By Andrew Gans
08 Sep 2006

Q: How do you manage to preserve your voice for eight shows a week?
Ebersole: I try to just nap. It's rest more than anything. It's the conservation of energy. You have to store it up in order to put it out.

Q: Do you have a favorite moment in the show?
Ebersole: Well, as long as I'm in the moment and stay present, then the whole thing is my favorite. [Laughs.] I'm enjoying each moment.

Q: What do you think is the message of Grey Gardens?
Ebersole: Well, I think it's so multi-layered, which is why people come and see it so many times. I've had people tell me that they've seen it 17 times. It's one of those shows that you can't really take it all in at once. It has a lot of things — mother and daughter relationships, parent-child relationships, opportunities missed, the road not taken, trying to bring back the past, to draw the line between the past and the present. . . . Also, it's a type of transformational experience because of the dramatization of it. It allows you into those places in our heart that produces suffering and longing. And I think people can identify with that. It's really about having compassion for human suffering and for all the things that we must deal with as human beings. It's an opportunity for us to find compassion, not only for the suffering of others but for our own.

Q: Do you feel the show has at all changed you or your outlook on life?
Ebersole: Well, it's made me stronger I think. Not just physically, but mentally it's made me stronger because I think Edie has really been an inspiration to me — just in terms of the strength and endurance and what they were assigned to endure in the great scheme of things. . . . People feel as though when you're wealthy, when you have a position in society like that, that it's going to somehow save you from suffering, and it doesn't. In a way, humanity is the great equalizer. It doesn't matter if you're rich or poor.

Q: Do you have any other projects in the works?
Ebersole: Well, the Actors' Fund concert is a huge project for me because it's not business as usual in terms of the treasure trove of jazzy tunes that normally people associate with me. This is really going back to — again, which is Edie-inspired — a time in my life when I felt that as an American citizen that I had a voice and that our society had a voice, that together we could make a difference. . . .

When [Edie] says, "They can get you in East Hampton for wearing red shoes on a Thursday," and she says, "They can get you for almost anything. It's a mean, nasty Republican town." So, it's the idea, it's the metaphor of the red shoes that is almost like her strength in starting the revolution, of wearing red shoes on a Thursday, of standing up for what you believe in and finding a voice and being a nonconformist. I think she's been an inspiration for me that way, and that's sort of what became the inspiration for the Actors' Fund benefit. . . . . She talks about the revolutionary costume and all that as an act of defiance. This is sort of an evening of protest songs, but it's more than that. It's about believing that we can make a difference, that we have a voice and can make a difference in the world.

Q: Who is the musical director for the concert?
Ebersole: Bette Sussman, who just finished [musical directing] Bette Midler's tour.

Q: Have you ever worked with her before?
Ebersole: I have. I worked with her at the Carlyle in 2002, and we also worked some venues around the country. . . . [Joni Mitchell's] "Woodstock" [was] a song that we had once arranged together on our way out to California. . . . Music really has been such a strong tool in effecting sociological change. So, that's one of the songs that we did together a couple years ago, and now that's becoming the calling card for this concert.

[Tickets for Ebersole's Sept. 18 Actors' Fund concert at New World Stages (340 West 50th Street) are priced $100, $250 and $500 and are available by calling (212) 221-7300, ext. 133. For more information visit www.actorsfund.org. Tickets for Grey Gardens at the Walter Kerr Theatre (219 West 48th Street) are available by calling (212) 239-4200 or by visiting www.telecharge.com.]

DIVA TIDBITS
Four-time Tony Award winner Angela Lansbury will return to the Broadway stage this fall for a one-night-only reading of This Is on Me, An Evening of Dorothy Parker. The benefit for the Acting Company will be presented Nov. 5 at 7 PM at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, and Lansbury will be joined onstage by Tony Award winners Boyd Gaines and Harriet Harris as well as Lisa Banes and Lynn Collins. Warner Shook will direct the evening, which features Tom Fontana's adaptations of Dorothy Parker's works. In a statement actress Lansbury quipped, "I’ve been Mame Dennis, Mama Rose and Mrs. Lovett, why not Dorothy Parker?" Tickets for are priced $85, $100 and $250 and are available by calling (212) 239-6200 or by visiting www.telecharge.com. Benefit tickets, priced $750 and $1,000, are available by calling (212) 258-3111. The benefit tickets also include a gala supper following the performance. The Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre is located in Manhattan at 236 West 45th Street.

Speaking of Lansbury, the original Mrs. Lovett will present the most recent Mrs. Lovett, Patti LuPone, with the John Houseman Award at the Acting Company's Masquerade Oct. 23 at Cipriani Wall Street. Tony and Olivier Award winner LuPone will receive the award for her "her outstanding contributions to the theatre." The evening will also honor former Governor Thomas Kean with the Warburg Award for his humanitarian work. The event is scheduled to begin with cocktails and a silent auction at 6:30 PM, followed by dinner and dancing, entertainment and the awards presentations. The Drowsy Chaperone's Bob Martin will emcee the entertainment portion of the evening, which will boast a performance by Tony winner Audra McDonald. Cipriani Wall Street is located in Manhattan at 55 Wall Street at William Street. Dress is black tie or costume. Tickets, priced $550 and $1,000, are available by calling (212) 258-3111.

Speaking of LuPone, Leslie Kritzer, a Drama Desk nominee for her work in The Great American Trailer Park Musical, will re-create the former Evita star's now-legendary concerts in an evening entitled Leslie Kritzer is Patti LuPone at Les Mouches. Directed by Joy's Ben Rimalower, the evening is scheduled for Oct. 4 at 9:30 PM at Joe's Pub. During her run in Evita, LuPone played an extended, acclaimed engagement at the now defunct New York nightspot Les Mouches. LuPone's original musical director, David Lewis, will return as musical director for Kritzer's evening and will utilize the show's original arrangements. Concertgoers can expect to hear such LuPone signature tunes as "Meadowlark," "Rainbow High" and "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" as well as "Because the Night," "Love for Sale," "Downtown," "Not While I'm Around" and "Come Rain or Come Shine." Joe's Pub is located within the Public Theater at 425 Lafayette Avenue. There is a $25 cover charge plus food/drink minimum. Call (212) 239-6200 for reservations or visit www.telecharge.com.

Well, that's all for now. Happy diva-watching! E-mail questions or comments to agans@playbill.com.

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