The Birth of a One-Woman Show (OR It took me 10,000 hours - a variation on Instant Expertise)

My dear friend, Lisa Brancaccio (class of ’91), recommended that I read Malcolm Gladwell’s fascinating study, “Outliers: The Story of Success”. The book claims it takes about 10 years, or 10,000 hours, of practice to attain true expertise. Well, there may be great truth in that as my dream of finishing the script and having an off-Broadway run of my one-woman show, How To Be A Good Italian Daughter (In Spite of Myself) is close at hand, exactly ten years after I initially began to present pieces of it to audiences.


Of course, the irony is not lost on me. For someone who prides herself on her improvisational skills as well as spending over a decade teaching variations on “Instant Expertise” during Games and “Kinetics of Literature” classes at NYU’s Grad Acting and at The Actor’s Center, there is some admitted embarrassment at how long it has taken me to come to this point. Thankfully, my experience as a teacher, has taught me great compassion, not only for my students, of course, but for myself as well. And the show’s journey has been a wild ride, with most of the drama happening off-stage.

The most exhilarating part of this journey was early on when I was enrolled in a workshop that allowed me to use all of my various training from Grad Acting, Philippe Gaulier, Andre Gregory, Chris Bayes, Theatre de Complicite, teaching with Jim Calder and improvise in front of people, from a state of being completely and utterly “present” physically. The first question was always, “what’s going on in your body?” My mind rarely interfered and the material coming out of me was miraculous in that I could never have thought of it sitting in front of a computer. Not to mention, the extraordinary atmosphere of “non-judgment” and what I’ve learned to call “compassionate witnesses” in this particular workshop: qualities I have done my best to bring to the classes and workshops I’ve facilitated since then. My intention for this workshop was to create a piece about my mother. However, I allowed myself to be gentle about it, simply filing the idea in the back of my mind, letting myself create whatever wanted to come out of me during each class.



When I had gathered enough outrageous material and a modicum of confidence, I arranged a couple of evenings to share the work I had done up to that point (a mush of characters with a dash of “my mother.”) This was late 1999. I was practicing the philosophy of “schedule it and show up.” Terror doesn’t begin to describe what I felt since I was presenting raw, unfinished work, but those first few self-produced evenings were glorious. People actually showed up and enjoyed themselves. Hallelujah! Filled with a sense of success and accomplishment, I decided to add a little more material and present it again a few months later. The response was extremely encouraging and I knew I wanted to continue. The next challenge was to figure out how to create a unified piece with this collection of characters. My mentor at the time suggested I find the “bowl” in which these creations lived. Frankly, I had no idea where to find this bowl. And then life happened – my marriage fell apart and I went into a tailspin for the next two years. Unbeknownst to me, this challenging time in my life would become the “bowl” I was seeking.

The through-line had presented itself and now there was a piece that actually had a beginning, middle and (sort-of) end. And, the show was fulfilling my original intention in that it was about the relationship between my mother and I. Again, I “scheduled it and showed up”, self-producing a couple more evenings which I had videotaped. Sent the tape to the Culture Project’s “Women’s Center Stage Festival” and was accepted. Later, that same year I saved a theatre’s ass by replacing an actress three days before Opening for a new play about Italian-American women. And since those audiences were perfect for MY piece, I asked if I could use the theatre’s off-nights to present my show and would they plug it to their crowds. DONE. The following year, the same theatre produced a showcase of the show and the NY Times gave it a good review. I thought I was on my way. Now, if you had told me THEN that it would take another six years for this piece to have its off-Broadway run, I would’ve wept and screamed to the gods “Why???!!!” But as the saying goes, “ignorance is bliss” and, frankly, there was a lot more I had to experience in order to reach the point I find myself at now.



The life of this piece has seen:

One divorce, two new play festivals, three directors, the loss of four close friendships, five months of physical therapy, a handful of romantic entanglements, moving approximately sixteen times, forty-eight performances in its various stages, the receiving of countless offers/options to produce the show that mostly fell through, an infinite number of hours speaking to healers from all areas of life, a slew of variations on the title “In Spite of Myself” which, by the by, came out last year as the title of Christopher Plummer’s autobiography.

Earlier this year, I was blessed to have a sold-out, one-night-only performance at Ars Nova (it took over a year of communication with artistic director, Jason Eagan in order to arrange this), in whose audience included one playwright I worked with years ago, who decided that he and his wife wanted to produce my show. From the moment, they signed on, I haven’t lifted a finger – it’s been effortless, so I know it’s the right team.

Yes, there have been a myriad of struggles and disappointments in the past ten years around my show. All of which have contributed to the magic, inspiration and creative collaboration I have also experienced with it. At this moment, I am delighting in looking back and seeing how far this show and I have come. And I think of the generosity of an enormous number of people who have helped to bring this piece to its current threshold and am forever grateful.

My suggestions to those of you thinking of creating a solo piece or any piece for that matter: start now, today, this moment. It would be ideal if you can find or initiate a creative home in which you can share your material – whether you prefer to bring in written material or like to improvise on the spot. Sharing your work in all of its stages is invaluable. Start now regardless of knowing exactly what you want to say. The desire to create is all you need to begin. Start now and allow yourself the freedom to make a huge mess. Practice compassion, practice trust and practice patience. And my final suggestion: Have Fun.

This off-Broadway run may last a month or a year. Either way, the piece is finished, its 10,000 hours have been attained, and I can say, statistically speaking, I have achieved expertise over How To Be A Good Italian Daughter (In Spite of Myself). And what is going on in my body? Joyful Abandon.