Hi Darling-Street Dwellers,
NOTE: I should warn you that this post is very off-topic, but I thought I should fill you in on where life is pulling me at the moment.
Besides washing paint out of my hair, my other great passion in life is performing! Ultimately that’s what I moved to New York to do. So it is with great excitement that I tell you I will be performing the role of Jerusha Abbott in a beautiful new musical called, Daddy Long Legs. It is based on the hugely popular 1912 novel by Jean Webster and I have completely fallen in love with the heavenly music and romantic story.
We are rehearsing in New York this week and next week, then we will actually be performing the show in Sarasota, Florida for the next two months. So long New York winter!
I have just completed my first week of rehearsals, and since it is only a two-person musical, I don’t leave the stage for the entire 2 hours! I have therefore been busy cramming every line and lyric into my head. This week I learned 14 songs and 40 pages of dialogue… and that’s just ACT I!
The show is written and directed by John Caird, who directed the first ever production of Les Miserables on the West End. And the music is written by Paul Gordon, who’s musical production of Jane Eyre on Broadway saw him nominated for several Tony Awards. He also happened to write the Amy Grant/Peter Cetera classic – Next Time I Fall… YES!
I will continue blogging from Florida about my adventures in design, but I may sneak a few cheeky musical updates in there too for anyone interested.
Also, f you are looking for a great book to read, download Daddy Long Legs for free on Kindle… I am reading it now myself and am loving it. And for those American-dwellers who want to escape the cold winter, buy tickets here and come visit me in Florida!
– Penny xo
P.S Here is a brief summary of the story:
In turn-of-the-century New England, Jerusha Abbott is the “Oldest Orphan in the John Grier Home” until, one day, a mysterious benefactor decides to send her to college to be educated as a writer. Required to write him a letter once a month, she is never to know the benefactor’s identity—so she invents one for him: Daddy Long Legs. Although she knows he will never respond to her letters, she grows more and more fond of this elusive and kindly “old” gentleman and begins to think of him as the grandfather she never had. But soon another relationship begins to develop in Jerusha’s life. Jervis Pendleton is the well-do-do “youngish” uncle of one of Jerusha’s roommates who introduces her to a world of literature, travel and adventure. Through her correspondence with Daddy Long Legs and her growing intimacy with Jervis, Jerusha’s letters chronicle her emergence as a delightfully independent “New American Woman.” Yet there is one startling fact that Jerusha has yet to uncover—a fact that will change her life forever.