Alison Fraser
Alison Fraser, the Broadway favorite who received Tony nominations for her performances in Romance/Romance and The Secret Garden and who brought much warmth and humor to the role of stripper Tessie Tura in the Arthur Laurents-directed revival of Gypsy, is currently delighting audiences Off-Broadway in Nora and Delia Ephron's Love, Loss, and What I Wore through Aug. 7. Fraser, whose recent theatrical credits also include the critically acclaimed Charles Busch comedy The Divine Sister and Classic Stage Company's production of David Ives' The School for Lies, is featured in a cast that also boasts Anita Gillette, Aisha de Haas, Marla Maples and Zuzanna Szadkowski at the Westside Theatre. Earlier this week, I had the chance to catch up with Fraser, one of my favorite gals, who spoke about her jam-packed year appearing in three very different productions. That interview follows:

Question: How does the rehearsal process work for Love, Loss…?
Alison Fraser: You get the script with the part assignments I'd say about a week before, so you can go in there familiarized with your material. Then there are two very, very intense days of 10 out of 12 rehearsals, which means you're there from like 10 until 10 at night with a break, and you sit around the table and go over the text, and then at night—I believe on the first day—you get on to the stools and in your costumes. You try on your costumes for the powers that be, and they approve it or say, "No, we have to change. We have to make sure everybody is complimenting everybody else…" It's a very accelerated version of a rehearsal process, but it's no less daunting, and what you have to do is you have to really, really figure out a way how you are going to be a team—how you are going to interact rhythmically and energy wise and volume wise with the four other people on the stage. You have to get to know your cast mates, and my cast mates—Zuzanna and Aisha and Marla and Anita—are all amazing women, so it's been a great pleasure learning how to become a part of that team. And, Karen Carpenter, the director, just does a crack job putting it together.

	Fraser at a party for Love, Loss...
	photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN

Question: What was it like the first night performing with not all that much preparation?
Fraser: Well, the first night in front of an audience, for me, is always the most informative because you realize, "Oh, okay, I've got to wait for that laugh. Oh, okay, I'm losing them here. Oh, okay, why did I lose that? Oh, maybe they can't hear me." As far as I'm concerned, for any show, I really am missing a huge part of my package until the audience is in the room. And, this show, particularly, because it is so audience-friendly: The audience is the sixth character of our play, so until that sixth character is with us, all we can do is really the technical stuff. The really emotional stuff comes when we can share it with the audience.

	Fraser, with Daisy Eagan, in The Secret Garden.
	photo by Bob Marshak

I remember my opening-night dresses for Romance, Romance and Secret Garden—I'll probably never wear them again, but I can't imagine throwing them away, or giving them away, and I was always stunned by the concept of borrowing a dress for the Tony Awards. How could you bear to give it back? How can you bear not to be able to take it out of your closet and go, "Oh my God—that's when I was nominated for a Tony!" I just couldn't bear it. I have a real problem letting go of costumes at the end of a show. I hear that Glenn Close keeps all her costumes from movies, and I totally understand that because for me… once I put those costumes on, that's when I decide, "Oh my God! Now I know who I am!"

I remember when I did Gypsy, Arthur Laurents and I had such a wonderful relationship, but it got peppery at times, and he was clearly not happy in my initial stages of my doing Tessie Tura, which was odd because I didn't even audition for it. He just offered it to me, and then it was like, "Oh my God, I'm not pleasing him." I didn't quite get what he wanted me to do, and then once the great Marty Pakledinaz showed me the costume sketches, I'm like, "Oh! [Laughs.] Now I get it! Now I know what a bumper is. Now I know who Tessie Tura is. Awesome." And from then on it was clear sailing, but clothes to me are definitely emblematic of what is going on underneath. I try to keep telling my son, I'm like, "Nat, you are getting into the job market. Make sure you are not walking in to a job audition with tattered jeans and a t-shirt with stains on it because people do judge you according to what clothes you're wearing." They just do. If you see a woman who shouldn't be wearing a mini-skirt—oh God, that could be me—walking down the street, you go, "Oh, geez. That woman shouldn't be wearing a mini-skirt." If you see this gorgeous little girl walking around like a schlump, you're like, "Woah. Dress up a little bit. Take advantage of your fabulousness." Clothes to me are a real fashion statement. You are making a statement about who you are at that moment, and that doesn't mean you have to be that same person all the time, but you have to know that when you are putting on clothes, you are making a statement. Is this the statement you want to make?

	Fraser in Gypsy.
	photo by Joan Marcus

Question: You mentioned Arthur Laurents before. What shows did you work on together?
Fraser: I worked on Gypsy with him, and that was just an amazing experience to be at the table with Arthur Laurents and Patti LuPone and Boyd Gaines and Laura Benanti. It was just like a master class in acting, and he required that the nine principals were there at every table reading. I thought, "Oh, this is how it's done. This is how you examine text. This is how you get to the core of whatever urgency it is, whatever need your character has. This is how you do it." And, I will forever be grateful to Arthur for giving me that opportunity, and also we were great friends. We shared the death experience together—my husband Rusty had the same cancer doctor that Arthur's partner Tom had, and Rusty passed away before Tom, but Arthur and I really bonded over the death experience, and we became friends before I started working for him. I think he saw me in Gunmetal Blues at George Street Playhouse, which is run by David Saint, who was, of course, Arthur's great and best friend, and now I believe he handles his theatrical estate. I have worked at the George Street many, many times—it's really my theatrical home—and Arthur saw Gunmetal Blues and said, "I'd like you to be my Tessie Tura," and I'm like, "Great, that would be wonderful," and I didn't think twice about it because so often when you are offered these things, it goes away, but I had underestimated the power of Arthur Laurents, and it did indeed happen. After it closed I got a call from David Saint. I was up on the Cape thinking, "I'll never work again," and I think Bernadette Peters had some scheduling conflict, [so] she couldn't do a part in Arthur's largely autobiographical—emotionally autobiographical piece—and what turned out to be his last produced play—Come Back, Come Back Wherever You Are… It's a beautiful, beautiful play about a woman who is trying to get over the loss of her beloved husband, and that was a great experience, not only because I had the honor of originating this part in Arthur's last play and to work at the great George Street Playhouse again, but I also got to be onstage with the incandescent and unbelievably wonderful actress Shirley Knight, who has become a great, great friend. She came to Love, Loss… last night, and I'm like, "Tell me what to do. Tell me what to do." And she was just incredibly supportive and said, "You're doing fine," but she did give me a couple of really good notes. To share that experience with Shirley and Arthur and David was really terrific—it was really, really great.