So as I was in the middle of rehearsal today, I overheard from all the way across the room the words nine, trailer, Fergie, fabulous all in one sentence which sent me running all the way across the room to investigate.
My wish then came true, I found out the the trailer to the new Rob Marshall movie, “Nine” was out...now let me tell you that Nine is my favorite musical of ALL TIME. I have a nostalgic story to why. As I actually mentioned a couple of days ago, I went to a theater camp in the Catskills called Stagedoor Manor, where I made lots of dear friends. One of which was this beautiful, troubled girl named Joanna Rappaport...and we became the best of friends instantly for many reasons, but what first drove us together was that we had the same last name (though mine is spelled Rapoport) but we were affectionately called The Two Rapoports (people would sing that to the tune of Two Ladies from Cabaret) anyway we became extremely close when we were both cast in Hair. After that show went up, and was over with, I was cast in Chess as the arbiter and she was cast in Nine as Luisa, the main character's wife...I was of course totally focused on my show, and also I had never seen or heard of Nine so I had no idea what they were going through. Both shows shared the same stage, so we got to see each other's dress rehearsals. The moment those lights went down at the end of Act 1 I was amazed and in tears at such a beautiful show. A show which touches me even more now, when I feel like I have to say goodbye to that immature little boy in me, and have to grow up and man up.
There is a tragic part to this story, and that is that about 5 or so years after I last saw her, I got a call from a mutual friend saying that Joanna had committed suicide. It didn't surprise me as she was a very broken woman, but it still killed me to no end that I wasn't more a part of her life after we had finished camp, she was after all the reason why I went to the performing arts boarding school that I went to.
On a lighter note, while I was in boarding school, during one of our brakes I took the train down to NYC to check out the first preview of the new musical Titanic, which is written by the same man as Nine, Maury Yeston, and I had the honor of meeting him and seeing what is another one of my top ten musicals of all time. I told him all about Stagedoor Manor and how much his musical meant to me, he was very gracious and hoped that I would enjoy his new work, which of course I did. So without further ado here is the trailer to the new movie NINE.
P.S. Can I just say how AMAZING Fergie is sounding!? What an amazing vocal performance, and not sure if many people know that Fergie was once a meth addict herself, which she has spoken about in past interviews so it's not like I'm breaking her anonymity. Anyway, enjoy Nine!
10 years ago
I also knew Joanna Rappaport and my brief period of closeness with her still resonates today. Like yourself, I did not find out about her passing until years after the fact. I was not surprised that she died young but was devastated to hear of her death. I remember watching videos with her of her performances (including Hair) and her talking at length about the theatre camp.
ReplyDeleteIt is good that there are those of us who will never forget her.