Bartender, I’ll have a…Bulleit Manhattan, up.
I’m SURE you remember me from such Factory shows as…Top Shelf …, GIs in Europe, Siskel and Ebert Save Chicago, Ceres (Asst. Director), Bustin’ Out of the Hell, Mop Top Fesitval (understudy), Dead Wrong, The League of Awesome! (co-writer with Sara Sevigny, actor), Easy Six (understudy), ‘Namosaur! (producer), Take the Cake, 30 Days in the Rabbit Hole (co-writer with Sevigny again, actor, Abbie Hoffman Festival). I’m also the Marketing Director, but you probably don’t remember me from that. Because really, who would?
I got involved with the Factory because…I saw Rapid Fire at Abbie Fest and went to the after party (at the former Open Eye space) to say goodbye to Alexis Klossner, whom we went to see in the show. I loved and worked with both Alexis and her husband, Matt, and I had seen Alexis in Toast and Menage A Trailer. At the party, a drunk Allison Cain came up to me and said, “I’m looking for funny women. I was told to come over and talk to you.” We talked, I said I’d be at auditions the following day. Then Allison was gone. I turned to Alexis and asked what the hell I had just agreed to. “You’re gonna love it there,” she said. So. I blame her entirely for all of this.
My current/next gig is…Co-writer with Sara Sevigny (Best Writing Partner, Friend, and Crazyperson you’re ever gonna find on this earth) on Zombie Broads.
I give a shit about our move to Rogers Park because…I have a pulse. Are you kidding me? This is our space. What’s more exciting than that? We will sink or swim by this, and thank God. We deserve this chance, we deserve the work it will take to get this thing up and running. The Rogers Park community has already been so welcoming, it’s hard not to be excited about this. Also, I just moved to Rogers Park, so this is terribly convenient FOR ME.
If I had to force you to listen to 2 albums, they would be…Stevie Wonder, “Songs in the Key of Life” and The Beatles, “Revolver.” I mean, I shouldn’t even have to tell you to do that, and yet here I am. Go. Go now.
My favourite Factory memory is…aaaahhhIcan’tpickone. So I won’t.
In an early rehearsal for Top Shelf…Nick Digilio tells me he’s added a character for me because they wanted a waitress to say the name of the restaurant the other characters were in (Vagetaria). He tells me to improv some specials. “They don’t even know me,” I thought. I had one special that destroyed the room, and we kept it for the show. The rest of the specials were pun wars with Scott OKen. Why did no one warn me about that? WHY? He once ordered “A Sgt. Pepper’s Romaine Hearts Club. Bland.” Another day, he just ordered the prop I was bringing out. “I’ll have giant pine cone.” I almost broke. Bastard.
Sevigny and I doing a very detailed pantomime of boob grabbing for all of “Let Me Roll It” backstage during Top Shelf.
Paul Metreyeon telling me a story about how a hand flew offstage during Among the Dead and “rang my chimes.” That meant hitting him the nuts. I laughed for twenty goddamned minutes.
OKen trying to break me during GIs in Europe and breaking himself instead.
Getting to both make out with and be murdered by my now husband, Scott Pasko. Separate shows.
Watching that same man run and cartwheel in a tux. Also watching him punch Roach in the face for Dead Wrong. Cain and I would fan ourselves after. Why? What is wrong with us?
All of The League of Awesome. All of it.
Learning to roller skate for Siskel and Ebert.
Getting kicked in the face learning a cartwheel for Siskel and Ebert. I learned so much, you guys.
Performing for Roger Ebert. Guess which show.
Bill Kurtis telling me he loved me madly.
Tournis simply saying, “Rubber baby” for no reason during Bustin’ and I lost it. He continued with, “If I knew it was that easy, I’d have stopped trying so hard.”
Watching Ryan Palmer kick his own goddamned foot out from under himself during a drunk rehearsal for GIs in Europe.
Sevigny and the goddamned bunny hop.
Seeing a character all the way from workshop to stage with Take the Cake.
Watching Hotel Aphrodite. Hot damn.
I’m switching drinks, I’ll have a…Revolution Anti-Hero.
