By Andrew Gans
22 Aug 2008
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| Jill Paice |
News, views and reviews about the multi-talented women of the musical theatre and the concert/cabaret stage.
JILL PAICE
It's been a busy year for Jill Paice, the American actress who starred in the West End and subsequent Broadway production of The Woman in White, but who is best known for her work as ingénue Niki Harris opposite Tony winner David Hyde Pierce in the award-winning Kander-Ebb-Holmes musical Curtains. Earlier this year, singer-actress Paice returned to London in the short-lived musical Gone with the Wind, based on the famed novel and film of the same name. Now back in the States, Paice is currently in rehearsal for the Signature Theatre's Broadway-aimed musical Ace, which is scheduled to begin previews Aug. 26 at the Arlington, VA, venue. The Richard Oberacker-Robert Taylor musical, directed by Signature artistic director Eric Schaeffer, also boasts the talents of Florence Lacey, Emily Skinner and Christiane Noll, among others. Paice is cast as the mother of a young boy (Dalton Harrod), whose "search to come to terms with his past and unlock his future" is the thrust of the musical. Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of chatting with the down-to-earth artist, who spoke about her current and recent stage projects; that interview follows.
Question: How are rehearsals going for Ace?
Paice: They're going great. We're in the midst of tech right now. We just actually came down to DC on Friday. . . . We rehearsed in New York for, I'd say, two-and-a-half weeks.
Question: How did you get involved in the production?
Paice: I actually worked with our director, Eric Schaeffer, on a reading about a year ago, and I suppose he kept me in mind. And, when Gone with the Wind finished earlier than expected [laughs] in London, I was offered the job.
Question: Tell me about the character you're playing in the new musical.
Paice: I play the mother of a ten-year-old boy, who has never known who his father was or where he comes from. He doesn't know anything about any of his family. The story opens with my character in a suicide attempt — she then meets up with her husband in sort of a limbo, [and he] sends her back to tell her son where he's come from because he deserves to know. It starts in, I would say, 1952 . . . . She starts sending him clues because he's been placed in foster care. She starts sending him to see different people and sending him letters and pages from journals. He slowly starts to unravel his history, where he's from. It goes all the way back to World War I because he learns about his grandparents as well. I don't want to give away too much, but it's got a lot to do with fighter pilots — both his grandfather and his father were fighter pilots.
Paice: It is, and it's kind of interesting the way they're doing it here. All the modern day stuff... or not modern day, but 1952, is [done with] not a lot of color, so that when you do go back into the storytelling, it sort of becomes this M-G-M musical — a lot of bright colors. Maybe not necessarily realistic to 1917, but it aids in the [storytelling] ... a lot of shows have used that device before, but I think it also helps tell our story.
Question: How would you describe the score?
Paice: It's beautiful! It's heartbreaking at times. It's gorgeous, gorgeous music. When I had originally read the script, I loved the script, but then you always want to hear the music as well to decide, "Am I going to take this job?" When they sent me some of the music — it's heartbreaking and beautiful.
Question: I know the production is described as Broadway-aimed or Broadway-bound. Do you know what the status of a possible Broadway run is?
Paice: We've got our Broadway producers and management lined up. . . . We know we're here until the end of September, possibly mid-October if we extend, but I don't yet know anything about Broadway.
Question: You had mentioned working with Eric Schaeffer before. Tell me about his style as a director.
Paice: Working with Eric, it's nice to bring a lot of ideas into the room. He'll try anything, and he'll give you something to try. He's not one of those directors that goes home and has every move figured out, which is really fun actually — to be able to come into the room and be a part of the blocking process and not just told where to go or where to exit. And, he's really flexible. If suddenly you realize you've got to be on stage left, he'll switch a whole scene around. He's just very flexible. He's also very diplomatic. He realizes changes need to be made, cuts need to be made. He's very good at talking with our writers. He's very hands on.
Question: It's such a great company with Florence Lacey, Emily Skinner. . . . Are you all enjoying working together?
Paice: We are. When you go out of town together, I feel like you become more of a tight-knit family, just because you don't all rush off to your own families at home every night. We've been having a great time down here.
Question: Since we've never spoken before, I just want to go back a little bit. Where were you born and raised?
Paice: I was actually born in North Dakota, but I wasn't raised there. I was an Air Force brat. I moved around a lot.
Question: When did you start performing?
Paice: I guess I was in my first community theatre production when I was eight years old. That was in Ohio, where I did most of my growing up.
Question: When do you think you knew that performing would be your career, rather than something you did for fun?
Paice: I would say, not until I was 16. . . . I'm from Dayton, Ohio, which has lots of tours come through. My parents were so great about taking me to all of those. My parents never thought that I'd be in theatre either, but we enjoyed going to the theatre on a Sunday afternoon, so I saw lots and lots of tours. I never realized those people got paid to do what they do. [Laughs.] I didn't realize! There was a great program in Dayton called The Muse Machine, which a lot of us have come up through. It gives you semi-professional training. They do a musical once a year in Dayton. They use kids from all over, from all the schools in the area, and bring in the Broadway sets and oftentimes bring in the Broadway costumes. Our directors are from New York as well, so you sort of get that extra step. I was doing a production of Me and My Girl. I was playing Sally, and our music director caught my mom after a rehearsal one time and said, "You really should let Jill do this." That's what made me start to think about, "Well, maybe I should go to college for this."
Question: Did you end up going to school for performing?
Paice: Yeah, I went to Baldwin-Wallace College in Cleveland, Ohio.
Question: When did you get to New York?
Paice: I got to New York three days after I graduated, in 2002. [Laughs.] I feel like you just have to go, don't you? You have to pack up your life immediately because it just gets scarier and scarier the longer you wait. So, a friend of mine from college and I found a sublet together, and we moved immediately.
Question: You actually made your West End debut before you made your Broadway debut, right?
Paice: Yeah, I did. [Laughs.]
Question: That's got to be fairly rare for an American actor.
Paice: Yeah, it was crazy. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that I would get to go over to the West End. I was just thinking, "Oh, my gosh, can I even get to Broadway?" And then to be sort of plucked and taken over to London .... I couldn't sleep at night. I was so excited to be there.
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| Jill Paice in The Woman in White |
| photo by Paul Kolnik |
Question: How did the casting for Woman in White come about?
Paice: They were having difficulty casting the role in London. Trevor Nunn sent out the word to America. I had just finished Mamma Mia! in Las Vegas. I had just gotten back to the city and... Jim Carnahan was putting people on tape, and by some miracle I ended up in a room with sort of the A-List of Broadway, which I certainly wasn't. I can remember sitting there, and Hunter Foster was in the room and Brian d'Arcy James — all the people that I had gone to see in shows. I felt completely out of my element. They put us on tape. I never expected to hear anything, but I was cast in Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway. I think my agent sent word to London saying, "We're not interested anymore," so then they immediately flew me over. I always feel so arrogant talking about it. [Laughs.] They flew me over to London, which was the thrill of my lifetime, and I sang for Andrew Lloyd Webber and Trevor Nunn and [producer] Sonia Friedman. I remember I was ill, and I wasn't feeling well. After that overnight flight, I was feeling the worst. I called my mom from one of those red phone booths in London, which look cute but actually smell like wee. [Laughs.] They're not so romantic as you think they are. I remember calling her and just saying, "I didn't do very well. I'm so disappointed." And she said, "Well, you've still got Broadway to come back to!" I said, "Oh, I know, but I want to be in London now." I got back to my hotel room, and there was a note under the door asking me to stay to do another session, which I couldn't believe. So I ended up staying. By the second day I got back to my hotel room, and my agent called and said that I had the job.
Question: What was working in London like?
Paice: It was amazing. I mean, to be taken over there... it's like a vacation, isn't it? We were just so well looked after. It was a thrill. There would be moments when I would be in a room with Trevor Nunn and Andrew Lloyd Webber and Michael Crawford and Maria Friedman... I'm 24 years old, thinking, "This isn't happening to me, is it?" My goodness, I couldn't believe it! Once the show opened, there was so much time to go see things and to take advantage of being that close to Europe. It was great. It was a fantastic experience.
Question: And then you came back here, did Woman in White on Broadway, and then Curtains came about.
Paice: And then Curtains, yes. Continued...
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