Speaker 1: What do you do when life doesn't go according to
Speaker 1: plan that moment you lose a job, or a loved one,
Speaker 1: or even a piece of yourself. I'm Brookshields and this
Speaker 1: is now What, a podcast about pivotal moments as told
Speaker 1: by people.
Speaker 2: Who lived them.
Speaker 1: Each week, I sit down with a guest to talk
Speaker 1: about the times they were knocked off course and what
Speaker 1: they did to move forward. Some stories are funny, others
Speaker 1: are gut wrenching, but all are unapologetically human and remind
Speaker 1: us that every success and every setback is accompanied by
Speaker 1: a choice, and that choice answers one.
Speaker 2: Question, now what. I remember we were doing the twenty
Speaker 2: four Hour Plays.
Speaker 1: We were doing that commercial after nine to eleven, and
Speaker 1: when anybody, when the director or someone will say does
Speaker 1: anybody have any questions, You'd always raise your hands and
Speaker 1: it would be something. And then I'd be like, oh,
Speaker 1: do I have to make fun of her for this?
Speaker 1: Because like maybe I can how you want to make
Speaker 1: fun of her for this one? But you stood out
Speaker 1: and you said excuse me, You're like, uh, do you
Speaker 1: think we could?
Speaker 2: Could we stagger? And that was that was your way
Speaker 2: of saying that.
Speaker 1: Elaine Stretch's hand when she was doing New York, was
Speaker 1: covering your face and you didn't want to say, you're
Speaker 1: covering my face? Yeah, it was Terry mints any and
Speaker 1: you go could we stagger? And then I went, Jerry,
Speaker 1: could Beebe's face not be covered by Elaine's hands? My
Speaker 1: guest today is an icon of the stage m screen.
Speaker 1: BB Newarth is a Tony An Emmy Award winning actor
Speaker 1: and dancer. She's well known on Broadway for her star
Speaker 1: making performances in Sweet Charity and Chicago and One over
Speaker 1: a new legion of fans in shows like Frasier, Madam,
Speaker 1: Secretary Julia, just to name a few. Bib is an
Speaker 1: actor's actor. She's had an enviable career, one built on
Speaker 1: equal parts talent and hard work.
Speaker 2: I have been a.
Speaker 1: Fan of hers for years and was so honored that
Speaker 1: she agreed to share lessons from her incredible journey with me. So,
Speaker 1: without further ado, here is BB Newarth. BB Newarth, thank
Speaker 1: you so much. I'm so happy that you said yes
Speaker 1: to come and join the show and talk to me.
Speaker 2: Where are you right now?
Speaker 3: Happy to be talking to you, Brooke. Every time we
Speaker 3: bump into each other, we have to sit down for
Speaker 3: an hour and talk and catch up. So I'm so
Speaker 3: grateful that you invited me to come on your show.
Speaker 3: I'm down in Greenwich Village where I live in New
Speaker 3: York City.
Speaker 1: By the way, I don't need to have a podcast
Speaker 1: to sit down for an hour and talk with you.
Speaker 2: I will. I will do that anytime you want.
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny because I was to do just
Speaker 1: a little extra research.
Speaker 2: And I didn't know you were born in Newark.
Speaker 3: I was.
Speaker 2: I love that my mother was born in Newark.
Speaker 3: Well, I hate to break it to you, but I
Speaker 3: was in my being in Newark. Was that's where the
Speaker 3: hospital was. But when I was you know, so I
Speaker 3: was born in the hospital in Newark, and then I
Speaker 3: was taken home to Princeton, New Jersey, where I I
Speaker 3: want to get to say, yeah, I'm a Jersey girl.
Speaker 2: That's okay.
Speaker 1: You can get both because you were born there so
Speaker 1: you still have that in your blood. And then you
Speaker 1: were raised in Princeton, which I spent four years or
Speaker 1: the best years of my life there.
Speaker 3: I remember when you were at the school there there
Speaker 3: were people walking around the campus with buttons that said, yes,
Speaker 3: I've seen Brooke.
Speaker 2: I you know, luckily that wore off pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: Like freshman the first part of freshman month was a
Speaker 1: little bit was a little bit tough.
Speaker 3: That must have been awful. It must have been hard
Speaker 3: enough to go to college and then have people staring
Speaker 3: at you well.
Speaker 1: And then the people that you wanted to be friends
Speaker 1: with were trying to give you space. So I had
Speaker 1: no friends, a lot of space that I didn't want,
Speaker 1: and so everybody was trying to be so cool, and
Speaker 1: you know, as an adjustment, I started feeling guilty for
Speaker 1: putting that on anybody. It's hard enough being a freshman.
Speaker 1: But what kind of a young person were you? Personality wise?
Speaker 1: How would you describe who you were? Who was I was?
Speaker 3: Babybould say that I was a bad girl who behaved herself.
Speaker 1: Oh, oh, I'm living I'm living vicariously through you right now.
Speaker 3: Well, I did get arrested for smoking marijuana when I
Speaker 3: was thirteen.
Speaker 2: Now it's like, really walk outside your front door.
Speaker 3: But you know, when you're thirteen and it's nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 3: it's it was different.
Speaker 2: I love that you have a record, Newarth has a record.
Speaker 2: That's what I want. I want as a poster.
Speaker 3: But that's why I say I was a bad girl
Speaker 3: who behaved myself. Was like, yes, I was smoking dope
Speaker 3: when I was in my very early teens, but it's like,
Speaker 3: is that really I wasn't dealing heroin?
Speaker 2: No, No, I'm glad you I know. I'm glad. You
Speaker 2: know where to drop the line.
Speaker 3: Smoking a pipe with some you know, it's like not
Speaker 3: that big a deal.
Speaker 2: But and they held you, They held you there.
Speaker 1: You had to Did you have to call your parents
Speaker 1: or someone to come and get you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, to it. We were at a dance. Remember, oh,
Speaker 3: you'd know this place. It's it's on the it's on
Speaker 3: the campus. There was a dance. There's this There was
Speaker 3: a great high school band, some great musicians at Princeton High.
Speaker 3: They had a band called Fordham Road and they were
Speaker 3: playing and my friend Kathy and I went to this
Speaker 3: dance and then I slipped out to smoke some dope
Speaker 3: with some friends of mine and we were sitting on
Speaker 3: the grass and passing this pipe to other people and
Speaker 3: these flashlights came around and they were cops. And this
Speaker 3: is how stupid I am, Brookshields. I was across the
Speaker 3: street from the cops station.
Speaker 2: And you're a towny sex drugs old Brook.
Speaker 3: It was sex, drugs, rock and roll.
Speaker 1: Oh god, yes, no, but what but like being a
Speaker 1: student being a towny, I say, I always was worried
Speaker 1: that like they hated us, that they liked hated the
Speaker 1: college kids.
Speaker 3: I had no consciousness of that. I wasn't.
Speaker 2: Oh that's good.
Speaker 3: As you can see from talking to me, I really
Speaker 3: didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 2: You were stone. What did you care?
Speaker 3: I was smoking pot, I was my class. That's all
Speaker 3: I cared about, boy pot and ballet?
Speaker 2: Did you always know that you wanted to dance? Like?
Speaker 2: Oh you did?
Speaker 3: Actually? Actually, when I was funny you mentioned Newark Because
Speaker 3: when I was born, the doctor pulled me from my
Speaker 3: mother and said, oh, she's a dancer.
Speaker 2: Really, yes, Oh, come on, that's amazing.
Speaker 3: I asked for ballet classes when I was four. My
Speaker 3: mother had me wait until I was five because of
Speaker 3: five year old's attention span is a little bit longer
Speaker 3: than a four year old's. And so I started dancing
Speaker 3: when I was five at Princeton Ballet and I danced
Speaker 3: in this, you know, non professional ballet company all through
Speaker 3: high school, and then I went to Juilliard in the
Speaker 3: dance department, and then I quit Juilliard in the dance
Speaker 3: department after one year, and then I just started working.
Speaker 3: But you know, when I say to you, I'm a
Speaker 3: dancer first, it's sort of I sort of feel like
Speaker 3: that's the animal that I am. You know that some
Speaker 3: people are jocks, that is that's what they are, that
Speaker 3: is their true nature. So I feel like when I say, well,
Speaker 3: I'm a dancer first, it's because I that's the animal
Speaker 3: that I am. And so you know, i might be
Speaker 3: doing a television show where I'm talking and listening, but
Speaker 3: I always feel like just because I'm not dancing doesn't
Speaker 3: mean I'm not dancing. I think that's why it's always
Speaker 3: a little bit awkward when I don't get to dance
Speaker 3: in something. I feel a little bit Okay, I'm doing
Speaker 3: it inside, but it might not be showing outside.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But also there's a there's a lyricism to it, you know,
Speaker 1: to all of it, to the rhythm of your voice,
Speaker 1: to the sort of flow that happens when you're.
Speaker 2: In a part.
Speaker 1: You know, I mean, there's it's not as if I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but whenever I've watched you on stage
Speaker 1: or off, there's no sort of just a beginning, middle,
Speaker 1: and an end. When you first see you, you think
Speaker 1: that there's something that you might have missed from before.
Speaker 1: But then when you last see you, for that moment,
Speaker 1: you're still thinking of the continuation of the.
Speaker 2: Piece of music or the whatever.
Speaker 1: And I know that sounds all kind of lofty, but
Speaker 1: there's something very beautiful and about the physicality, and it's
Speaker 1: just in your body, you know, And you can tell that.
Speaker 3: Brook. That's one of the nicest things anybody's ever said
Speaker 3: to me. I Am, that is so beautiful. I'm so
Speaker 3: grateful that you said that. That is a beautiful observation
Speaker 3: and that's really moving.
Speaker 2: Thank you, well, thank you. Listen.
Speaker 1: I've had the the fear and the distinct honor of
Speaker 1: actually having to step into your shoes on Broadway, and
Speaker 1: that was daunting for me to do when you were
Speaker 1: leaving Adam's family, and then to sort of be this
Speaker 1: first replacement.
Speaker 2: There's so much pressure in it.
Speaker 1: And I was very acutely aware of that, and it
Speaker 1: was it was not only an honor, but it was
Speaker 1: also I thought, God, I want to live up to
Speaker 1: It's different because you don't want to compare, but you
Speaker 1: also want to make sure that you honor the person
Speaker 1: who performed prior.
Speaker 2: It's a really.
Speaker 3: Interesting position to be in, and I have been in
Speaker 3: it myself. I replaced, I've replaced. I played the role
Speaker 3: of Spider Woman in Kiss of the Spider Woman after
Speaker 3: Cheea Rivera did. No one can replace Cheeta Rivera, you know,
Speaker 3: she was playing in Spider Woman, and then the next
Speaker 3: person to play that part was me. So I can't
Speaker 3: say that I replaced her, but I'd say I played
Speaker 3: the part next. And so I understand the conundrum of
Speaker 3: stepping into a role that is created by somebody else,
Speaker 3: doesn't matter who it is. Really, It's a very good
Speaker 3: lesson in humility, but also in being true to yourself
Speaker 3: and recognizing what you have. You know, my Morticia is
Speaker 3: not your mortician. Your Morticio is not mine. But the
Speaker 3: role has been created and it happened to be created
Speaker 3: by me. So now you have to come in and go, Okay,
Speaker 3: what did she create? And how can I be true
Speaker 3: to myself in doing that? Because the minute you stop
Speaker 3: being true to yourself in any part, in any walk
Speaker 3: of life, you're sunk.
Speaker 2: Why did you leave Julliard after a year.
Speaker 3: I wanted to work. I was just you know, when
Speaker 3: I graduated, you know, as I was looking to see
Speaker 3: if I Princeton I would let me graduate in school,
Speaker 3: I was like, am I going to get out of here?
Speaker 3: I don't know. I you know, I said I didn't
Speaker 3: want to go to college. I just wanted to go
Speaker 3: to New York and dance. And my parents said, you
Speaker 3: have to go to college. I said, I don't want
Speaker 3: to go to college. I said, you have to go
Speaker 3: to college. I said, okay. So in nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 3: when I graduated high school, there were two schools pretty
Speaker 3: much for that, and that was Sunni at Purchase and
Speaker 3: there was Juilliard, and so I auditioned for both and
Speaker 3: I got into both. And I chose Juilliard because it
Speaker 3: was in New York City. And then I just wanted
Speaker 3: to start working. I wanted to start auditioning, you know,
Speaker 3: I was eighteen. I was let me get going. And
Speaker 3: so my parents, who are really creative, brilliant people, said, okay,
Speaker 3: create your own college within the city. Find yourself some
Speaker 3: acting classes and voice classes and dance classes and all that,
Speaker 3: and we will support you in that, and that will
Speaker 3: be the college that you create in the city. So
Speaker 3: I did that for about It was almost a year
Speaker 3: when I got my first job.
Speaker 1: That's a big decision, though, to make as of a
Speaker 1: young person.
Speaker 3: Oh, I never even a whisper of a shadow of
Speaker 3: a doubt in my mind. It was just let me
Speaker 3: get started.
Speaker 2: How did you get your first job?
Speaker 3: I went to open calls and I went to you know,
Speaker 3: you get the backstage or on Thursdays show business and
Speaker 3: backstage came out and you get them and you go
Speaker 3: through and look at all where the auditions were and
Speaker 3: what has open calls? And I went to the the
Speaker 3: first open call I think I went to for chorus line.
Speaker 3: I was still eighteen, and I got cut right away.
Speaker 3: I was really, really, really too young. And then I went,
Speaker 3: I don't know, six months later and I got a
Speaker 3: little further in the audition, and then I remember it
Speaker 3: was another few months later. It said only people who
Speaker 3: have not previously auditioned apply, and I went, well, screw that,
Speaker 3: I'm glad.
Speaker 2: I'm just going to pretend I didn't yeah going.
Speaker 3: And so I went, And that's that's the one. I
Speaker 3: got called back and called back and called back and
Speaker 3: called back, and that's when they finally hired me. And
Speaker 3: I was nineteen nineteen.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, and then you win a Tony by
Speaker 2: the time you're.
Speaker 3: Twenty seven, twenty seven. The first one was twenty seven.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the first one. Doesn't that feel good? The first one?
Speaker 2: The first of.
Speaker 1: Wait, if you were smoking again, I would just do
Speaker 1: a little inhale, then go for the first one, the
Speaker 1: first one, and then you'd ask.
Speaker 3: I was just trying to be accurate. I'm sorry, Oh.
Speaker 2: I love it. No, please, that's my bad. But my god,
Speaker 2: So what did that feel like?
Speaker 3: Out of body? Just completely so real and out of body?
Speaker 3: And that was the first time I think I ever
Speaker 3: had to be on stage as myself. I have never
Speaker 3: ever had a moment of stage fright in my life.
Speaker 3: But when they called my name and I had to
Speaker 3: go on stage and it was me out there, Oh man,
Speaker 3: I froze. I didn't know what I it was.
Speaker 1: But that's a real thing, and I think just it's
Speaker 1: kind of very metaphor people, but I do really think
Speaker 1: that that's a that's a very important piece of it.
Speaker 1: So that's stage. And then you book a job on
Speaker 1: Cheers as Lilith. How do you get from because that's
Speaker 1: la right?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what happened. I when we did the
Speaker 3: revival of Sweet Charity. We rehearsed and opened that in
Speaker 3: La at the Drothy Chandler, and then we did it
Speaker 3: in San Francisco, and then we had four months off
Speaker 3: before we rehearsed for Broadway. And during those four months,
Speaker 3: that was so that Debbie Allen, our star, would finish
Speaker 3: her series of Fame. And so during those four months,
Speaker 3: I hung out in LA and I got a couple
Speaker 3: of auditions for some walk on parts and some television shows,
Speaker 3: because that's sort of what you do, I guess, and
Speaker 3: I got a couple of walk on lines and one
Speaker 3: of them was, you know, this little scene on Cheers.
Speaker 3: So that's all it was. It was just one of those,
Speaker 3: you know jobs. And then so I did that, and
Speaker 3: then I went home to New York and I started
Speaker 3: up Sweet Charity on Broadway. And then Cheers called and
Speaker 3: they say, can you come back and do that part again?
Speaker 3: And I went, oh, and I had, like.
Speaker 2: I can only do it on a Monday, right, They.
Speaker 3: Had, like I like to say, it's like snow days.
Speaker 3: Like I could in my contract for Sweet Charity, I
Speaker 3: could walk a week to do a TV show, but
Speaker 3: I had to add that week to the end of
Speaker 3: my contract.
Speaker 1: So you're doing Sweet Charity for like nine more years.
Speaker 3: Because you keep but no. So I took off a
Speaker 3: week and I went out to LA and I did
Speaker 3: another Cheers episode, and then I came back and I
Speaker 3: did that like maybe twice. And I remember sitting backstage
Speaker 3: with Michael Rupert, who was playing Oscar. He said, what
Speaker 3: are you going to do when they asked you to
Speaker 3: be on Cheers full time? I said, that's not going
Speaker 3: to happen. They're not going to ask me to do that.
Speaker 2: So what happened when they did?
Speaker 3: So? They did, and I got the advice of the
Speaker 3: four people that I trusted most, that is Mommy, daddyk Yes,
Speaker 3: Bob Fosse, and Gwen Verdon.
Speaker 2: Come on, it's funny. Those are my people too, Babe,
Speaker 2: her parents, Bob.
Speaker 3: So I was in a position, you know that where
Speaker 3: I was working, you know, I actually could ask ask
Speaker 3: them all and they all gave me brilliant advice and
Speaker 3: made me feel very good about a decision to take
Speaker 3: the job, because I really I had never seen myself
Speaker 3: doing television. I had never saw that for myself. I
Speaker 3: never thought I'm going to do this, and I'm gonna
Speaker 3: do television. I just thought, I'm just going to dance
Speaker 3: on Broadway forever.
Speaker 1: And the accolades that you got and the you know
Speaker 1: awards that you got doing that, that was that. You know,
Speaker 1: it was such an important period of time to did
Speaker 1: you so were you?
Speaker 2: Were you married then?
Speaker 3: Very badly?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Oh well we all have to have a starter marriage.
Speaker 2: Oh I have one of those.
Speaker 3: Did it happen?
Speaker 2: But you were married early early, right twenty five?
Speaker 3: It was a it was that was no good? That
Speaker 3: was it was interesting. I was doing the best show
Speaker 3: on television. I mean, it was getting awards for you know,
Speaker 3: best comedy series, winning this, Emmy awards for this, and
Speaker 3: I'm getting all this stuff and I'm doing really well
Speaker 3: well in that an absolutely miserable marriage. It was the
Speaker 3: kind of thing where I had to go, that's it,
Speaker 3: it's over, and get out of there.
Speaker 1: But that, I mean, that takes a lot of guts
Speaker 1: and thank God that you are able to make that
Speaker 1: decision for yourself. I mean, you know, it's terrifying, but
Speaker 1: you knew you had to. Did that experience sort of
Speaker 1: shape you in sort of how you went forward into
Speaker 1: your career and your life after that? Knowing that you
Speaker 1: made that decision for yourself.
Speaker 3: I don't think it had anything to do with career,
Speaker 3: because career and creativity has always been completely separate from
Speaker 3: romantic life. So I don't think anything that happened, you know,
Speaker 3: a miserable marriage and a horrible divorce didn't change the
Speaker 3: way I approached the performing arts or my life in
Speaker 3: it right, But I would say that I was very
Speaker 3: nervous about getting involved. I'm not getting married again. Then
Speaker 3: it was like, okay, I'm not going to live with
Speaker 3: anyone again. It was like, okay, you can live across
Speaker 3: the street from me.
Speaker 2: But were there were there were there things that you
Speaker 2: felt like you had to sacrifice in your personal life
Speaker 2: to keep that career going at the trajectory it was on.
Speaker 3: I don't know. Maybe I did, but I wasn't conscious
Speaker 3: of it. I don't know. I've never been, like I
Speaker 3: kind of said earlier, I've never been a person who
Speaker 3: plans things out. I've never been a schemer. I've never
Speaker 3: been I like to say I'm not ambitious, because I
Speaker 3: think of ambition as somebody sitting down with a notebook
Speaker 3: and going, Okay, here's what I'm going to do, right,
Speaker 3: and then in five years, I'm going to do this
Speaker 3: and if I meet this person, if I do this.
Speaker 3: I've never been like that. It's been it's always been like,
Speaker 3: I really want to get a job. This is what
Speaker 3: I want to do. I want to dance on Broadway
Speaker 3: and anything that I saw that crossed my path that
Speaker 3: was an audition, you know, I would go to in
Speaker 3: order to do that.
Speaker 1: There's something about dance that I think is I know
Speaker 1: what you mean about the word ambition, but I always
Speaker 1: think of it in terms of a striving.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: It's that you strive to keep getting better at your craft,
Speaker 1: and you dance even when it hurts, and you keep
Speaker 1: going when you don't think you can go anymore. And
Speaker 1: to me, that's a form of ambition. But it's really
Speaker 1: just a perseverance and a striving and that can that
Speaker 1: can take a toll on a person physically. I mean,
Speaker 1: did you find that your commitment to sort of to
Speaker 1: dancing took a toll on your body physically?
Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah, I'm a beat uple. Every time I go
Speaker 3: to like, let's say I go to a new massage
Speaker 3: therapist and they go, is there anything bothering you right now?
Speaker 3: I go Okay, here we go. I am a beat
Speaker 3: up old dancer. I had two hip replacements, one when
Speaker 3: I was forty seven and the other when I was
Speaker 3: forty nine.
Speaker 2: And then did you do Chicago again after after them?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Okay, come on, you're so you get two hip replacements,
Speaker 1: then you go back into Fossy, which is all about
Speaker 1: twisting it all and all of that. Was that the
Speaker 1: best thing you could have ever done?
Speaker 2: I mean it like, did it.
Speaker 3: Make you see? No?
Speaker 2: I think it was. Maybe.
Speaker 1: Honestly, I think that might have been the best thing
Speaker 1: for a dancer to get hip replacements and then go
Speaker 1: do Fossy and know you can do it.
Speaker 3: Well, yes, I mean psychologically emotionally it was extremely important.
Speaker 3: But I'll tell you I was still I was. I was.
Speaker 3: I was definitely off crutches. I may or may not
Speaker 3: have still had a cane when I went to Barry
Speaker 3: Weissler and said, I'd like to play Roxy? What do
Speaker 3: you think of that? So I played Roxy six months
Speaker 3: after I had my first hip replacement.
Speaker 2: What was your recovery process like for your hips?
Speaker 3: Well, like I say, this was this was a while ago,
Speaker 3: and they had the way they do it now. You
Speaker 3: are up and out and back and running around when
Speaker 3: I was doing it. And it was when I said
Speaker 3: I was in ballet class eight weeks after my hip replacement,
Speaker 3: jaws would drop. But now people I actually said that
Speaker 3: to someone, They said, really that long.
Speaker 2: I was like, wow, wow.
Speaker 1: But you also went in very fit and very and
Speaker 1: your muscle memory as a dancer is that? Was it
Speaker 1: after that that you started the Dancer's Resource Program.
Speaker 3: I started the Dancer's Resource in between my two hip replacements. Actually,
Speaker 3: so you.
Speaker 1: Had one and then the other. Okay, you didn't get
Speaker 1: them both done at this No, okay, there.
Speaker 3: Was two years in between.
Speaker 1: My right one was okay, so you start the Dancer's
Speaker 1: Resource Program.
Speaker 2: It's very important. I want you to have a chance
Speaker 2: to talk about that.
Speaker 3: Thank you. Well. I started the Dancers Resource after I'd
Speaker 3: been through the emotional and physical trauma really of the
Speaker 3: arthritis that i'd had in my hip and then the
Speaker 3: subsequent replacement, and I had recovered and I was doing fine,
Speaker 3: I was dancing again, but I recognized that this is
Speaker 3: it's traumatic. And I had a friend who was having
Speaker 3: a real, really really hard time with her hip and
Speaker 3: with her surgeries, and I thought, I wish you had
Speaker 3: someone to talk to about this, a therapist to talk to,
Speaker 3: or someone to talk to. And so I was on
Speaker 3: the board of trustees at the Actor's Fund and the
Speaker 3: Actor's Fund which is a human services organization for everyone
Speaker 3: in show business and the performing arts, and in fact
Speaker 3: now it's called the Entertainment Community Fund. So I was
Speaker 3: on the board of trustees and I said, can we
Speaker 3: have a program for dancers? I said, it should be
Speaker 3: like group therapy for injured dancers, but I'll call it
Speaker 3: Injured Dancers Anonymous. It has to be private. No one
Speaker 3: can know that. You know, there is so much stigma
Speaker 3: around being injured. If you're a dancer and you have
Speaker 3: to be so secretive about it. You cannot show weakness.
Speaker 2: Because you'll be replaced, or you'll because there's someone right
Speaker 2: behind you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's dancers are on the bottom of the food
Speaker 3: chain in the performing arts. We are the least respected,
Speaker 3: We get paid less than everybody else.
Speaker 2: There's no physical therapy. It's maybe five minutes a week.
Speaker 3: It's really it's just we need a little bit of
Speaker 3: extra help. And so we brought the idea to the
Speaker 3: board and the board said yes, and bless the Fund
Speaker 3: for saying yes. So Now, there is something called the
Speaker 3: Dancers Resource at the Entertainment Community Fund, and it's a
Speaker 3: portal to the rest of the services that the Fund
Speaker 3: has to offer. But it also has these groups where
Speaker 3: you can go for eight weeks of sessions and sit
Speaker 3: with other dancers with a social worker who is a
Speaker 3: dedicated social worker, and it's completely confidential. And I'm so
Speaker 3: so pleased that it's up and going and the Fund
Speaker 3: is running it so beautifully.
Speaker 1: Well, you're making a huge difference in many a dancer's lives.
Speaker 1: I call the show now What because it's about the
Speaker 1: pivotal moments in life that sort of force us to
Speaker 1: refocus and keep going. What do you think a big
Speaker 1: now what moment was for you?
Speaker 3: I don't know. I mean, I don't think. I consciously
Speaker 3: say now what do I do? I just go, Hey,
Speaker 3: it looks like I need a lawyer, but I left
Speaker 3: this miserable relationship. I'd better get a lawyer, you know,
Speaker 3: I owned now what?
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 1: I'm always I'm always looking to learn from experiences. I mind,
Speaker 1: now what's are all the time? Too? And I just
Speaker 1: go oh, and then I pivot. I don't ever wallow
Speaker 1: in the in the the inactivity. It's just not the
Speaker 1: way I'm programmed. But I'm curious if there was an
Speaker 1: experience that taught you something. I mean, do you ever
Speaker 1: read reviews? I didn't ask you that question.
Speaker 3: Oh that's the no. I don't read reviews, and I
Speaker 3: don't read reviews because Bob taught me not to read reviews.
Speaker 3: My family and a friend of mine and I were
Speaker 3: leaving the opening night party for Sweet Charity and we
Speaker 3: bumped into Bob and was coming back into the ballroom
Speaker 3: and we were on our way out, and goes, where
Speaker 3: are you going? Where you're going? And I'm go, oh,
Speaker 3: we're going to go home. We're going to go read
Speaker 3: the reviews. He goes, don't don't do that. Don't read
Speaker 3: the reviews. Don't read the reviews.
Speaker 2: Did he say why?
Speaker 3: He didn't say it. That's all they said, don't read
Speaker 3: the reviews. And he said it a couple of times.
Speaker 3: And we left, and I had this little thing in
Speaker 3: my mind, you know, you know, with my family and
Speaker 3: all happy and la la la la lab, but there
Speaker 3: is something in the back I you know, I try
Speaker 3: to keep Bob's voice in the back of my mind.
Speaker 3: Certainly when I'm working in the performing arts, but that
Speaker 3: was deeply lodge. It was right there, and so we
Speaker 3: went and got the papers, and as I read the reviews,
Speaker 3: I had Bob's voice and that lesson with me. As
Speaker 3: I read the reviews, and I went right, they don't
Speaker 3: mean anything. There is no reason to read a review.
Speaker 3: I believe this is me and everybody's a different artist
Speaker 3: and they have to do what they have to do.
Speaker 3: But for me, I have I said that way. I
Speaker 3: have no reason to read a review. It does no good,
Speaker 3: It can only harm me. What matters when I do
Speaker 3: a show or perform is how I feel, how my
Speaker 3: colleagues feel, how the audience in that moment feels, and
Speaker 3: that's all that matters. You know, with respect to critics,
Speaker 3: there are good ones or bad ones, but that's one
Speaker 3: person coming in to do their job in their life,
Speaker 3: to write something for their work. It has nothing to
Speaker 3: do with me and my life and my work.
Speaker 1: I don't read reviews either, because I read them years
Speaker 1: and years back, and I read them because I wanted approval,
Speaker 1: and I wanted a pat on my back and I
Speaker 1: wanted to be told I was doing a good job.
Speaker 1: And it has had nothing to do with what I
Speaker 1: was going to do the next night, the next show,
Speaker 1: And if someone said I sucked, was I going to
Speaker 1: go out on stage and just stand there and say,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I suck.
Speaker 2: I can't give you a show that you just paid for.
Speaker 3: Well, what we do is, you know, if you're an
Speaker 3: artist or a creative person or a crafts person, it
Speaker 3: is a at least for me, it is a deeply,
Speaker 3: deeply personal, very profound experience. It is so personal it
Speaker 3: has nothing to do with anybody else I work with
Speaker 3: and share that with my colleagues. I share it with
Speaker 3: my choreographer, director, music director, and we make something and
Speaker 3: it is always very very deep and profound and personal
Speaker 3: to me. To have somebody come in and, you know,
Speaker 3: to go, oh, let's see what this stranger says about me,
Speaker 3: it just doesn't make sense. But it wasn't until I
Speaker 3: had the voice of an artist who I trusted completely,
Speaker 3: Bob Fosse. I completely trusted him, and I trusted that
Speaker 3: he saw me and who I was as a performer
Speaker 3: that when he said that, I just he said jump.
Speaker 3: I said how high? I know that will be best
Speaker 3: for me. So when he says don't read reviews. It's
Speaker 3: because it's the right thing to not do.
Speaker 1: That was a wildly talented bb Newarth. If you liked
Speaker 1: our interview, check out her work in Julia. It's streaming
Speaker 1: now on HBO mex That's it for us today.
Speaker 2: Talk to you next week.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: What with Burkeshields is a production of iHeartRadio. Our lead
Speaker 1: producer and wonderful showrunner is Julia Weaver. Additional research and
Speaker 1: editing by Darby Masters and Abu Zafar. Our executive producer
Speaker 1: is Christina Everett. The show is mixed by Vahid Fraser.