Ordinarily, the actor-writer-musician Todd Almond is a fairly unflappable stage presence. However regular guidelines don’t apply while you uncover at intermission that Bob Dylan is within the viewers of the efficiency you’re giving of a musical that’s saturated along with his songs — and your harmonica solo is developing.
“I don’t know if you happen to’ve ever panicked,” Almond writes in his new guide, “Gradual Prepare Coming: Bob Dylan’s ‘Woman From the North Nation’ and Broadway’s Rebirth.”
An oral historical past, it chronicles the journey of Conor McPherson’s “Woman From the North Nation” from the Public Theater in 2018 to Broadway in 2020, then by way of the theater’s traumatic pandemic shutdown to a restart in 2021 on a way more fragile Broadway. Rigorously footnoted, knowledgeable by interviews with fellow firm members in addition to business figures, the guide is formed by Almond’s personal recollections as a solid member making his Broadway debut.
Its publication dovetails with Audible’s audio launch of Almond’s surreal, practically solo musical “I’m Virtually There,” about one man’s fear-filled, distraction-strewn path to like. Impressed by “The Odyssey,” it had a restricted run on the Minetta Lane Theater in Manhattan final fall, directed by David Cromer.
Earlier this month, Almond, 48, spoke by cellphone from his home on an island in Maine. These are edited excerpts from that dialog.
How did “Woman From the North Nation” change you?
It made me encounter mortality. I believe it was merely the expertise of residing and dying each single day: my character residing and dying. One way or the other the repetition of that ritual made me understand the price of the time that I spend with individuals, or on a mission. Plus, Conor places a lot faith into his performs, and so many ghosts.
Was writing the guide partly about wanting to hold onto the present?
I’m unsure it was that. I had a really robust impulse to write down it and to write down it rapidly, as a result of I believe I may really feel myself beginning to neglect it. And lots of people which have learn the guide, not even [people] with our present, simply in our enterprise, mentioned: “I forgot that each one of that occurred. I forgot we went by way of that.”
One part, known as The Stranger within the Hoodie, is about Dylan seeing the manufacturing on the Public. Is he what individuals ask you about probably the most?
It’s completely the very first thing they ask: “Did Dylan see the present?” I say, “Sure, he did.” Then they are saying, “Did you meet him?” And I’ve to say, “No, I didn’t.” [laughs] Which, you already know, stings slightly.
I don’t wish to know who’s within the viewers, however I don’t get nervous if I really feel assured within the present. However that was fairly nerve wracking, taking part in the harmonica in entrance of Bob Dylan.
Each efficiency, you privately devoted your large track, “Duquesne Whistle,” to somebody. Inform me about that.
Generally, whether or not you wish to name them superstitions or what, little rituals and habits start to kind as you’re performing a present again and again. I attempt to make a efficiency not about me, as a option to not be nervous. It most likely began with my husband, who was within the viewers, so I believed, “I’m going to sing this for him.” After which that labored its manner into my performer ritual superstition. In all probability the night time Dylan was there, I sang it for him.
How was it to interview individuals you already know about an expertise you had collectively?
I like to recommend everyone do that in life. If you happen to’re working with somebody for years and also you assume you already know them, take them to a four-hour lunch and speak about your time collectively. I felt like I used to be assembly individuals another time.
You write that “Woman From the North Nation” felt like “the music I used to play downtown; it was melancholy, it was ‘different.’” That appears very a lot within the neighborhood of “I’m Virtually There,” with the dream logic and surreality, but additionally the humor.
I spent a lot time, my early years in New York, hanging out with John Cameron Mitchell [of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” fame] and individuals who write in that sort of alt-pop world that does have a vein of melancholy and excessive artwork. And that’s what the music in “Woman From the North Nation” felt wish to me. As a result of Bob Dylan is so mental, but additionally mystical. That feels related, to me, to the Justin Vivian Bond [of Kiki and Herb fame] strategy to music.
Do you think about “I’m Virtually There” a musical?
I’ve all the time had a tough time reaching different individuals’s objective of what a musical is. I believed, “I’m going to write down a musical that I inform,” which is a kind I’d fallen into by acting at Joe’s Pub quite a bit. I’d write these unusual musicals and assume, “I’m going to attempt it out.” I’d collect a band and a pair singers, or generally I’d simply do it, and speak and sing my manner by way of. Once I sat down to write down “I’m Virtually There,” it felt like a medium I had been working in already.
What’s the distinction — in substance, really feel, expertise for the listener — between an audio model of a musical and a solid album?
My objective in writing the piece, as a result of it was commissioned from Audible, was to make one thing that it’s a must to use your creativeness whereas listening, and that might be an journey to take heed to. You may be as unusual as you needed to be. The stage model may be very very like me singing at Joe’s Pub. It’s story theater.
If you’re onstage, do you consider who’s on the market at the hours of darkness?
I want I may very well be an individual who didn’t. The opposite time I’ve been simply wild with panic and nervousness was doing “I’m Virtually There” in Edinburgh as a result of — I knew they have been coming, they’re buddies, however nonetheless. It was Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Martin McDonagh. I noticed them coming into the theater; they have been sitting proper there. And I let you know, I’ve by no means been so outdoors of myself doing a efficiency. That and Bob Dylan have been positively the toughest. As a result of I knew precisely who was on the market.
If you happen to’re filling out a kind that asks what you do for a residing, what do you write?
Each freaking time, I write “author,” after which I cringe. Or I write “actor” — actor! — and I throw up. Or I write “musician,” and I believe, “You’re not a musician. You’d be fired in a minute.” [laughs] As a result of I consider the gamers within the pit or, you already know, an orchestra. Clearly I’m a musician. I play the piano on the highway with singers on a regular basis. However that’s such a very good query. That basically pushes a button for me, as a result of each kind I fill out, I have no idea the reply.