Camryn Manheim : The Joe D Show Episode 25

The Joe D Show: Daily News Theater Podcast

Camryn Manheim, known for her Emmy-winning role on “The Practice” and the solo show she wrote and starred in, “Wake Up, I’m Fat,” joins the podcast to talk about her Broadway debut in “Spring Awakening.”

The Deaf West revival of Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater’s musical features hearing and non-hearing actors. Manheim is fluent in American Sign Language, a skill she’s used in her career — like “Law & Order” — and real-life — like when she helped a stranger in a car wreck.

Produced by: Joe Dziemianowicz

Music by: Jerry Korman

Edited by: Frank Posillico

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TRANSCRIPT FOR EPISODE:

Joe Dziemianowicz: Welcome back to the Joe D show. We’re joined today by Camryn Manheim.

Camryn Manheim: Hi Joe, thank you so much for having me on.

JD: Thanks for letting me share your dressing room! We know Camryn from her Emmy-winning work on “The Practice,” as well as other shows like “Ghost Whisperer.” And now she's making her Broadway debut in Deaf West's revival of Spring Awakening. Talk about the production, Camryn, it comes to Broadway from Los Angeles.

CM: It comes via Los Angeles. It was the “little show that could” in downtown LA about a year ago, brought to life by an amazing group of merry pranksters and incredibly talented people. It's headed up by Michael Arden, who I have been a long admirer of from “Big River” and “Hunchback [of Notre Dame].” He’s amazing. But he had a vision for the show that was so spectacular, and since the lay really is about the miscommunication and repression of what it must've been like to live in Germany in the late 1800s, and how without communication between adults and children, all hell can break loose. He added the elements of having deaf children being completely unable to get information about their own physical awakening and it really adds an amazing level. For anyone who has ever seen the show “Spring Awakening,” on its own, it is one of the most brilliant pieces of musical work and book work, and the direction… I saw it on Broadway years ago when Michael Mayer directed it with Lea Michele, Jonathan Groff, and John Gallagher Jr. who have gone onto huge stardom in part due to this amazing musical. And it’s hard to redo it again only six years after it closed on Broadway, that's really unheard of, to redo it. But I think when Ken Davenport saw this production in downtown LA, with a cast of 20 unknown kids, half of them were deaf, half of them were hearing, they came from all around the world to do the show, he said, “You know, this added layer of having deaf kids be so unaware of what was happening in the world added something.” And it got reinvented. It takes nothing away from the show that everyone saw, which was genius, but it’s another reinvention of this play, and it is spectacular. When I saw it, I was jealous that I wasn’t in it. That's always the mark of when I know, I'm like “Grr, why wasn't I in this!” And when it moved to Broadway and they invited me to come, it has been a privilege and honor to work with this cast, this crew, and come with this magical production that no one has ever seen anything like before.

JD: It also comes with your fluency in American Sign Language. I was talking to one of your castmates, Ali Stroker, who says that she's conversational in ASL, meanwhile you're very fluent. Talk to listeners about how that came about, originally it came about because your own failure at Spanish and German, and French in high school, and it's a great message to anyone who thinks that failing can't lead to something very positive.

CM: Well it actually ties in really well in the play, because in the play, one of the boys fails a class and his whole life changes. My parents are Jewish professors and being an academic was very important. My brother went to Harvard and my sister is a teacher and married a department head at Temple University. So it was very important that I went onto school. Just getting a Master's Degree wasn't even enough, you got to get PHD's in my family. But I couldn't pass a language, so I was having trouble getting into college. So I had to go to a community college to pick up language. I went to Cabrillo Community College. I always joke and say in my family that if you go to a community college, you can't be buried in a Jewish cemetery. Like that is such a big deal, it was so offensive to my parents. But truthfully, Cabrillo was an amazing college, and I took sign language. I took two semesters of sign language so that I could go onto university, study theatre, and never look back. I took those two semesters, I went on my merry way, and never signed again. It was four years before I was walking down the street and saw a man get hit by a car. I went to a nearby house and I said please call an ambulance. I waited for the ambulance to come, and when they came, they tried getting his phone number, tried getting his name. And he was looking at them but not speaking. And I don't know, it just hit me all of a sudden that maybe he was deaf. And I walked over and said to the police officer, "Could he be deaf?" And he's like, "Do you know how to ask that?" Well that's something you kind of don't forget, is "Are you deaf?" when you've taken a couple semesters of sign language. So I leaned down and said, "Are you deaf?" And he said "Yes." They're like "Get his number! Get his name!" And that was beyond me at that point, I couldn't do that. But I tried. I did my best, a little charades, a little Pictionary. And then the police officer said, "Will you come to the hospital with us, we don't know what to do." And he asked me so nicely, and I thought "Oh my god. I've never been asked that nicely to get in the back of a police car, I think I should go!" So I went to the hospital, I waited for his family, and I helped in the little way I could. And when I left Santa Cruz where went to college, came to NYU, and the first day I was on my way to NYU to start grad school, I looked up and four doors down from NYU at Waverly Place and Broadway, it said New York Society for the Deaf. I walked in and I took a class, and three years later, I was fluent, and two years later, I was in an interpreter program. I was an interpreter for many years while I was studying to be an actor. Well not studying, but trying to be an actor, working with Tony Kushner and Michael Mayer, and all these amazing artists who are now my peers and have gone on to great success. I was an interpreter, and I kind of credit it with saving my life because being a young actor in this town is not easy, and it's brutal. And I felt like if I didn't have that to feel like I had some value or worth in this community, I might have left or done something totally different. But because of Sign Language and feeling like I mattered a little bit, like what I could do mattered, I stuck it out. I knew sign language all these years, and I hadn't really used it in 10 or so years except teaching my son's kindergarten class how to sign “True Colors.” But when you're fluent in a language, it doesn't really leave you, even if you don't use it for a long time.

JD: Right but ASL has followed you through your TV career too. You're talking about Michael Mayer, Greg Lucas plays, and work with the Atlantic Theatre. You had a working career going as you were doing interpretive. You studied at Juilliard, right?

CM: NYU

JD: Oh I thought you took a class at Julliard.

CM: Oh, I did! Oh my gosh, you are so well-versed! I did take a class in Juilliard, "How to Sign for the Theatre". So I kept it up for sure, and it was really a part of my life. And when this came about, it was a perfect storm. It was New York, my favorite city in the world; I have a love affair with this town. It was Broadway, which I have never actually been on, although I worked as a bartender on Broadway for six years. So I worked in this theatre serving alcohol to people for many years, so I'm familiar with this theatre, but I have never actually been on a Broadway stage, so it is such a thrill for me.

JD: Right. But even as Ellenor Frutt on “The Practice,” she had to use sign language at one point, didn't she? Or on “Law & Order.” It seems that either your resume has your special skills and it says ASL, and it's like "Ah, there's an opportunity". I love the fact that, certainly there are others who can do this, but it seemed like it fit like a glove for you, Camryn.

CM: You are so right, and you reminded me that my first television show was “Law & Order,” where they were looking for an actor who could sign. I didn't have an agent at the time, so they went to that New York Society for the Deaf and said, "Do you have any actors who sign?" So without an agent, I got this great little gig on “Law & Order,” and I think also “New York Undercover” needed an actor who could sign. So it really was this shining light in my life and always has been. It has only produced good for me. And to then come back around and do this incredible piece of work. I feel like I can say this play is astonishing because I saw it before I was in it. You know, it feels wrong to go, "The play is fantastic, come and see it!" But I just saw it two months ago in Los Angeles and it was stunning. And when they asked me to do it, it was like a gift to have seen it and know how much you love it and then to step into it and get to do it.

JD: If you haven't seen it, you probably know a little bit about it. It's about angst, coming-of-age, kids coming into their own sexually and all the turmoil and tumult and sometimes joy that goes with that. You and Marlee Matlin, we're sitting in your dressing room that you share with Oscar winner Marlee Matlin, you're the adult women in the show, correct? Now, are you singing in the show? Tell me how your role works, Camryn.

CM: Well, in the original production, Michael Mayer and Steven Sater decided that one actress would play all the adult women and one actor would play all the adult men because we're kind of these stereotypes, like watching Charlie Brown. We're the ones like, "You can't do it. We're not going tell you". Generally, you would have one woman playing a slew of characters, from teachers to mothers to piano instructors. But, they decided because it's really the right thing to do, was to split those characters and have a deaf woman play as many as possible, which Marlee Matlin is doing gorgeously. I lend her my voice, but it's her performance, and she and I have worked very closely together so that I match exactly her intention. And that's what interpreters do, you really have to take yourself out of the equation and match as closely as you can the intention of the speaker. So it isn't my acting choices that you see before you when Marlee is acting, it's her acting choices and me as closely as possible following her choices. And then I play separate characters that are hearing characters, schoolteachers and mothers, and I sign and speak for myself. You know, sometimes I tell my friends about the show and they're like "Well is it accessible to everyone?" And I say, "It is spectacularly accessible to everyone on many levels. It is an overload, it’s a a feast- of sensations because you're getting it visually, audibly, in every way possible. I can't recall ever being as proud of a production as I am of this. And then the throngs of young people who wait for us! When I was doing theatre, just eight years ago, I did Shakespeare in the Park.

JD: “Romeo and Juliet” opposite Lauren Ambrose, she was the nurse to Juliet. And Oscar Isaac, who has zoomed a little bit, just a little it.

CM: He was a little known Julliard actor, Oscar Isaac, and now I can't even get ahold of him. That's not true. I text him and go, "Your work is amazing!" But you know, a couple people would wait, it was no big deal. But now, we really have to add on 45 minutes to the end of our day because it feels only fair that spent a good amount of money and some people are coming back for their 25th, 30th time, it's crazy. And they come back and buy the posters and the merchandise and we all honor them by taking the time to sign it all and making them feel special, because they are to us.

JD: We were saying that the production of “Romeo and Juliet,” Michael Greif directed, that was the one with the pool, which I liked. That was 2007, and I think that you've said that Broadway was always on your wish list. You're sort of an object lesson, if at first you don't quite succeed in a language, pick this one, and also in patience. Does it feel like your Broadway debut is coming at a particular time, that it's right at the right time?

CM: Well it's funny that you should ask. My mother turned 90 two weeks ago. And for her birthday, in the program, I simply dedicated it to her and said "For my Mom ... Finally!" Because it doesn't matter how much awards I've won, Emmys, Golden Globes, Obies. For my mother who grew up in New York, in the Bronx, coming to Broadway was the biggest thrill of her life, that's all she ever wanted. I wish I could just play for you, and maybe I will play for you, just one of her messages. I get one almost every day from her, what a thrill this day for her and how proud she is. To her, it is an institution that she holds in such high regard, and she passed that along to me, and it is a dream come true. I almost can't even ask for more because I've had so much great fortune, so I feel so lucky. And here is my costar and my roommate Marlee Matlin who just walked into the room, she says hello. Honestly, I wrote her a text the other night that says, "You the best thing that ever happened to me in the show." I loved spending every second with her, she is hilarious, smart, and sassy, and I love it. And she just brought me her book, “I'll Scream Later” by Marlee Matlin because I haven't read it and she was mad at me.

JD: Can we play one of your mother's messages? Is that easy to do?

CM: Yes! There are hundreds of them so let's get a good one. She is so hilarious, I mean she's 90.

JD: I was doing a little homework on you and one of the things that I loved was a show about parents and children connecting. The one point of connection I had with my father was cribbage.

CM: Oh my gosh, mine too.

JD: When I hit that spot in your bio, I started going 15 -2; 15 4.

CM: I do that all the time, sometimes when I see just 2 cards that add up to 15, I'm like "Great cribbage hand." It's so weird how it follows me in my life. I'm a big gamer.

JD: Yea I heard that.

CM: We are going to play poker here during the shows. I just was at Kathy Najimy’s. I play to win. Sometimes I don't get invited back to people's houses because I push them out of the way, I so competitive.

JD: It was David E. Kelley that you challenged to a duel.

CM: Because you are a theater geek, I can tell you this story. I did not have an agent when I got out of NYU. So, I wrote my own one woman show “Wake Up, I'm Fat” because nobody was paying attention to me and I wanted to be heard. And it ended up at the public theatre and I didn't have an agent. My girlfriend, Marsha Gay Harden said, "Who's coming to your opening night?" And I go, "I don't know! I don't know how to invite fancy people to my opening night, I don't have those people." And she goes "Well I'm bringing my manager." And her manager came with her, and she brought a casting director. And they saw my show, and after the show, he said, "Hey do you have any tape, there's a show happening that I think you might be right for." And I had the tape from “Law & Order” and “New York Undercover” playing an interpreter lawyer and he gave that to David Kelly and David didn't think I was right for the role. He kept saying "She seems really conservative and I need someone who's sassy and streetwise." The casting director, Randy Stone said "Well I saw her one woman show and she's not conservative. She is sassy and streetwise. You got to trust me on this." So David agreed to meet me. I went to meet him, but he wasn't into me, you could tell. Can you imagine, you fly to LA to meet a writer, and you sit down and he says, "So, I hear you're an actor?" I mean it was terrible, it was the worst. We had a brief conversation, I think it was maybe four minutes long, it was not particularly positive or felt good. I was standing up to leave and I noticed he had a cribbage board, and like I said, I'm a huge gamer, we played bridge, and cribbage, and everything at our house. And I just said, "Oh, do you play cribbage?" It was the first time he showed any signs of life whatsoever in our entire meeting. He kind of sat up and her said, "I do, but I don't think you want to go there with me." And I just said, "Oh David, I feel like we could have this conversation. I could try to impress you, like I'm obviously doing unsuccessfully right now, and I could beat the sh-- out of you at cribbage at the same time." And he went "Oh no no no, I don't think you understand, I play the computer." And I went, "Oh no no no, I don't think you understand, I play for money. So why don't we screw this audition and I will play you right now for the part." It was great, he got all flustered and he said, "I can't play you right now, I don't have time!" And I said, "I don't know how long it takes you to lose a game in cribbage but I can beat you in six minutes!" It was just this great relationship we started. If you read my book, you can find the rest of the story, it's very exciting.

JD: What's your mother's name?

CM: Silvia Manheim, 90 years old, lefty, liberal, teacher, armchair intellectual, fighter. She is amazing, she is a remarkable woman.

JD: Where does she live now?

CM: Long Beach, California. Alright, let me find something here, I got to find a good one, there's so many.

Sylvia Manheim from voice message: Congratulations Camryn, mazel tov. It's a dream of everybody's lifetime. My god Camryn, you did it, you made it! Congratulations, mazel tov. I am so so proud of you. I am so proud of you. Can you believe it? You're there, on Broadway! Camryn Manheim! Camryn Manheim! If your father could see that, he would be so so proud of you. I am so proud of you. Love you, love you, love you. Bye bye, good luck, good luck, good luck. Bye bye.

JD: That's the part of the show where we start to cry.

CM: We were both sobbing! Nothing feels better than being able to give that kind of gift to your mother, who supported me - my parents- through graduate school, paid for all of my tuition. I came out debt free, always believed in the arts, brought me to plays, museums, and dance concerts. Her three children loved the arts, and it's because she loved it so much.

JD: Right. The great irony is the show is about these fractured and fractious relationships between parents and kids who don't hear. Your mother's been hearing all along.

CM: And also having lost her sight over the last 10 years, she hears better now than she ever did.

JD: Well Camryn Manheim, thanks for coming on the Joe D show, I’m looking forward to seeing the show.

CM: Thanks for tearing up with me, Joe!

End music.