Hey, I'm Miriam Shor, and we're talking about Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
So, it was the first audition my agent ever sent me on.
And the first thing I got, and I kept this slip of paper, I don't know why I kept the
slip of paper, but I have it and it says, Hedgewick and the Angry Itch.
So right away I'm batting 100, which is low.
I'm really good at baseball.
And it was like Yitzhak, goes by a drag queen name.
And I went in, I borrowed/stole my roommate's Fonzie for President t-shirt, went into the
audition, I wore big combat boots.
And they said, pick a song, whatever song you want from the 70's.
I sang the song, "You Light Up My Life" and that was in the original show of Hedwig and
the Angry Inch.
John used to sing that in German at the end of the show, before Midnight Radio was written,
and I didn't know that.
And I just came in with that song.
And they were like, can you sing "I Will Always Love You" just a little bit of it?
And I was like yes, and it turns out I can only sing I Will Always Love You, because
I didn't know the rest of it.
So I just sang that over and over again which also ended up being in the show.
It was kind of perfect.
So that was just for the workshop.
Yitzhak wasn't really a role, they just wanted someone to move the furniture and really sing
backup.
John wanted to sort of subvert gender a little more, so he wanted it to be a woman playing
a man, and to be someone who was also a scapegoat for Hedwig's character, so it was someone
who was even having a rougher time, then Hedwig.
It all kind of started organically evolving in the workshop, as it does in a workshop.
You know, I was a kid of divorce, which a lot of people are, and I split my time between
my parents, but they lived in two different countries.
So I would spend time in the United States in Detroit, and spend time in Italy in Torino.
So I felt like two different people and trying to marry that into who I was.
I've always felt that way.
People will laugh, but I am a pretty shy person, deep down in there, and to overcome that,
I'm obnoxious?
Obnoxiously outgoing?
Gregarious?
But, to sort of push myself out of that shyness.
I feel like I could work that so well, in Italy, then I would revert back to being that
shy person.
There's a lot of duality in who I am.
So the Jane Street Theatre was not a theatre.
It was a hotel on the west side highway which was different than when we were there.
It was in the Meatpacking District, and the Jane Street itself had this history of welcoming
the survivors and crew from the Titanic.
But it was really kind of a flop house, there was some prostitution happening, there were
a couple of German exchange students who were like "'Where are we?
I guess we live here now" Weird stuff happened, people would walk on stage, lights went out.
One time lights went out and John held a flashlight and did the show like that.
It was really like flying by the seat of your pants.
But that felt right for Hedwig.
Bringing Hedwig the stage play to film, we went to Sundance film lab and John hadn't
directed a movie before and was thinking that maybe he would direct it.
Robert Redford told John, "I don't know if you should direct this, we should let another
director take a stab at this lab.
You''ll meet lots of directors and you get to work on your script."
He could bring some people in to be in the cast and then they would provide him with
other actors.
He brought me in and it was super fun.
They had another director take a stab at doing the scene, and then they had John do it.
After Robert Redford saw that he was like, "you should direct this."
Having directed now a couple episodes of Younger, the show I'm doing, while acting in it, I
cannot imagine.
I mean I don't have to imagine I was there watching John go through it, watching him
just fall to pieces while doing this epic thing of directing himself.
It's crazy to think about Hedwig being on Broadway.
We used to make jokes when we were off-broadway on 147th street.
It would never be on Broadway.
It was a different era.
When it came to Broadway with Neil Patrick Harris in it of all, I was like, this is legit.
Seeing it felt like watching kids graduate from high school, so moving, and seeing it
reach so many other people, and seeing a certain aspect of it be embraced by a much more mainstream
audience, was wonderful.
We have a long way to go until it's embraced by everyone, but it should be.
So, if you want to reminisce and lift your hands up in the air, you might want to check
out John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask at Town Hall on June 27, 28, and 29, singing
songs from Hedwig.
Maybe a mystery guest will appear on the 27 and 28 for a song or two.