30 Days of NYMF on BroadwayWorld Day 17: You Might As Well Live

Karen Mason Plays the Enigmatic Dorothy Parker in Norman Mathews' Musical, You Might As Well Live at The New York Musical Theatre Festival

As a friend once said about Dorothy Parker, "The minute you think you know who Dottie is you discover that she is not that at all." Was she the fun-loving jazz-age celebrity with a razor-sharp tongue or an alcoholic depressive? Did she spend her life churning out trifling verse or was she a serious writer of distinction? Was she a woman who luxuriated in the expensive baubles of capitalism or an ardent advocate for the underprivileged? A proto-feminist or a woman completely lost without a man? The lights come up on these contradictions September 22, when Broadway and cabaret star Karen Mason takes the stage as Mrs. Parker at the 45th Street Theatre for the world premiere production of You Might As Well Live. This new one-person musical play has book and music by Norman Mathews and lyrics by Parker.

"She ran the gamut of emotions from A to B," which she wrote about Kathryn Hepburn's first Broadway appearance, is the sort of legendary quote that Dorothy Parker brings to mind. But other quotes are perhaps more significant: "For Heaven's sake, children, Fascism isn't coming—it's here. It's dreadful. Stop it," she warned at a Hollywood anti-Nazi rally. And for her efforts, she was labeled a PAF by the government, a premature antifascist. So strong was her abhorrence of racial discrimination, that she left her entire estate to Martin Luther King in 1967. When he died a year later, the rights to her works were eventually turned over to the NAACP. She is one of the few American writers whose work has never been out of print, and her writing remains appealing to young people throughout the world.

Mathews says he first got the idea for the work when he read a New York Times article interviewing Jennifer Jason-Leigh, prior to the release of the film Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle. "I had been writing essentially serious art songs, but when I read about the film it occurred to me that she probably wrote a lot of jaunty poems that could be set to jazz. All I really knew about Parker consisted of a few one-liners. When I began reading the poems, I was stunned at how melancholy many of them were. It became obvious that a group of songs would need a context, so I began exploring her life and the script evolved from the realization that so many of her poems were autobiographical.

Karen Mason, who was doing Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard at the time, sang the role one my original demo and was going to do the first reading, but scheduling conflicts caused her to back out. Enter Michele Pawk, who did several readings and workshops, including one at The York Theatre. Karen reentered when the show was a winner of Stages 2003: a Festival of New Musicals at Theatre Building Chicago. Eileen Mackevich saw one of the performances and asked us to be part of her Chicago Humanities Festival, where it was performed in the new 1,500-seat Harris Theatre of Music and Dance."

Director Guy Stroman (who was the original Frankie in Forever Plaid, and has directed countless award-winning productions of that show, as well as pieces starring Jean Stapleton, Lynn Redgrave, and Sandy Duncan) was a strong force in shaping the piece. "Guy showed me how to incorporate the music into the text in very smart ways," says Mathews. "You Might As Well Live brought me back to my roots. I had been a Broadway dancer until a back injury ended that career. I spent seven months in Europe searching for a new role to play in life and for some—now seemingly bizarre reason—decided one night in a small Paris hotel, that I would go back to New York and study music. After I got my Master's Degree, I was completely immersed in classical composition, but Dorothy Parker brought me back to my first love, the musical theatre."

You Might As Well Live will play six performances at the 45th Street Theatre, 354 West 45th Street on the following schedule: September 22nd at 8:00 pm, September 23 at 4:30 pm, September 24th at 8:00 pm, September 25th at 1:00 pm, September 30th at 8:00 pm and October 2nd at 4:30 pm. All tickets are $15.00. For reservations, please call TheaterMania at (212) 352-3101 or visit www.nymf.com

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