Student Blog: The Book I'm Recommending For All My Fellow Actors

As actors, we're usually pretty busy day in and day out, but every so often we get just enough time to relax and curl up with a nice book. A fictional novel never fails as the best form of escape- we're not reading it to search for monologues or scenes to work. Rather, it's a chance for us to lose ourselves in a story while also resting our actor's brains for a bit. We're not responsible for telling the story when we have a book to read; we're simply letting the story come to us. Yet, despite the love we have for a good work of fiction in which we can dissolve ourselves, we do still search for something we can connect to and learn from within the fictional writing. These criteria point to one particular book that all actors should read, a 2019 novel titled The Chelsea Girls by Fiona Davis. This is a story of friendship, betrayal, feminism, freedom, and of course, theatre that provides a level of relatability along with its ability to satisfy anyone's craving for a beautiful piece of fiction.

Set mainly in New York City's theatre scene against a post-World War II backdrop, The Chelsea Girls brings us into the world of two actresses living in New York City's glamorous Chelsea Hotel. Hazel Ripley has understudied roles in numerous shows on Broadway over the years, but she has never actually had to perform in any of them. Maxine Mead has performed to high acclaim in principal roles in several touring productions, but she's never been on Broadway. The two women first become friends while performing in a USO troupe in Italy, and their friendship blossoms when Hazel writes and directs a play based on the USO experience, and Maxine plays the lead. But as joyful as it is to have a play written and directed by a woman on Broadway, particularly in the 1940s-50s, the rising tension brought about by a red scare that sweeps the entertainment industry, threatens Hazel and Maxine both independently and together. As the story progresses, we watch these characters grappling with struggles that are similar to those faced today. The McCarthy era did, in fact, threaten and ruin the lives of many entertainment workers in that time, and Davis perfectly captures the paranoia and hostility that came along with being in the entertainment industry at the time while also leaving room for modern audiences to connect to these feelings. Hazel and Maxine are two highly different people, but both of them are easily relatable to modern actors. While Hazel is hardworking, very driven, and willing to fight for what she believes in, Maxine is more of a starry-eyed, people-pleasing type whose personal (or some may say secret) life is fraught with complications thanks to this. It's Maxine's tangled web that causes many of the issues Hazel and the other characters face, so it's no surprise when Hazel and Maxine's relationship turns from friendship to rivalry. Besides these two, Davis gives us a lovely array of side characters who are classic theatre-industry archetypes, including sweet costume designer Floyd, entitled ingenue Brandi, and legendary performer Lavinia Smarts. The story is filled with surprises at every turn, and her language makes it easy to travel back in time to the days of early Broadway in all of its glamour.

Overall, The Chelsea Girls is a wonderful read for any actor. It's a chance to escape today's reality for a bit while also being reminded why we create, why we perform, and why we fight for it.