Merle Louise: A Life in the Theatre

She was there when Ethel Merman first walked down the aisle yelling "Sing out, Louise!" She was there for the first "Bobby, baby," and she won a Drama Desk Award begging for alms from Sweeney Todd. And now, Merle Louise is gracing Nicu's Spoon's stage, playing the formidable Countess of Henslowe in Timothy Findley's Elizabeth Rex. It is merely the latest step in a career that has taken her all over the world, and seen her in some of the most famous shows on Broadway.

Louise started her career after graduating high school with two scholarships in hand. Unfortunately, her family couldn't afford room and board for college, and so she went to work. "I was always a singer and I studied dance and I worked in this little theatre in Pennsylvania," she recalls, "so I had lots of theatre background. Then I came to New York to study voice, etc., so I became an actress." And, as in a fairy tale, her first role in New York was Gypsy, starring no less than Ethel Merman. "Ethel Merman started from the back of the theatre—I don't know if that had ever been done before!" Louise says. "And as she went down the aisle and people realized who she was, you could hear them gasp, and suddenly a shriek, and then applause, and hysteria, almost, when they realized it was Ethel Merman walking down the aisle… Stuff like that just hadn't been done." She started out as a Hollywood Blonde, and when the understudy for Dainty June left the show, Louise auditioned to become the new understudy. After only one rehearsal, she was on, and after that, Merman insisted that Louise play June. "I want Merle in that role!" she recalls Merman demanding. After the Broadway run ended, Louise joined Merman for a nine-month tour of the show. The two women remained friends thereafter. "I really loved the lady," Louise remembers. "I've heard many other stories, but we got on just fine. I could see sides of her that other people didn't see. There were times when she was worried about her son or her family. But I liked the lady. It was a good experience, and it's nice that we were friends for a long time afterwards."
 

Years after her time in Company was cut short by the birth of her son Matthew, Louise learned about auditions for a new Sondheim musical. "I didn't know anything about the show, but I read the breakdown of it in Backstage," she says. "It mentioned the character and said she was a certain age, and said she was 'Fragile, birdlike and half-crazed.' And I based my whole character on just those three adjectives." Even her agent agreed that Louise was wrong for the Beggar Woman, who, they learned, would be required to sing an aria. After a vacation in Florida during which she practiced "O Mio Bambino Caro" incessantly, she auditioned, and was cut of mid-song by director Harold Prince. Still, she got the part (though the aria was cut), and during rehearsals, her partner at the time reminded Louise of a homeless woman she had seen carrying a rag doll like a real baby. The Beggar Woman, he suggested, should carry such a doll. Louise brought the idea to Prince, who proclaimed it an intelligent idea. "And I said, 'Thank you, Hal!'" she laughs. "It was a doll that belonged to my daughter Laura… I put a little tiny baby shirt that belonged to Matthew when he was a baby, and a little tiny pin that belonged to my daughter Heather, so I had all three of my kids on that doll. So it was really special to me. When I carried her around, it was like carrying my life. I took her to rehearsal, and she never left my side." During the show's run, the doll went from white to gray with Uris Theatre dust, Louise recalls, and the doll now sits in a little rocking chair in her apartment. "She's still part of my life, that little dolly," Louise says.

In between shows, Merle Louise has managed to raise three children, visit Africa (a trip that nearly cost Louise her role in Into the Woods, but she refused to cancel the vacation she promised her daughter Laura), visit Nepal, and, most recently, graduate from college. "I don't regret [becoming an actress] for one minute," she says. "But I always wanted that degree, so in 1991, I enrolled at Marymount Manhattan College as a part-time student and continued to work... I went for thirteen years as a part-time student, and I graduated in 2004, cum laude with a degree in psychology. I just thought it was something I always wanted to do, and I did it! " Louise enjoyed school so much that she is considering returning to study something else. Or, she says, she might get a Ph.D in psychology. "Who knows?" she asks happily. "There's just so much you can do. Life is sometimes just not long enough."

And now, she is appearing in Elizabeth Rex, playing a seventeenth-century Countess who witnesses a meeting between Queen Elizabeth I and William Shakespeare. Louise was eager to work with Elizabeth Rex's director, Joanne Zipay. Years ago, Zipay directed Louise in a production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Bucking tradition, Zipay cast Louise as Caesar, giving the musical stalwart the chance to try something new onstage. "Somebody said, 'How do you play Julius Caesar?'" Louise recalls. "I say, 'It's easy. You just grow balls overnight.' Everybody works differently, but sometimes something creeps into your soul, I think, and you become that person with just minor [changes]. Something can trigger it off. Maybe a stance, or maybe one-word in a description of somebody. 'Lonely,' or as I said, 'half-crazed' was perfect for me in Sweeney. And fragile. And bird-like! That was a perfect description of that character, I think. Sometimes I just get a feeling."  Playing the Countess of Henslowe, Louise is a quiet but powerful presence in Elizabeth Rex, making every word she says matter. "I enjoy the play, and I think it's a wonderful company," she says of Nicu's Spoon. "I think it's wonderful that they're doing it here. It's remarkable... I'm proud to be a part of it."