Interview: Actress Linda Purl on New Album & Starring in CRAZY MAMA at 59E59

Multihyphante performer Linda Purl, known for roles including Ashley Pfister on Happy Days and Pam's mother Helene in The Office as well as a celebrated cabaret and singing career, is celebrating the release of a brand-new bass album with Tedd Firth, released August 18, as well as starring in Crazy Mama, a new one-woman show at 59E59. Crazy Mama is a “tour-de-force story of a young girl’s decades-long dream of saving her mother from the soul-crushing grip of mental illness” running September 16 to October 18.

We spoke with Purl about the new show, album, and what her life has been like lately.

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What was the process of putting your latest album with Tedd first together like?

Dearly departed and revered, Rex Reed is the one who introduced me first to Tedd and also to Deborah Grace Winer. That was 16 years ago, and from the first day in the rehearsal room with them, I was in love. The depth of their talents, knowledge and generosity astonished me. But then ask any one of the myriad artists they work with, and they’d all say the same.  So…joyful, is the first word that comes to mind about the process. I’ll have some kernel of an idea for a new album, an incomplete list of songs that loosely fit the bill and half a dozen bits of feels from other tunes I’d like to try out. The ones that catch my ear have usually to do with unexpected time signatures, all have a feel that have got under my skin. The three of us congregate at Deb’s home around her wonderful grand piano. Tedd and Deb too of course have come with some tunes to try, and we jump in. With four albums under our belts together and I’ve lost count of how many new shows, we have a patina, a shorthand. We try tunes, toss some out, and that exercise inspires investigating additional tunes. The sessions are free-flowing and we wait, forgive the cliche, for the click to happen. These gatherings happen over a period of a few months usually. We come together…what with everyone traveling and working we have a chance to sleep on everything, come back with fresh ears and tuck in again. Eventually we land on the list, the egg, the collective statement.

Can you tell us a little about how you and Tedd worked together on arrangements and crafting the set list for the album?

There is nothing Tedd can’t play.  He also has no ego so he is willing to try anything…and can! It’s interesting to watch him…sometimes he just drops down into a what I’ll call sacred stillness, pause, breathe, catch the inspiration and off he goes. Deb and I like to catch each other’s eye behind his back in that stillness because we know magic is about to start. We wanted this album to be about connecting…to each other, to love, hope, resilience, imagination, to country. Everyone is dealing with a fractured world right now no matter what side of the aisle they may be on. Hopefully, on balance, our new album, From My Heart can help nurture some common ground, can be a safe place to sit in.

What initially drew you to Crazy Mama?

Absolutely everything. Among other things. Sharon's play cracks open a safe space in which to have a conversation about mental illness. But let me back up… The play is directed by my dear friend of many decades now, fellow actor, Anson Williams. We first met when we working together on Happy Days. At the time, we thought we were just young kids bouncing off to a swell place to work. Little did we know that we also were planting seeds that would come to new fruition this far into our lives. Anson's absolutely, brilliant wife, playwright Sharon Williams, suffered a great tragedy as a little girl. She came home at age eight one morning only to discover that her mother had suffered a massive psychotic break. That event of course changed the trajectory of her and her family’s life. Sharon went on to become a very successful ad executive in New York but a few years ago, she was finally at a moment where she could look back and excavate the tragedy she had survived so successfully, dissect the collateral damage and dig into needed healing labors. Having accomplished that extensive journal, Anson brave boy that he is, dared to counsel Sharon to go back to her office and write her journal as a one woman play. Sharon, equally brave, did so and I had the very good fortune of being brought into the project when it was first mounted at the Rubicon Theatre Company last year. Now, astonishingly, we get to bring Crazy Mama- A True Story of Love and Madness to 59E59. We are over the moon. It’s quantum like for me as my colleagues and I were doing Vivian Neuwirth’s play Mr. Toole at 59E59 when covid abruptly closed us down. So, to get to return with this beautiful play is a special privilege. Sharon's play is funny, poetic, heartwarming, and is the most psychologically sophisticated piece I've ever had the chance to be a part of. Don’t let that scare you…its imminently accessible and speaks in rhythm with the way memory works. I think in some ways Sharon has been writing this play since the day her Mother first suffered her break down. It is distilled, authentic and charts a powerful healing journey. When we got to do it last year, I don’t think there was a single night where someone or more persons would come back after the show to share the fact that their lives too had been affected by some aspect of mental illness.  Their mother or father or child…even themselves. We hope to experience some of those conversations in NY as well. I’d be lying if I didn’t say it is a lot of words… basically a 64 page monologue. However, it is laced with beautiful musical interludes by an incredibly gifted and soulful, Bluesman character, as played by Will Huse. New York is in for a particular treat, discovering Will.

In a truly bizarre twist of life, we've been invited to the Capitol to give a congressional briefing on the need for mental health funding. Who knows if we will succeed, but I'm certain it will feel good to go there and speak our peace and pound our fists. With any luck, we just might inspire somebody, somewhere, to reinstate some of the funding that has been lost in the last while to help those struggling with mental health issues.  

What else is going in your life?

Well..in another truly bizarre twist..,my partner Patrick Duffy and I started a sourdough bread company six years ago in our garage in Colorado. Right from the get-go we wanted all of our profits to go to food scarcity efforts. Think, Newman‘s Own wannabes. It was a terrible business model because once you buy a sourdough starter, which is what we were selling, you never have to buy it again so we knew we had to find somebody who’d take us on,  bake the bread and distribute it. We got lucky beyond our wildest dreams. Kroger took us on, so for the better part of the last 14 months we’ve been traveling the country rolling our breads out in Kroger stores region by region, 17 states and all I believe it is now. We’ve and we just passed the 2300 stores mark. All the years we were working out of the garage we managed to give away a whopping $250. Since going with Kroger, I am astonished to say that along with them we have just passed the 200K amount in support to food scarcity efforts. It’s a drop in the bucket, but the statistics on hunger in America are staggering, so we’ll plug along as long as Kroger will have us. It has been an adventure to say the least.

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Header photo of Linda Purl in CRAZY MAMA is by Lore Photography

Learn more about Linda and her new album at www.lindapurl.com

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