved her own path as the daughter of two actors mom is Shelley Plimpton, dad Tony nominee and recent Mindgame star Keith Carradine. Martha Plimpton has grown up to be the ultimate young theatrical star, but she had one stage landmark yet to face—the big Broadway musical—until now. Plimpton is currently making her all-singing, all-dancing debut as brassy chorus girl Gladys Bumps in Roundabout Theater Company’s revival of Pal Joey, and once again, the raves have poured in. So what’s her take on taking center stage in Rodgers and Hart’s darkest musical in a role originated by June Havoc, no less? Here, Plimpton discusses overcoming the urge to run screaming from the theater, and why she’s loving every exhilarating minute of Joey.

Probably the most striking aspect of this experience—doing my first Big-Time Brawd Weigh Myoozickal—has been The Terror. No doubt, if you’re going to embark on such an escapade you could do far worse than to have Joe Mantello, Graciela Daniele and Paul Gemignani guiding you through it. There was never any doubt in my mind that I was in the best hands possible.

But the simple truth is until you have done a musical, you have not experienced Actual Showbiz. I don’t care what anyone says. And Actual Showbiz is terrifying. You get on that train and, once it leaves the station, you’d better stay the Hell on it because if you don’t, the gentle mercy of death will be merely an elusive dream.

In a straight play, perhaps unhappily for the director, there is at least always a moment to get your bearings. It is possible to take a “meaningful pause” to gather one’s thoughts, if only to remember one’s next line. In Actual Showbiz, once the music starts, you’re on the gang plank. And you have to jump. You have no choice. It’s either jump, or face the blood-thirsty career pirates that await if you attempt to escape out the stage door in your gorgeous, jillion-dollar William Ivey Long-designed costume and hail a cab for Cuba.

I realize now, of course, that I have never fully appreciated the level of athleticism and courage that it takes to be an actor in a musical. I won’t ever see with the same eyes after this experience. You’re operating on about 3,467 different levels—and becoming adroit and comfortable enough not to feel the urge to throw up at “places” every night takes, to a certain degree, a kind of mastery of the elements of trauma and recovery, let me assure you.

That said, Pal Joey has been, in all honesty, one of the most joyful and happy experiences of my professional life. This company has been a supportive and generous family from the beginning, and never once have I felt out to sea or alone. The skill and professionalism of every single company member actually astounds me. There are fewer lunatic egos in this company full of legitimately qualified divas than any straight play I’ve ever worked on.

Everyone is there to make the thing work. Everyone is there to give everything they have. It’s really so much fun to be around. After however many years I’ve spent skirting the fringes of Actual Showbiz, they make me proud to have finally broken in.