Broadway Bullet Interview: Amy Wilson of Mother Load
By: Michael Gilboe May. 14, 2007
This week we interview Amy Wilson the creator and star of the new one-woman show "Mother Load." Amy also performs two comedic monologues from the show!
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You can listen to this interview and many other great features for free on Broadway Bullet vol. 114. Subscribe for free so you don't miss an episode.
Broadway Bullet Interview: Amy Wilson of Mother Load
Broadway Bullet: The trials and tribulations of motherhood in Manhattan. That is largely what the next show we're going to be talking about is about, and it's a one woman show written and staring Amy Wilson who is right here in the studio to talk with us and deliver a couple of comedic monologues. How are you today?
Amy Wilson: I'm good thank you.
BB: So, it looks like you're about to be a mother again.
AW: Yeah, I am. I have a four-year-old boy…
BB: Good.
AW: Yeah, you have to be careful when you say that. I have a four-year-old son, a two-year-old son, and I'm due with my third in October so it makes it very interesting to be performing this show every night and be pregnant. It adds a certain level of reality to the show.
BB: Now, I'm assuming this gave you some context for writing the show.
AW: Sure, and I think…the show was already written and then I sprung on my director and everyone else that I was pregnant and so we did work it into the show certainly, and even when I wasn't pregnant I spent about half the show being pregnant, talking about being pregnant, playing that anyway so now it's just very easy for me to slip into.
BB: So, I guess, for our listeners what is the show about?
AW: Ok it's about, my thesis is, that it's a lot harder for us mother in particular, parents in general, to raise kids then it was when we were kids, and I think that that's true but I also think that's completely our own fault because we take on ourselves this motherload of expectations that society has of us of how to raise perfect children. I think that now there's a right way to do everything. There's a right way to be pregnant like Angelina Jolie. There's a right way to give birth: at home in a bathtub, you know, with the soft music playing. There's a right way to feed your baby, there's a right way to prepare your baby for nursery school, there's a right nursery school to get your kid into, there's a right and wrong way to do everything, and these standards, if you choose to accept them, are so excessively high, and changing all the time. They're impossible to keep up with. It's impossible in the end to do anything except feel bad about all the ways you fall short no matter how much you try. So the shows about that and how to try to put aside the motherload and just play with your kids, which I think we kind of forget these days.
BB: Now I'm from Montana and I don't think the parents stress out so much. I mean there's a little of that, but I don't think it's the same as in New York?
AW: Yeah, I think…I like to say New York turns it up to eleven. That we have our own special brand of craziness. Although I have done this show outside New York and I've been surprised at how it does resonate. It's crazy everywhere, but we're really crazy. So, I use our Manhattan craziness as a lens to talk about what I think is a very widespread problem actually.
BB: Before we go a little further, would you like to grace us with one of the monologues from the show?
AW: Ok. Sure. This is a little part from the introduction to the show, and it's about why dads don't seem to have the same problems with worrying about this stuff as mothers do.
Listen to her perform the Monologue in Broadway Bullet vol. 114.
BB: All right, so how long has this show been in development for you?
AW: It was probably a year and a half ago I started writing it and it was about nine months from New Notebook Motherload to lights up. From the first day I started writing it to the first day I performed it was about nine months exactly and that was about a year ago. I was developing since then, and this is the first full fledged long run production it's had since then, and it's early in the run, but we're still working on things and changing things based on the audience response and it's really fun to have a long run to let it sort of develop and hopefully find an audience.
BB: How did you find time to do this with kids? You're kids are young.
AW: My kids are young. I started it when my older one started pre-school three mornings a week last year. So I had nine hours a week. I'd drop him off, go to Starbucks, and then write until it was time to pick him up. My husband has a saying and I'm not sure if I heard it somewhere or made it up, that if you want something done give it to a busy person, and I do think that's true. I've written other shows in the past, but it took me a lot longer. I think I had a lot to say on this topic, but I also had 15 minutes to finish before I had to go pick up my kid, and that really motivates you to get it done. It took me a couple of months and then working with my director, Julie Kramer, she developed the piece with me. I came with a sheaf of loose-leaf paper and she helped me shape it and turn it into a show.
BB: How much had to go? How much came?
AW: That's interesting because people keep saying why don't you say more about this or you should talk about strollers and how hard it is to find the perfect stroller, and I should but it would be like "Nicholas Nickelby" we need to take a dinner break and come back for more. The show can only be so long. The most interesting thing was as I was trying to figure out what the show was about, I really was struggling with this. I had a two year old and a baby, and I really was struggling with not enjoying that. Just getting through everyday can be such a slog and just "boys! Boys! Get your shoes on!" and you kind of live like that; huffing and losing your patients and being 15 minutes late for everything, and there's nothing in the refrigerator for dinner, and living in this stressed out place. I discovered while I was working on this show that that's where I was. I wasn't really enjoying being with my kinds, I mean I was sometimes, but day to day, no I was merely surviving. I realized that's not how I wanted to do things. I want to look back on this as the happiest time of my life, not the busiest, most stressed, and hardest. All of those things, yes, but also the happiest, and so I needed to change my attitude. So that's what this show is about, but I continue to struggle with that everyday. How to do less, calm down, be with them is an ongoing thing.
BB: Yeah, you know, as a marketing angle for the show you should set aside a daycare room.
AW: Right, exactly. We thought about that. Although, I've left my kid in places like that and one time he came back and need stitches so that's scary. My two year old has had stitches twice before his second birthday, and my other one has had a chipped tooth and broke his arm so you know, so that's two boys. I'm going to have a lot of trips to the emergency room.
BB: We have another monologue segment for you to do.
AW: Yes, this is about the beginning of the process of applying to nursery school, which everyone who lives in New York has some sense of this being a truly daunting process, but until you get into it there's jargon and rules and things that you're just kind of supposed to figure out on your own, and it can be very intimidating. So, this is from that part of the show.
Listen to her perform the Monologue in Broadway Bullet vol. 114.
BB: Now, previous to "Motherload" what have been some of your other projects as a writer or actress?
AW: Before kids, BK, I was on two sitcoms. I was on "Norm" with Norm McDonald for a while as his nemeses in the office, and then I was on a show called "Daddio" with Michael Chklis, which really only ran for a half a season on NBC, but I played his nemeses, what I call a sancta-mommy, a next door neighbor who is very prissy, kind of like Shirley from "Laverne and Shirley," kind of church lady-ish. Just really uptight, and I didn't have kids then but it certainly prepared me for this show I guess. I did that and I was in LA, and my husband was here, and then I moved back here did some plays, but we wanted to have kids. That was 6 years ago that I moved home from LA.
BB: It's a tough call for a young actress to make.
AW: Sure. I think most actors would rather live in New York and go from off-Broadway play to…
BB: I think it's a tough call for a young actress to decide to have kids.
AW: Oh. Yeah, it was. You're right. I sort of told myself, "I'm either going to throw in the towel and say I tried it and now I'm going to be a mom", because I knew that was non-negotiable. I was going to be a parent, but I figured I'd have gotten to a point where I either would not have gotten anywhere or would be Julia Louis-Dreyfus and bringing my kids to the set, and instead, of course, I was somewhere in-between. I was working, but I wasn't famous, and I was in between jobs, which isn't a good place to be when getting pregnant. If you're on the show already and you get pregnant they'll work with you, but they aren't so interested in working with you if you are pregnant and not part of the show. So you're right it was a sacrifice, and certainly the last five years of my life I haven't worked that much. I've been pregnant half the time, and gaining the weight, losing the weight, being with the babies, but this was a really great way to bring the two things that were most important to me together.
BB: And it's great to see that it's worked out for you.
AW: Thank you.
BB: Now where can people catch "Motherload"?
AW: "Motherload" is playing at the Sage Theatre, which is 711 7th Ave., very lucky address, right by the M&M world sign. Look for the M&M sign and you'll find us. Tuesday through Saturday nights, and we have a specials Mom's Day Matinee on Wednesdays at 11, which works so you can see the show, you're out by 12:30, and you can still go pick up your kids from school.
BB: And where can they go for tickets?
AW: Ticketcentral.com
BB: And I understand your website has a lot of clips and stuff?
AW: Yes, our website is very fun. It's motherloadshow.com. Yeah, it has clips from the show, and its interactive. Lots of pictures and we think it's a great website.
BB: All right, well I thank you very much for stopping by here while you open. Oh, and how long does the show run?
AW: It runs through June 16th. Now, through Mother's Day, all the way up to Father's Day.
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You can listen to this interview and many other great features for free on Broadway Bullet vol. 114. Subscribe for free so you don't miss an episode.
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