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[lenovox1]

She has great spelling and a great voice; she even double spaces after every sentence like she's still in college, but she didn't edit this mess. I've posted the entire thing here, but it's long-winded at best. I'll do my best with some selective bolding, but I've left the option of letting anyone read the whole thing if you need an alternative to reading the entire boxed set of the The Lord of the Rings series.

I'll include some background information and explanations of some of the more obscure references at the bottom of the novel.

May 26, 2013

“I read to fly, to skim.

I do not read to swim.”- Fosca, Sondheim

This is a hard chapter to begin. Because in a way I never moved from that moment. A text from Giorgio that I am not coming back. I am still moving my feet, like pushing my feet forward in my shoes each day, but my mind and my soul are just stuck in that thought.

I was not allowed back.

I tried to piece together the story. That Sunday, let’s call it Day 18 ok?, I was out of the show [Passion], on vocal rest, making excellent progress in healing bronchitis and a subsequently bruised vocal cord. In the afternoon, I was coming home from food shopping. I learned to food shop and do everything else a normal person does, because, after all, deaf people can do it. (I mean absolutely no offense to people with this disability.) And everyone in SoHo now thinks I’m deaf. I mime that I will be using a credit card, I bow like an elegant Japanese lady when I want to say thank you. I smile more often so people don’t worry about me. (That’s one wonderful thing that has come out of this. I now realize how I must smile more. It is a crying shame that I don’t do it more naturally, I am more naturally analytical or even grim in the forehead. A soupcon of Botox has helped that a little, but I think Botox doesn’t actually make you smile, despite the publicity about “facial feedback” ie your face looks happy, your body feels happy. I didn’t like it until it was wearing off, so I will debate the future on that.)

So, I came home with food that I had just bought as the new deaf girl of Little Italy, who now comes home with a quiet, strained smile; where once I had a trademark “heeeellllloooo” (a very nasal and ebullient HELLO, like, say, Fran Drescher, hoping to rouse the kids to a flamboyant group hug). I entered quietly.

My husband [Patrick McEnroe, ESPN commentator and former pro tennis player] met me in the doorway, nearly moving too fast, too close, obstructing me from the house; and I saw my father at the kitchen table. My mother was milling by the hallway, just off to the left, presumably blocking me from the kids, and my brother looked serious over by the kitchen counter. He stood, looking sort of fluid, semi-bent over in his energy. Mike is always ready for a boulder to come toppling at us, and I guess it was, as I read it in his shoulders. I had bought food because I thought it was a “Sunday dinner” and we were going to try to act normal, try to have some fun, invite my FOLKS over. Sundays were usually family afternoon with the McEnroe in-laws and this time my family was coming. Hooray. Hooray, right? Why is Patrick standing in the doorway? Why is he intercepting me? Taking the groceries from my hand and asking me to please step outside so we could talk a minute.

I don’t remember who took the groceries to the kitchen, or even now what was in the bags. I don’t remember what the deaf woman had bought- presumably cheese and crackers, maybe some salmon to bake, I really can’t remember because when I saw Patrick’s eyes, or was it his voice?, I dropped all thought of dinner. I dropped all thought, I should say. I became frightened.

We rode the elevator and he, in his no nonsense style, adopted a certain pitch of voice. “Your agent called.”

I thought, Oh, so no one is dead. It’s about my career. Oh my god, my career. This isn’t good. Have I ruined my career by getting bronchitis? Am I in permanent trouble? Will the whole world suddenly hate me? What did I do wrong? Baby, talk to me. What happened. My agent? Why? I didn’t hurt anyone. I never did a thing wrong, I’ve never even forgotten a LINE. I loved the show like it was a baby, one of those three children I went to the hospital to birth, one of those moments of total TOTAL TOTAL commitment. Why would my agent be calling? The elevator ride was full of confusion, and my face flushes to remember it.

This might be an ideal time to mention “flushing” and blushing and redness. I am living right now with a hemorrhaged blood vessel. It is not bleeding at the moment, in fact my vocal cord is pristine white. I am “surgery ready” as they say. (A far cry from stage-ready, but a diva will somehow feel good with anything that sounds like showtime.) On the famous “STROBE” camera, it looks like a speck of red on a field of white smooth tissue. A speck. This SPECK is causing all this trouble? Yup. A microscopic speck. But I am under strict orders to not flush or get my heart rate going. We don’t want my blood to move fast. We don’t want Melissa to bleed. Surgery is nine days from today. I’ll do the math with you later, on how many days of silence I have lived. But let me just remind myself now that I mustn’t flush as I write, or I may set myself back again. One bleed and I am set back 10 days. No clearing my throat, no sneezing, no jogging, no excitement. So, right now, I will stay calm recalling that elevator ride, on Day 18.

We got to the street outside on Mulberry, into the cold tight air which hadn’t shown a sign of Spring. It had been a ruthless winter, never releasing, everyone had the flu, Clara had floated past those facts. We walked a few blocks to the backside of two historic landmarks, the Puck Building with its beer-scented debris from Saturday night parties/weddings/marketing events, and St Patrick’s Old Cathedral – the original cathedral from 1809, built 50 years before the uptown one you think of. It’s the super-old cool one, in which Alec Baldwin got married less than a year ago, and where the 1999 memorial was held for JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy. Now that I’ve told you where I live, please don’t come visit me.

Patrick told me my agents had been called by Classic Stage Company (aka “CSC”). There were strange sentences coming out of his mouth about “continuity” and “ticket reallocation” and “communication with patrons” and “continuity for the company.” My mind didn’t understand, and his words came to me with the warped quality of a nightmare. He didn’t seem sure of his logic either. I recalled a text from a cast member a week ago telling me the show was different now, that “performances (had) changed so much. Intentions etc.” I know this actor meant no harm, he couldn’t, ever, but now I recalled it with terror. Maybe everyone had moved on. My husband’s voice overlapped with the fears in my head ’til I could hear nothing, and I began to realize none of my questions now made any difference. Baby, people get sick, this is why understudies were invented. I had done my best to stay present and “continuous” but the brutal reality is I wasn’t there. I hadn’t stopped communicating to the company during my silence, and vice versa. The cast even sent me a happy birthday video, complete with the actor Tom Nelis (who played the doctor) brushing his teeth for me on camera. I wrote this to them all on Easter Sunday, which incidentally was Day 11.

Hi guys-

All I do is try to get back to you all. My twins have gotten accustomed to charades and luckily Victoria can read my notes. She was curious about it, but quickly upon her return from Disney, she said she wished I could talk. She can see I’m unhappy. I do try to hide it!


My husband likes to point out that the best tennis player in the world (Nadal) just took 7 months off for his knee, came back, won a little and now has this Miami tournament off again to rest. And the actor in ONCE is resting his voice for a month. “Shit happens” as Patrick (elegantly advises me.


Oh how, I didn’t want this to happen. What bronchitis!… and then a vocal cord that needed time to rest. My teacher and doctor(s) are hopeful for our Tuesday appointment. Its all technical, no damage at stake (if I rest) and I just have no choice. Its simple and boring, and taking too long. I am on the 11th day of silence; and missed a week and a half of shows. I had some strong sneezes along the week, and you may know that coughing and sneezing is not great. Swelling and irritation has to recede, and located in the most important edge of the cord.


Bronchitis stinks.

I still have chest congestion sitting there, but its quiet now.


No need to go on about it. I am finding a safe place to nestle in and heal. I have wept enough (I say that and then I cry all over again), missing you and missing my place in the work we all shed ourselves to create. I’m SO PROUD of Amy and all of you for being so flexible and positive and knowing John Doyle and Sondheim are a lot to trust. And my boy (standby) John Antony taking the stage too! Bravo!!!!!


Thank you ALL for keeping me safe in your thoughts and actions, and I am still coming to work mentally as often as my soul can bear, I walk in the theatre (or bang 3 times!) and then sit down in the garden of gratitude.


I miss you.


Have a beautiful Easter day. Whatever your beliefs, let every day be one to experience freedom, loving kindness and joy.


I was given the colleagues of a lifetime, and I yearn every day to have the privilege of being with you.


Love

Melissa
​

So, what exactly was Patrick trying to say outside on the street? He said that the producers at Classic Stage had a legal right to fire me. (There is a team of leadership there, I don’t know who really is the producer. That doesn’t matter to this story. Please focus beyond fault, which is not my aim.) My husband went on, “There is a clause in their off-Broadway contract that if an actor misses 10 days of work, the actor or the producer has the right to terminate.” A CLAUSE? Wait a minute, we are discussing a clause in my contract which also states that I make $555 a week, and (after agent commission) get to keep $542.

why didn’t they just call us, baby?

I’m going to pause in my storytelling. Let me just take a moment to go find my script in the black binder which is by my bedside on the bookshelf, on the one messy shelf where I put things that don’t have a destination yet. I’ll be right back….

//// this was actually written in real time… I went to the shelf, looked in the back pocket of the script…////

OK I’m back- I found it. Here it is. My unsigned contract. [These are all very standard documents that all principles that work on a union production must sign and get back to stage management (or anyone) before the beginning of a production. Actors' Equity, the producers and the performer should all have a signed copy of the document.]

I didn’t sign anything, even these papers I don’t understand. [These are simply standard pre-employment forms.]

I actually don’t see this clause; let’s look again.

But I admit, my blood pressure is rising again, so let’s move on. I hadn’t signed the contract. So, with Patrick telling me that I had a clause, I thought, “Oh, right, shit, this is a business relationship, i had a contract, like a piece of paper.” It hadn’t felt like business. Thinking back, I didn’t sign it because it was the first day of rehearsal when it was handed to me, and I forgot. I was in my heaven, and I didn’t need to sign anything to commit. I just kept forgetting and no one reminded me. I didn’t have managers and assistants, watering flowers, People.

I even know how to zip myself into a gown without help. That’s the gift of 20 years in show business, my inheritance.

(Which isn’t to say that I don’t have help, or a team, but I don’t have people reminding me to eat lunch, or drink water (I have three kids for goodness sakes, what mom remembers anything), or deal with paperwork – I know it’s my problem/ i am an adult/ grow up – tucked into my Bible, oops I mean PASSION script.)

So, on Mulberry Street, I entered my world of magical thinking. This isn’t happening. Suddenly, like Joan Didion in her biographical novel The Year of Magical Thinking (though obviously NOT AT ALL as profoundly devastating as her shock- the death of her beloved husband/the illness of her daughter), I rejected the whole experience as simply impossible, causing me to enter a dream, to think illogically. Joan Didion didn’t want to get rid of her husband’s shoes because he might need them when he came back, when he woke up. He isn’t dead, he was just sitting at the table, they were about to have dinner. Lots of you will know this sensation: the car didn’t crash, I couldn’t have lost the baby, I am pregnant. I couldn’t lose this baby, look at my stomach it is puffy, look at my hormone bloodwork. My blood says the baby is growing. The heartbeat will start up again. I am not losing this baby. I know it’s a boy, and I was naming it Malcolm.

Been there.

Patrick just wanted me to know all this was happening, and all of a sudden. My tenacious, well-spoken and smart agent Tim Sage (sage) was trying to reason with them, trying to understand how this s#%t had hit the fan so suddenly, on a weekend. It is normal to miss shows when you are a musical theater singer. It isn’t ideal, but let’s ask [Five-time Tony Award winner] Audra McDonald* or any of the greats if they’ve ever missed a few weeks. And Audra is THE great (add the ‘mic drop’ and we are on Mount Olympus with Zeus, ok). I don’t mean to bring it up, but it’s just an example, and it happens. We are athletes and human beings. Tim Sage knows this, and says this weekend is all very strange.

I listen and listen to my husband, and he knows a fraction of what is swirling through my mind. I’m on doctor’s orders of vocal rest until Tuesday at 9am, and my dedication will keep me from responding to even this news. No excitement, Melissa. They’ll want you back, this isn’t happening. I was waiting until Day 20, which was the day I was to be (and was!) set free. But wait. Now there may be no Day 20. I may be fired. It was 4pm, the actors were in the matinee. I was heartbroken enough about that. Now this. Well, it’s speculation and tension, nothing else. not a decision.

We go back upstairs and my family looks at me. There is that milling, like at a hospital when the patient is inside, and the family is in the hallway waiting for the doctor. So, I joined the milling. Let’s all just mill here and find out if I am getting fired, if the patient is going to die. It couldn’t be. My agents will get them to wait another day. After all, tomorrow is a Monday and there is no show to miss anyway.

At one point, I left the hospital hallway, (or rather my kitchen), and I went to my bedroom. I wrote two quick emails to the beloved- by me- director (who lives in Italy) and to the PASSION book writer (a trusted friend for 20 years, from FAUST, AMOUR, SUNDAY IN THE PARK…). In those emails, I implored them to not let me be kicked out of the company, telling them I was sure I had 10-12 performances in my body (turns out there were only 11 on the CSC reduced schedule anyway) and could finish the run with a reunited good feeling. I acknowledged my illness had been a drag, and if it was really punishable, I asked to be given an ultimatum date. I told them if I wasn’t cleared Tuesday, I understood. Reconstructing this, I recall only fear sideswiping my mind… And weight. Please don’t kick me out of the company this way. We have two weeks left, two weeks counts. In these past 2.6 weeks, I’ve built a meditation corner in my bedroom, I have gone to reiki twice a week, I’ve never spoken a word, never cheated, total silence, doctor’s orders. I’ve gone to get strobes every 3 days, spending $950 a visit. I eat papaya every day since she says that the enzyme is good. I’ve researched homocysteine. You have no idea how many papayas I have eaten. The reiki master comes to my house, sits with Patrick and me in shock in the dark, with the kids asleep at 9pm; he took me to dinner, to a movie when my husband was away; he sends me emails late in the night about light and visualization. I have been visualizing. White vocal cords. Imagine yourself walking to the theater every night, stepping on the stage, do not give up Melissa. I asked them to be aware of what my agent was overhearing, in case they didn’t know. I doubted I would reach them. Everything was surreal. My magical thinking denied that they knew anything. Think Melissa. I know how to be gracious, I can take a curtain call with Amy, even if I am in street clothes, but don’t talk to me about a clause, don’t close the door. What was happening?? I didn’t want to be removed from the family.

Then, at 5:45pm, I got the text. From Ryan [Silverman, her co-star]. I erased everything from this time so it is my estimate that it said, “We all just got an email that Amy is taking over for the rest of the run.”

My heart stopped. The doctor hadn’t brought us good news in the hallway, my milling family would soon hear, too.

I showed it to Patrick. I started to flush, and feel sick. He said “outrageous.” I typed, “What? Outrageous,” and simultaneously got another text that said, “They can’t change their minds now.” Then… no more texting.

It was like he knew somehow a quagmire had been hit. He had to sense I wasn’t accepting this information (but what could he do?). I hadn’t been telephoned. Patrick hadn’t been called by CSC. Dr. Korovin, who treats Nathan Lane, Audra, Kristin, Ron Rifkin, Brooke Shields, etc. etc. etc., was never called. I texted her: “I was fired.” She texted back: “WHAT!!!!?????????”

That was a very hard night.

I think I might wait to tell you what else happened that night.

And that's what goes through an actor's mind when they get fired from a job they really, really wanted.

Cliff notes:

- Melissa Errico injured herself during the run of her musical.
- She heard rumors that she was getting sacked from her agent.
- She freaked the fuck out.
- She got a confirmation from her co-star.
- She freaked the fuck out. X2
+ And I'd like to inject that she was replaced on the cast recording by Rebecca Luker.

And Melissa isn't some unknown upshot. She's had some nasty rumors about her attitude at the beginning of her career, but nothing surrounding this production.

*Audra McDonald spent several weeks out of the most recent revival of The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess due to vocal issues.

 

[NameGenerated]

Showbusiness is a hideous bitch-goddess.

 

[Weapxn]

Theater is a tough business, especially here in New York. My heart goes out to this woman.

Unfortunately not everyone has four Tonys (five now) like Audra to keep them in the game.

 

[jb1234]

The opera business is similar. If you can't perform adequately for whatever reason, there are countless singers who are just as good as you (if not better) and dying to take your place. It's a cruel thing.

Especially in New York. There's an old joke that you can't throw a ball across a Manhattan block without hitting a soprano.

 

[lenovox1]

The only other thing is that Melissa had sustained vocal injuries while performing before (in the My Fair Lady revival, Lestate, and probably others). I think she may have felt sort of blind sided, because the producers for the other productions must have allowed her all the time she needed for recovery.

It really sucks when you feel like you have a personal connection with the producers of anything only to find out that it's strictly a business relationship. This directly parallels with the David Hayter (Metal Gear Solid) situation that blew up on the Gaming side. I'm projecting here, but he probably felt similar to how Melissa described her feelings.

 

[lenovox1]

Aaaaannnddd, she just made Book 5 public...

http://melissaerrico.com/blog-5/

No one in the world has ever made the act of reading an email on an iPhone in New York sound more melodramatic. Oh, and there's some shots of her dressing room if you're a theater nerd.