BWW Interviews: Leighza Walker Talks LEIGHZALAND: OBSERVATIONS FROM THE LEIGHZASPHERE and More

I was graciously welcomed to Leighzaland and introduced to the powerful presence that is Leighza Walker. We talked about a variety of topics: family, theatre and, of course, her three-part one woman show LEIGHZALAND ... Read on to know thyself some Leighza. Go to the shows to know thyself some more Leighza. Maybe in the end, you'll know thyself a little bit more.

BWW: You just finished the first installment of your three-part series of one-woman shows. What can we expect from the second show?

Leighza Walker: My upcoming show OBSERVATIONS FROM THE LEIGHZASPHERE is a little more general than DECLARATION OF A SOVEREIGN NATION. It's Bill Hicksian (and dedicated to him). It's all the spacey weird things I think about and some of the "Mr. Bean" moments where crazy stuff happened and how I thought my way through it.

BWW: Tell me about the first show.

Leighza Walker: It's the first in a series of three one-woman shows. The name of it is LEIGHZALAND: DECLARATION OF A SOVEREIGN NATION.

BWW: How did you come up with the title LEIGHZALAND?

Leighza Walker: My ex-husband started calling me the queen of Leighzaland a long, long time ago, and it stuck. So I just decided to accept and embrace it. We split up about eight years ago, and the first time he took the kids for the day, I realized that I had no idea how to be alone. I'm one of four children. I had four children. I've never lived by myself. I've always lived with roommates or my family. I had no idea what to do with myself. It took me about a year before I was comfortable just being by myself.

Part of the show will be the idea of being independent and learning how to appreciate yourself in your own company.

BWW: Can you share some details on how you got to that place?

Leighza Walker: I got back into theatre. I had taken a very long break to raise children, and I got back into theatre. It really made me feel like I was home again. I was raised in the theatre. My parents joined the community theatre when I was 7 years old. That was my entire social upbringing. Being able to go out and do rehearsals and come back, you appreciate that alone time more. [Laughs] Realizing that to read without anyone interrupting, to go to the bathroom without a toddler walking into - we literally took the door off of our bathroom when our children were small because there was no point in even having it, because they would bang and bang and bang on it. Especially when you have four under ten years old, there's no such thing as being alone.

BWW: What did you learn from performing your first one-woman show?

Leighza Walker: I learned I'm well loved! I also learned, or confirmed, that yes, I can talk for an hour straight in an engaging manner. I also learned that this feels completely natural. It's nothing like acting. Nothing.

BWW: [Laughs] What will you do differently for OBSERVATIONS FROM THE LEIGHZASPHERE?

Leighza Walker: Believe it or not, I will have fewer notes. The two or three word prompts worked so much better than paragraph prompts.

BWW: Autobiographical works are so interesting to me. You can know a character, but can you ever truly know yourself?

Leighza Walker: I think that I will be making discoveries throughout the entire process. Station Theatre has offered to sponsor me for three months. And they're giving me the second Saturday night at 10:30 pm at their location on Houston Avenue to vet my show. And it's really so I can figure out how the format is going to work. My gut feeling is that I only want to outline the things I want to say and the stories I want to tell. I want to tell them extemporaneously every night. I don't want it to be fully scripted. I want people to feel like I am just standing there telling them stories.

When my play, WHEN THE DAY MET THE NIGHT, was produced, every night my curtain speech got longer. I wrote it, and I directed it. And I designed the set. And I designed the lights. I almost ended up running the lightboard. [I Laugh] I did end up running some of the sound for it. And, at the last minute, I ended up having to act in it. Luckily, one small scene was all I had to do. So I was fully immersed in the show. And every night, I would go out and just talk a little bit about the set up and how I came to write the show. I was in a fairly unique position to be the writer and the director, and to be so heavily involved in the production. We recorded one night. When I watched it, my curtain speech was almost twenty minutes long. When we called places, the actors would laugh at me, because they knew we probably had a solid fifteen to sit around. Minimum.

As I'm talking on stage - I'm watching a recording of it - I realize that the audience is engaged. That I was not just talking from this narcissistic position. I was entertaining them. Every night there were laughs. Every night there were answers from the audience. When I would throw out some weird question that came off the top of my head, people would answer it. And that's when I realized that I was a storyteller.

My dad is a brilliant storyteller. But it wasn't until that moment - and that was almost three years ago - that I ever considered myself a storyteller. I knew I was an actor. I knew I was a writer. But I never thought of myself as a storyteller until then.

BWW: Those are all storytellers.

Leighza Walker: I think storytelling is more extemporaneous. The difference between an actor and a comedian.

BWW: Do you see storytelling as more performative and spoken than written on the page?

Leighza Walker: Yes, speaking the story is very, very important. And also reading your audience. It's a symbiotic relationship between the storyteller and the audience. Much more symbiotic than acting.

BWW: Is this project a challenge for you?

Leighza Walker: Chris Skelton, a local actor, comedian and improv artist, called me one night and said, "Hey, we do this thing where we have someone come in and tell a story that's anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes long. Then we improv or riff off of it for 30 minutes. Then the storyteller comes back up and tells another story that we riff off of again. Would you be interested in doing this? I really need somebody for Saturday night." My first impulse was nausea and terror. But I said, "Yes, I will do it!" because it was a challenge. It was a distinct challenge for someone as introverted as me. I come across like I have all my sh*t together, but it's somewhat of a facade. A lot of who I am is because I'm introverted. So when he made a suggestion that I felt such abject fear over, I was not going to allow it to stop me. Without hesitation, I said yes.

I was sick to death - all day. [I Laugh] This was within a month or so of THE DAY MET THE NIGHT closing. So I had already had this experience with an audience where I felt I was feeding from them and they were feeding from me. The moment I got on stage and started telling my story that happened again. It was a huge revelation to me and reinforced my identity as a storyteller. I can't ever thank him enough for putting that challenge before me.

BWW: A continuation on the comedian theme: Have you ever bit it?

Leighza Walker: Yes. I produced a lot of theatre over the last few years and I've often ended up, unless I've had a big role I was acting, being the person doing the curtain speech. And there were times when I went out there and just got nothing. The room's dead and all you can say is "Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy the show. Make sure you turn off your cell phones" and walk away. That's all you can do.

BWW: You let it roll off your back?

Leighza Walker: Absolutely. It's a moment. I have been fortunate to have many moments that were 180 degrees different than that. So to have one or two moments where I felt like I fell flat - nothing - you just get up and do it again.

BWW: Okay. Let's talk career. Young artists really want the nuts and bolts. Can you tell me how you manage all the things in your life and give me specifics? What does a regular day in the life look like for Leighza Walker?

Leighza Walker: When I'm not doing a show, my day looks like everyone else's. I get up and take my kids to school. I go to work. I go home and I lay in bed and read. I'm not a TV watcher.

On a typical day, when I'm doing a show, I will get up, take the kids to school, go to work and while I'm at work, I may be making phone calls or working on marketing. I'll take a 15 minute break here and there to work on whatever project I'm trying to make happen. I'm the artistic director for Cabal Productions so usually I'm texting back and forth with John Patterson, the Executive Director. "Did you do this?" and him asking me "Did you do this?" Then picking kids up, going home, and if at all possible taking a nap, because I will be at rehearsal within an hour. After that, dealing with all of the aspects of production. I have to have my fingers in everything. I don't have to have control over it, but I want to know what's going on with every aspect of production. Finally, getting home at 11 or 12 o'clock, getting on the computer, finishing up any last details and sometimes getting sucked into writing on a script or a play that I'm working on or on my one-woman show. Then going to bed at 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning and getting up at 7 am to do it again.

BWW: I guess I can't complain about not getting enough sleep! I can't wait to see LEIGHZALAND: OBSERVATIONS FROM THE LEIGHZASPHERE (coming in December). What do we have to look forward to in the third installment, WELCOME TO THE LEIGHZAHOOD (coming in January)?

Leighza Walker: WELCOME TO THE LEIGHZAHOOD will broaden the range of stories even further. My life. Things I want. Things I want you to know and how I want you to be my neighbor.

BWW: Is there anything else you would like to say about the project that I haven't asked?

Leighza Walker: I am greatly inspired by Tamarie Cooper, who year after year puts herself on display with no shame. And part of why I do what I do is for my kids. I want them to overcome fear. I am afraid. I live with the fear of acceptance and rejection. And I still stand before people and welcome their judgment. "What's the worst thing that can happen" is a great question to ask yourself. The best thing that can happen is that you will discover that fear is a waste of time and you will fly.

Would you be Leighza's neighbor? OK, so I actually can't guarantee that. But I can say that you can see her in person at her one-woman shows.

OBSERVATIONS FROM THE LEIGHZASPHERE

Dec. 13th at 10:30 pm

WELCOME TO THE LEIGHZAHOOD

Jan. 10th at 10:30 pm

Both performances are at Station Theatre (http://www.stationtheater.com/)

More details about the shows can be found at the merry old land of Leighza - http://www.leighzaland.org/. For more information, email Leighza Walker at leighza@leighzaland.org or call 832-506-0551.

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