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What Is ALL THE NATALIE PORTMANS All About? The Company Explains!
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Oct 29, 2022
All The Natalie Portmans- a fantastical new coming-of-age comedy written by C.A. Johnson (MCC debut) and directed by Kate Whoriskey (Sweat, Ruined)- is now in rehearsals. The cast features Joshua Boone, Montego Glover, Elise Kibler, Renika Williams and Kara Young. All The Natalie Portmans begins performances on Thursday, February 6th, 2020 in the Susan andamp; Ronald Frankel Theater at The Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space ,511 West 52nd Street with official opening night set for Monday, February 24th. What's the show all about?
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Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World
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Up next for MCC Theater is CA Johnson's new play All the Natalie Portman's
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Under the direction of Kate Warisky, it begins performances on February 6th
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and we drop by during a break in rehearsal to meet the company. All the Natalie Portman's is about a 16-year-old girl living in Washington, D.C.
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who is trying to dream up her life beyond her house. She is, her family's poor, and that reality comes
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with some downers, but her dreams are big. And this play is about whether or not those dreams are possible
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and if she can really grab for them. I am Keana, and I am a young girl who is trying to navigate her world
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Chantelle is 17. She is Keanu's childhood best friend, and she is trying to find her place where she fits
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And you know how when you're a teenager and you don't really have the language yet for what you want
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That's what she's trying to figure out. What do I want? Who do I want to be
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I play Ovetta. She is a mother. She is unlike any woman I ever played before She got a lot of depth a lot of conflict and there a lot of active energy around her and about her situation in life Yeah I play Samuel in the show
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That's Keanu's brother, character's brother. And he wears many hats, you know
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He has to somewhat be the father and the brother. And, you know, just to step in and fill in
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and take care of the family in the absence of their father. Well, I play Natalie Portman, all of them, for the rest of them
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record and Natalie Portman she is this sort of imaginary friend of our lead character Keanu and she sort of
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comes in and out throughout the play but in order to know why and how you're going to
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have to come and see it. Casting is so important. I've seen it
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break the show and I know it does and I think that
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one thing that Kate and I share is we have gut reactions you know, well that's it
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that's not it and that's not about you know whether or not somebody's good it's whether or not they're
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write for the world, write for the way that I write, the way that my words need to sound in a room
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And everybody in this cast was somebody who had that quality. And so far it's been so
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amazing because we all feel free to be ourselves and to do the really really hard work of crafting these characters And they all superstars so it been wonderful When I read this the first time I thought oh my gosh this is such a marriage of so many wonderful things about socialization of women about how women live their lives about what society says and does around the shaping of spirits and souls and how you struggle with what it is you need out of life what makes you happy
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It just brings so true to me. It touched the deepest part of my psyche in the most visceral way
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I can't describe to you. Like the first time that I read it, I was like, who is this writer
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Who is this person? It made me feel like I was represented on the page
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It made me feel like someone had a voice for the little brown girl that I was, and that's still inside of me
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It's fun to work with actors who you can tell care about the work. No slight to other actors
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It's interesting and it's great when it's not just a job. It's like, yo, we love this piece
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Let's see what we can create together. First of all, I'm such a fan of MCC and have been like workshopping with them for years
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so it really exciting to finally be able to do a show here And to be in this new space which really does feel like a home for artists And I love working with Kate We a ski and CA Johnson are friends And so it exciting to
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enter the rehearsal room with friends. I write plays that are really from the gut and that are
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often pulling from my personal experience in some big ways. And so I need rehearsal rooms where I feel
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like I can be open. And what's lovely is from the minute I met Kate, I knew I could be. And I knew
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that the room would have room for that and that Kate would also be doing a similar thing
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and that we could always mold our experiences into how we built the work
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and that that's all there is and that the performers could do the same. And if we did that, we'd probably find something more true
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For me, I think C.A. has got a remarkable ability to handle the text. I think with a young writer
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sometimes they won't know what they're writing or they're concerned about what they're writing, but if we look at a moment
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and we're like, huh, there's something wrong here. She's like, got it. And she solves it really quickly and she knows where it's going
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So she has confidence and control and she also has the ability to
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now that she has actors and she's really writing for a group of people, she can tailor it
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So there's something really beautiful about having that ability in a young writer
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