“Selected Shorts” with Jane Curtin
Posted by: Dan Shaw
Posted on: Thursday, November 18, 2010
Comments
Bold, italics, strong, emphasis, and block quote tags are allowed in comments.
Notify me of follow-up comments?
Comment Guidelines
As we believe it promotes responsibility, civility and neighborliness, we encourage Commenters to use their real names unless there is compelling reason not to. In any case, profanity, personal attacks and unsubstantiated or excessive criticism of people or places will not be tolerated and will be deleted. By completing this form you are agreeing to abide by these rules and all terms laid out in the Rural Intelligence User Agreement.
For questions concerning the use of personally identifiable information, please refer to our Privacy Policy.
Please enter the word you see in the image below:
Full Article
November 20 @ 8 p.m. at The Mahaiwe
Jane Curtin is one of the great comic actreses of our time. As one of the original Not Ready For Prime Time Players on Saturday Night Live, she appeared opposite legends such as Gilda Radner, John Belushi, Eddie Murphy and Dan Ackroyd from 1975 - 1980. Instead of pursuing a film career like many of her colleagues, she continued in television and starred in two acclaimed sitcoms: Kate & Allie and 3rd Rock from the Sun.
When she’s not in Hollywood or on Broadway, she can usually be found at home in Sharon, CT. On Saturday, November 20, she will return to the Mahaiwe (where she did a satiric political revue two years ago on the eve of the presidential election) to read a Dorothy Parker short story as part of NPR’s Selected Shorts series along with Isaiah Shefffer and David Strathairn.
RI: How did you get involved with Selected Shorts?
Isaiah Sheffer called me a long, long time ago. We would listen to it in the car going back and forth to the city. He asked me and I did it, and it’s just the most delightful thing to do. It’s a wonderful thing to read a story—a beautiful or funny or touching story to a group of people who are there to listen, and it’s not about you. It’s about the story and the audience—it’s a communal effort.
RI: How do you prepare for a reading? Do you read it out loud to someone else?
No, no. I read the story to myself. Then I read it out loud to get the rhythms. And if you are really, really good you read it a couple of more times and then you go do it. It’s the same thing you feel when you read to a child. It’s beneficial for both parties. You do it with love and expression,
RI: How often do you do Selected Shorts?
JC: It depends. I’ve done Selected Shorts at The Mount and the Bardavon. If I don’t get the call every year I am hurt, but there are so many actors who love doing Selected Shorts, and you really need to match the right actor with the right story.
RI: You also record books on tape. Is that similar?
JC: It’s a totally different thing. The process of doing a book on tape is a huge endeavor. If it’s a really involved story with tons of charaters they would really love you to differentiate and yet there is always a time constraint. It’s hard.
RI: Do you watch Saturday Night Live?
JC: No—I stopped staying up that late a long time ago. I will see snippets of it on You Tube.
RI: Have you ever been back on SNL?
JC: I went back for some anniversary. I can’t remember the number because they’re have been so many. And I didn’t have a good time. I don’t like repeating myself. I don’t like going back. You know when you go back home you assume the role you had in the family? You become that person again. You can’t get out of it. And because so many years had gone by—it might have been 15—I had completely lost the rhythm and didn’t really enjoy the energy.
RI: What else do you have coming up?
JC: I’m taking time off. My daughter is getting married. I will emerge again in the spring.
RI: How did you end up in northwestern Connecticut?
JC : We had gone to the Vineyard several summers and decided that’s where we wanted to be. We put in an offer on a house and everything was going swimmingly until the owners received a higher offer and we were crushed and we thought, we’ll look somewhere else—ha ha ha ha!
And a friend of ours who had moved to New York from Georgia had never seen New England fall colors and we decided to go away for a weekend, and we ended up in Norfolk. On the drive up, the fall colors kept exploding in front of us and we ended up in Kent. And my husband and I both said, I could live here. And we continued on to Norfolk. And we realized that if we lived here and needed to get into the city, we could as opposed to being on the Vineyard when you can’t. So it just made perfect sense and we found Sharon, which I just think is the loveliest town of the word! We’ve been here for 30 years.
RI: What is it like to have a theatre like The Mahaiwe so close to home?
JC: It’s huge. FIrst of all the renovation they did on that theater is perfect. It’s just a little jewel. And so many different things can be produced there. It’s a wonderful addition to the area. We’ve always had access to the arts, but this is sort of Great Barrington’s imprimatur. It’s just beautiful.
RI: Besides the Mahaiwe, what are your other cultural hot spots?
JC: The jazz brunch put on by the Lakeville/Salisbury fire department. I love that!
