Interview: Jennifer Diamond of LET ME BE ME at The Green Room 42 on December 10th

For eighteen months Jennifer Diamond has been singing. She's been singing lullabies.

As the spring of 2020 was preparing for its big debut, so were the Diamond ladies. Jennifer was preparing to premiere her show LET ME BE ME, and Leia Diamond was getting ready to debut... period. The daughter of Jennifer and her husband Rob was in Las Vegas, waiting to be born by way of a surrogate with whom the impending parents had spent months cultivating a relationship, working together to make the miracle of parenting a reality. When the global health crisis hit the shores of these United States, Diamond's show went the same direction of every other live entertainment opportunity - the back burner. Not so for Leia - she was going to have her inaugural bow, no matter what was happening in world affairs; pandemic or no, Baby Girl Diamond was on her way.

So Mom and Dad Diamond hightailed it out of town, quarantined out west for a bit, welcomed their bundle of joy into the world, and returned to The Garden State, where the Three Musketeers have been constant companions ever since.

Well, it's time for Mommy to get back up on stage. Working closely with director Robbie Rozelle and musical director Luke Williams, Jennifer Diamond has readjusted her one woman club act to reflect the woman she is now, the life she has now, and the world as it is at this moment in time. Come December 10th, that world will finally find out who, when Jennifer Diamond says LET ME BE ME, is the woman about whom she is speaking.

Just days before the Thanksgiving break, Jennifer and I shared a phone conversation that could have been twenty-five minutes about babies and dogs... but it wasn't.

This interview has been edited for space and content.

Hello, Stephen Mosher!

Hi! How are you?

I'm good, how are you doing?

All quiet on the Midtown Western front. What's new in Jersey?

Brisk today, but nothing crazy. Just getting ready for the holiday. I thought why not re-mount my show, raise an 18 month old, and do some house renovations all at the same time?

And Thanksgiving.

And hosting 10 people for Thanksgiving.

And your show is December 10th, so you'll be in the throes of all of the Christmas mishigas.

Yeah, I mean, I just thought this was perfect!

You're a working mom, now, you can do all that.

It unlocks parts of your brain that you didn't know you had, but in time you lose your whole brain. (Laughing)

To be clear for the people that are going to read this story: you and I had this talk about 18 months ago because you were doing this show, and then you didn't get to do it.

Exactly.

So here we are, and we've all been through the mess, but you actually, in the very beginning, the heat of the pandemic, you had to go out to Vegas to pick up your new baby girl.

I did. It feels like a lifetime ago, and it really wasn't, and what's nuts about that is that it was the part of the pandemic when everything was changing daily. We were still wiping everything down... I remember being on the plane and I remember I was wearing my glasses because Rob was like, "We don't know... what if it comes through your eyes?" (laughing) He was freaking me out because COVID was going to transmit through my eyes. Right? I remember, also, we stayed in this crazy Airbnb for a month, quarantined, and every day things were changing at the hospital, and we didn't know if we were going to get to be there for her birth, like the whole thing. It was this crazy, stressful, maddening experience - on top of that, everything was closed in Vegas, obviously the city was in lockdown, but people in Vegas hadn't really been affected yet. So we weren't going anywhere because people weren't wearing masks yet.

And you were dealing with a newborn baby, so you had to be extra special precautious,

Extra special precautious. We had to fly with her in a pandemic, the whole thing was unfathomable - it was one of those situations you can't even write about; if someone were to come up with it, in terms of fiction, maybe like that... it just doesn't happen. But it did. And we were in this crazy Groundhog Day of every day getting up and doing nothing. Rob was still working. He was still doing his thing... but I had nothing. I didn't have the dogs, I didn't have my house, my routine, nothing. I just basically sat there staring at walls that weren't my own. Just waiting for a baby to be born. It was totally surreal.

Once Leia was born, how much time did you have to stay out there before you could bring her back home and into your home and your normal life?

So let's see... she was born - I was at the hospital, Rob was not, he was not allowed in the hospital. He didn't even get to meet Leia for a day and a half, which, in and of itself, was very upsetting and very crazy. And then we were in the apartment at the Airbnb for two days: she had to have more doctor's appointments. So I think she was born on Friday and we brought her home Tuesday or Wednesday. I do remember the doctor in Vegas saying, "I'd like you to stay at least six more months before you fly with her," and I was like, "Are you crazy?" No, we're fine! Bye!

So then you come back to the New York/New Jersey area...

And we had to quarantine again.

And we were in lockdown here for six months. So there you are, a new mom at home with a newborn all day for six months.

Yes, we had to re-lockdown, re-quarantine, I remember my mother-in-law coming to bring the dogs back to us, so I remember her bringing the dogs, and we saw her on the driveway with masks on, and she could only stay a minute because she couldn't bear to stay any longer without coming inside and holding baby. I think, looking back, I view us as being lucky, in that sense, that we had these two weeks to ourselves with no outside influence, no outside help. I would recommend it to new parents (Laughing) - just do it, just learn as you go and figure it out, just you and your partner. Because we didn't have help. We just did it. We just did it and we didn't have - you know, my mom was going to come up and help cook, and we would have had Rob's parents there... You know what? This was kind of better. It was just us. It was just our family unit, just sort of nesting and bonding and getting the dogs used to the baby. And we just figured it out.

You just mentioned the dogs... before Leia came along you had these dogs, and you are one of the most dedicated dog moms.

(Laughing) I'm walking Miss Adelaide right now!

How did the dogs take to this new energy?

You know... it took a few days... they had missed us, obviously, since we were gone for a month! Then we come home and we brought this new energy into the house. Miss Adelaide was a little confused at first, and then she became obsessed with Leia (Laughing) and thought Leia was her baby. And she really became mommy's little helper and would sleep with her and cuddle and snuggle - Leia's napping, Miss Adelaide's napping; the two of them really were just kind of cuddle buddies. Barnum - it's just 18 months now and he's like, "Okay, she can stay," because he realized a few months ago that she gets him food. He finally warmed up to her when Leia started sharing her Goldfish and all of her snacks. So now he follows her everywhere, and Leia's to the point where she's like, "No! I'm not sharing this one Barnum! No!"

You posted on your social media a picture of Leia in her Halloween costume, as Princess Leia - the spelling is appropriate. Is she named for Princess Leia?

She is named for Princess Leia, yes. Well, she is named for my grandma Lily. (Lilyan) The "L" is for Lily. And we named Leia because... that's a story probably Rob would have to tell...he sort of wore me down. He was like "Her name is Leia," and I was like, "We're not naming her after Princess Leia." Carrie Fisher's daughter had written this really beautiful article about what her mom meant to her, and growing up with both her mom and the legacy of Leia. He just sort of left the article out for me one day, and I read it and started balling. (Fake crying) "That's her name! Her name's Leia!"

Amazing.

And just how independent the character is and strong-willed, and everything she stands for and just (Fake crying) "That's our daughter!" (Laughing)

All right... we should talk a little bit (cause I could talk about the baby and the dogs all day)

I know, me too.

The show LET ME BE ME is the show that you were planning to do before the pandemic - has the last 18 months changed it a lot?

Yes. There's a good portion of the show that is the same, but there's a chunk of the show that's different because it's going to be. I mean, we've all lived through an ordeal from the past 18 months, and I became a mom. I had to go quarantine and wait for my baby to be born via surrogate. And we've all just sort of grown and evolved and changed, and that had to be reflected in the show. The old show, as written, didn't make sense anymore.

As described on The Green Room 42 website, the show is about your journey as an actress and coming to terms with the business side of the industry and who you are as an artist.

Yes.

How did you come to decide to do a show of such a personal nature?

That's a great question. I think in the past I have done shows that have shown parts of myself, but not truly shown me; or I've guarded things, I felt sort of precious about them, I felt nervous about sharing them or felt very vulnerable. I felt like it's time. I feel more comfortable. I feel more in my own skin than ever before. I think you get to a certain point where you just say, "F*ck it. This is who I am. And if you don't like it, get on a different train."

Nice. Do you have any idea at all what changed in your life that gave you the resolve to stand up and say love me for who I am or a bugger off?

I think I started... you know, the more you're in the business, the more you see the business side of it and you realize that there's so much that it is out of your control and a lot of times it has nothing to do with your talent and so much to do with luck or just right place/right time, or filling a quota or, for some jobs, that for regional thing, that track has to go non-equity. There's so many things out of the performer's hands, that I got to a point where I realized that I need to just keep doing my work and being me. And that's what makes me the most happy. I can't try to fit what I think other people want to see - it's exhausting. It's exhausting in any facet of life.

How are you enjoying the freedom of playing Jennifer Diamond?

This is the most fun I've ever had. I truly love working with Robbie Rozelle and Luke Williams, my musical director. I'm always smiling ear to ear. I'm laughing, I'm smiling, I'm never not having the best time. It's been a true collaborative effort between the three of us and that's been a gift.

So in a collaborative effort, but telling a story that is your story that is so personal - put a picture in my head of your creative process that went into creating LET ME BE ME.

It started with Robbie and I sitting down and just having cocktails. I would start telling stories, telling him things, and him asking questions, and stories would just start flowing. You know, still, sometimes we're in rehearsal and I'll tell him something and he'll go, "You never told me that!" Yeah. Next show, next show...you know? (Laughing) It just sort of came organically. Okay, we have the stories, great; then we sat down and said, "Well, what do we want? What's the goal of the show? What's my thesis? What do I want to say?" We broke it up into sections, we started compiling lists of songs, and Luke had his own ideas, and we told the story that way. We always talk about ideas; there's never an immediate "No" - everything's always talked through as to why it would be a good idea or a bad idea.

Were there stories that you had to decide, "No, let's not do this one, this time around"?

Yes. There were a few. It's interesting: there were some stories that we liked that were in the old version of LET ME BE ME, pre-baby, that may never be told, or maybe we'll get to revisit, things that we thought we liked, and as we were fine tuning said, "It's great, but it's not achieving the goal we want." We're very mindful about editing ourselves and saying, "This isn't feeling right."

When that happens, is it easy for you? Is it easy for you to just cut it that quickly?

Yeah. I think if there was something that one of us was really passionate about, we would fight for it, but there hasn't been anything that any of us have been precious about.

Do you have any trepidations about being so honest with your audience?

No. Because it's who I am. (Laughing) I think the person I was most worried about was my husband. I worry about him as an audience member... (Laughing) How is he going to react to me telling some of these stories? The few things I was worried about, I ran by him, but he likes to be surprised, he doesn't like to know what's in my shows. I wanted to tell him a few things.

Over the years, I have learned that people who are related to, or married to, or friends with a storyteller have to get used to the idea, even just the idea, that at some time their story is going to come out.

(Laughing) I KNOW! That's exactly right! You have to tell them, "It's about me, not about you - I'm telling my story; yes, you were there, but it's my story!"

My husband just let go of that years ago - he was like, "Oh, forget it, just tell whatever you want."

Yeah, yeah!

So, MOMMY... What are your thoughts about going back to work, now that you have a child at home, going back to work doing regional theater and stuff like that?

Ooooooh, I don't know, Stephen. It would have to be the right show. I definitely think my scope has changed in terms of where I'(M) Willing to go and what I'(M) Willing to go away for. It's just changing; you know, time is so short, life moves so quickly. Right project, I would definitely go out of town for it.

But at this age, you would probably take her with you.

(Laughing) If Rob wouldn't freak out. (Laughing) "You're not taking my girl!" (Laughing) But I would take her with me... but it would have to be the right project. And I think that's why I'm so excited to do my solo show because it's something I want to continue doing in the city because I think that is how I could be creatively fulfilled but also see where that can take me.

I hear that you have some guest artists appearing in the show. Do you want to give us any kind of teasers or do you want to let your crowd be surprised?

Yes!I have the amazing Mauricio Martinez, who was supposed to join me last time and he is available and joining me again. And then my teaser (because she's not officially confirmed until later this week) we will have a GREEN girl.

Everybody loves a good green girl.

Yes, we WILL have a former Elphaba. (Breaking news - Donna Vivino has been confirmed.)

So you've got the show... you've got all the holiday mishigas - are you doing all the cooking for the holidays? Is that you? Is that your thing?

Yes, that's me. I do the cooking for the holidays. We have 10 people, including two vegans. Normally I do like a really big To-Do, but this year I had to cut myself some slack. I had to order a few things for pick at Whole Foods because I can't pretend to do everything.

And you know what, honestly, you shouldn't have to. My husband and I are both vegans and when we go over to other people's homes for dinner, we basically plan on eating when we get home.

Oh, no! I provide a full vegan everything! I always make a vegan entree, I make sure there's multiple vegan side options, and usually I make the vegan ahead of time, I freeze it and then defrost - I make them this really beautiful vegan loaf. But I would have had to make it last weekend and I didn't have time, so I got that at Whole Foods and the mushroom gravy. And I always make brussels sprouts for everyone that's vegan. I just made, this morning, my vegan cornbread, and I made a vegan cornbread stuffing that everyone can eat, and then an additional stuffing that's not vegan. I make vegan mash, I do a whole thing for the vegans, but I bought some stuff this year.

My husband has a great recipe for brussels sprouts stew that will email you.

Oh, please. Thank you.

Last year during the holiday season Leia was just a baby, but now she's a toddler and up and running around - do you have lots of fun plans for the month?

Yeah. Everything, you just want to see her react, it's so fun. Even though we're Jewish, we put some Christmas lights out just to make the house look pretty, and I'm so excited. I remember bringing her out last year to see them, and no reaction. (Laughing) I can't wait to bring her out this year to see all the lights, you know, things like that.

Most of my Jewish friends do the exact same thing when they have children, because it's difficult for their kids to see all the heathens doing the Santa thing and they don't get to participate.

Yeah! We have big silver boxes with blue bows - we keep it in the Hanukkah colors.

So you've got almost two weeks before the show.

Yes!

How are you feeling? Are you ready to go?

I'm pretty good. I think we're at a good place. We're going to arrive right on time.

How do you guys handle the rehearsal process? You live deep into Jersey.

Only an hour.

Do you come into the city to rehearse or do you guys do zoom rehearsals or anything like that?

I come into the city to rehearse and Luke gives me a bunch of rehearsal tracks.

Oh, that's so cool.

That way I can continue to do it on my own.

What kind of reaction do you get from the baby while you're singing?

She has just started to match my pitch.

You're a liar.

I swear to you.

She's how many months?

Eighteen.

And she's matching.

Yeah, she just started matching. It's unbelievable.

Clearly there's a mother daughter act in your future.

Oh yes. Wait til you see the show. We talk about that. (Laughing)

Would you support Leia if she decided to go into the business?

I want her to do whatever she wants to do. Whatever makes her happy. I would definitely encourage her if there was something else that grabbed her to do that.

I am, in fact, the reviewer that's coming to your show, so I can't wait to see it.

Do they give you tickets or do I have to get tickets for you?

I have the hookup through my job.

I'm so excited you get to be there!

I am excited, too. I've been waiting to see this for 18 months.

I mean, hey!

(Both laughing)

All right, I'm going to let you go take care of the baby and the dogs, but I'm so happy that you spoke with me today and I can't wait to see LET ME BE ME!

Thanks, Stephen, I'll talk to you soon.

Ciao, bella!

Bye!

Jennifer Diamond LET ME BE ME plays The Green Room 42 December 10th at 7 pm. For information and tickets visit TGR42 website HERE.

THIS is the Jennifer Diamond website.

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