Interview: Theatre Life with Liz Larsen

Today’s subject Liz Larsen has been living her theatre life for many years turning out stellar performances onstage, on many recordings, and beyond. You can currently see her knockout talents at Arena Stage in the new musical The Bedwetter which runs through March 16th in Arena’s Kreeger Theatre space.

She was last seen at Arena Staage as Dot in Sunday in The Park With George. Her performance garnered her a Helen Hayes Award. She also received a Helen Hayes Nomination for Baby at Olney Theatre Center.

Liz’s past Broadway credits include Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, Starmites, The Most Happy Fella ( Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critic’s Circle nominations and an LA Drama League Award), and A New Brain.

Liz has had the privilege of performing with such Broadway legends as Herschel Bernardi and Maria Karnilova in Fiddler on The Roof. Read on for her experience of working with Jerome Robbins.

Hew regional/tour credits include Rhythm Ranch, Romance Romance (opposite her extremely talented husband Sal Viviano), Annie, and The Loman Family Picnic.

Besides working continuously on stages across the country, Liz has worked on many top TV shows. Past credits include Madoff (w/ Richard Dreyfuss) Mr. Robot, Law & Order (10 years), SVU (4 years), The Americans, Bunheads, Criminal Intent, Sopranos, Raising Kanan, Third Watch, The Street, Deadline, The Breaks. Movies: The Week Of, Hudson Tribes, The Boy Downstairs, One Percent More Humid, and Keeping the Faith.

Her voice can be heard on many cast recordings as well as the Lost in Boston series. Trust me, look up her “Take It In Your Stride”. It’s a religious experience for any musical theatre geek.

Liz Larsen is a true example of a performer whose work keeps on giving and giving year after year. Grab some tickets to The Bedwetter at Arena Stage and see for yourself how Liz Larsen is living her theatre life to the fullest.

Growing up, did you have any idea that you would turn out to be a professional performer?

Oh, yes! I started in children's theatre at a very early age, since I was about 3 years old. There was a local children's theatre company where the woman that ran it wrote all the original musicals herself. She was an ex-actress from New York, and she was insane. I loved her very much. She was my mentor. She gave me my entire work ethic. From how to “sell a song,” to how to hit the back wall, and so many other dramatic funny things that she taught me I still use.

Where did you receive your training?

I grew up in New Hope, Pennsylvania, and that’s where the children’s theatre company was, but my grandfather was a vaudevillian. His name was Georgie Price. He was a song and dance man. He did movie shorts, Broadway shows and had his own radio show. My grandmother was a dancer and model, my mom was a child actor and so was my uncle, so everybody was kind of on the periphery if not doing it.

What was your first professional job as a performer?

Well, I wouldn't say it was professional, but when I was 6 years old, I did The King and I at Lambertville Music Circus. Elaine Stritch played Anna, and I remember in the scene at the end when the King’s on his death bed, there were about 25 little kids who were hired to play his children. So, he's on his death bed and we’re all gathered around Anna, and she's got on this huge hoop skirt. The first night we did the show I made a bet with my older sister Karen that I could get farthest under the hoop skirt. It was literally during a death scene in front of you know 2,500 people, and I get underneath this this hoop skirt, and I lift it up in the middle of the scene and go “haha Karen, haha Karen” and she kicked me so hard. After that my mother made me sit out of the show, and watch it, teaching me that it doesn't matter where you are on a stage, there's always somebody watching you.

Had you been involved with The Bedwetter in NY before everything shutdown?

No, I was offered it for this incarnation.

Can you please tell us a little something about The Bedwetter as well as something about the character you play in the show?

What I love about The Bedwetter besides the fact that I think it's hilarious, is the whole thing of how when we're kids, we think we're the ones who don't fit in or we're the only ones with awful secrets and this show just makes you feel like everybody's in the same boat. It's what you do with it, and what Sarah Silverman did is she took it and created a very successful comedic life, and I just think she's amazing, I really do. She's been through so much and she's so positive, so excited by life. She's a hero, I love her.

What I love about this character is that I'm playing an actual person, so I can get advice on what she was like and try to be that /which is so much more fun than just you know…playing the grandma. She had big dichotomy of having a potty mouth but great elegance. She was a smoker and a drinker but still incredibly colorful, and so Sarah would give me imitations of what she did and what she was like. She had a thick Boston accent, and I love it so much, I just love trying to embody this woman.

You’ve been involved with many new musicals over your long career. Can you please tell us what you remember about your experience putting the following shows together?

Rhythm Ranch at Paper Mill Playhouse: That’s hilarious! Rhythm Ranch was written by Nashville music writers, and it had great potential, it just you know wasn't that good. I had a great part, it was fun, and they used to spend a lot of money on shows in those days and I remember one of my gowns cost like $15,000. That was the most excited I'd ever been about anything. I was wearing a $15,000 gown. It was really heavy. Other than that, in that particular show, they wrote it, we put it up, and we did it. In most new musicals that I do, there's tremendous amounts of changes, cuts, and all kinds of things that go on so that that was an exception in a lot of ways.

Starmites on Broadway: The mighty Starmites! I loved doing it so much. I loved it more when we were down at CSC, when we were just pushing boxes around because it works so beautifully in a very small space and people can imagine the comic book. Once we got to Broadway, we were trying to do techno stuff and I mean it was 1989 so there wasn't much, but I think it cheapened something that is so much richer when we let the audiences put their imagination into it. But I loved that because I played a dual character, so a lot of the changes were made on me, on my personality, on my cadence, and that's very satisfying when you're doing a new musical and they write for you.

You performed with the great Herschel Bernardi and Maria Karnilova as Chava in Fiddler on The Roof. What would you say was the biggest lesson you learned about performing from being onstage with both of these Broadway greats and working with the show’s original director/choreographer Jerome Robbins?

I think from Herschel and Maria it was consistency, but my biggest lesson was from Jerome Robbins himself who came back to direct it. He was a really intense guy. He directed actors very very close up and spoke very softly and I was so into the fact that it was Jerome Robbins that I was always trying to watch him direct other people. I was always crawling up as close as I could to get near him, but the most significant thing that happened was when I had to do what is known as the "Chava Ballet." And I'm not a dancer. I've danced but this is Jerome Robbins and he's about to choreograph me doing an original Jerome Robbins dance. I was practically in tears because I can't dance like that, and so he's standing there and I'm shaking and I say, “listen I'm not a dancer, I'm sorry, I'll do everything I can to do what you're going to tell me to do but I just have to let you know,” and he says “you'll be fine, just move through honey not air” and I was like “damn! I got that. That I can do.” That was the best lesson, I'll never forget it and then after that it was easy.

What is the best thing for you about putting together a new musical like The Bedwetter?

The best and most exciting thing for me is getting to be in the room with the people who are creating it and having input in what I think is best for telling the story of this character. I've never been someone who wants more; another song or my part to be bigger. I'm very into dramaturgy and finding the best way to tell the story for the piece, so I consider myself a great asset to anyone who is putting together a new musical. First, because I have so much history with them, from successful ones to non-successful ones, to workshops (and I mean hundreds and hundreds of workshops of different things), and I love it. I love trying to put together a story in the most dramatic and elevated and exciting way it can be put together.

After The Bedwetter finishes its run at Arena Stage, what else is in store for you in 2025?

I'm opening in a new movie by the Duplass brothers called The Baltimorons. Jay Duplass directed this movie that we shot last year in Baltimore, and we're going to South by Southwest in March to premiere it. I play the female lead which is so absurd because in terms of TV and film, my entire career I've done lots of small parts, lots of people with like four or five scenes, but not the lead with a storyline and it's incredibly exciting for me. Jay basically just asked me to do it because he had seen me in the musical version of Transparent in LA. In the Transparent series that was done on Amazon, he played the character that was my son. He came to see the musical, and eight months later he called me and said do you want to make this movie. We had a blast, it was so much fun, I love Baltimore. We even have a scene in a crab boat right below the bridge that collapsed. That's one of the penultimate scenes, us in the boat underneath that bridge. So that’s what I'm excited about, we premiere it there on March 7th.

Special thanks to Arena Stage's Public Relations Specialist Anastasia St. Hilaire forn her assistance in coordinating this interview.

Additional photo support provided by Paper Mill Playhouse's Digital Media & Graphic Design Manager Billy Swann.

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