ActorQuest - Kristin Huffman Goes Inside 'Company' 30

In November, Kristin Huffman made her Broadway debut as Sarah (flute, piccolo and sax) in John Doyle's production of Company.  The actress, with a new series of tales that go inside the making of Company from an actor's perspective, starting at the Cincinnati Playhouse and on to New York, continues her stories about a 15-year career that has led her to the door of the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.

This is the thirtieth story about the "Making of Company."  If you haven't read the others, go back and do so and then rejoin us here!

THIRTY:  SOUL MATE

You don't realize how much you care for someone until they almost leave you.  Last week I almost lost my soul mate.  My flute. "Inanimate", you may say but still connected to me in a very special way.   It's one of my longest relationships. Twenty some years I have had that flute.  Silver with a gold mouth plate, open holed, French, handmade and by now, quite expensive. 

It's not the cost, however, that makes me treasure it.  It is the fact that we have made music together for so long.  It is the fact that I grew immensely as a musician on that instrument.  If there was ever a fire in my house, I have told my husband that he is on his own because I am saving my flute. 

Last week, during the number Side By Side one of the actors accidentally knocked my flute off the piano.  I had my back turned but heard it fall – along with it my heart. I know that sounds dramatic, but I heard it bang on the floor and I couldn't wait to turn around and see what had happened.  Someone picked it up off the floor and put it back on the piano and the number just kept going. Still, I heard the audience gasp.  When I finally picked it back up off the piano to take to my seat after the number I found that the foot joint had fallen off.   I whispered an obscenity.  Keith was next to me and said I was shaking and kept asking if I was ok.  All I could do was look at it and try not to cry. 

I had no idea if it would play for me in the next song.  So during a time when I was seated in the back I tried some keys.  I know the rest of my cast was aware that I was frantic but they said I didn't show it.  The person who knocked it off the piano felt badly, but I must admit I was upset with that person for a good hour after the incident.  I kept telling myself that this is just a hunk of metal. It was insured and could be fixed. I still felt like a family member had been in a car wreck. It did manage to play for me in the next song even though I had to hold it very carefully so the foot joint wouldn't fall off again. 

The next day, when I took it to the repairman he looked at this beautiful instrument and when I told him how it had gotten knocked off the piano he said "And at what point did your heart stop?"  He understood. Most of my cast mates also understand the way I feel about my baby because they feel that way about their instruments.  Some suggested that I might want to use another cheaper instrument instead of it to avoid that in the future.   To me that was like saying "I am going to make my Broadway debut using one of my high school kid's voices, just to save the stress on my own".  This flute is an extension of my voice and I take personal pride in the sound I make with it.

My fingers aren't as good as they were in college but my sound is back to its full form.  Much of that is due to this instrument, my soul mate. There are days when the audience doesn't respond as well to our scene, or when my voice is a little tired and not where I want it to be.  But what makes up for that during the show is that my flute sounds beautiful.  There are days when I just get lost in playing it.  I enjoy it that much!

I used to get very nervous playing solos in college. My lips and fingers would shake.  I usually made it through but that was a prime reason why, even as a double major, I felt it was safer to go with voice and not flute in the professional world.  When I was cast in Company it was partially because I played the flute.   But I was concerned that maybe the old nervousness would return. Playing the flute as another person (I.e.Sarah) made all the difference.  It is Sarah's inner monologue that comes through that flute.  It is her voice.  So when I play my own flute, with that intention and that voice, there are no nerves.  And I feel so blessed to be that clear, sweet sound in our chamber group of actors.

Kristin tends to be rather brassy in nature, but my flute alludes to a softer side.  Kristin can sometimes be unclear as to her life and her options, but my flute's intentions are crystal clear.  Kristin does not seem all that vulnerable to the world but my flute can expresses an inviting vulnerability within two or three measure of the song Sorry- Grateful. 

So I simply could not consider betraying it to some cheaper instrument. It wouldn't be possible to make that beautiful sound on another flute. That would betray my soul mate and a relationship I have treasured for twenty years. 

I will just be sure to put it more lovingly and carefully in a safer place on that piano from now on!

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