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Alice Johnson has performed stand-up comedy all over the country. She’s a graduate from Tulane University and studied theater abroad at the University of London, Royal Holloway. Alice is a company member of Sigourney Weaver and Jim Simpson’s Bat Theater Company at the Flea Theater in NYC. She’s performed several productions at the Tony award-winning Actors Theater of Louisville. Other credits include: "Sex and the City", Miramax short Films and the movie The Devil and Daniel Webster with Alec Baldwin.

Interviewed by Joanna Parson

You’re performing your one-woman play “St. Alice of Chattahoochee” right now in Los Angeles. Tell us about the show.
It’s a one-woman comic odyssey. We follow our hero Alice- who is like me but a real spoofy version-, as she makes grand attempts at greatness and continually fails in a grand, great big manner. She realizes that her true talent is for embarrassment and awkwardness, and that this is the real gift that she has to give others. She is here to make others feel better about themselves. She uses her own (hilarious) failures to take others’ shame about their own failures away.

When did you know that your life of embarrassment was a story that you wanted to share with others? How did you begin to create the show?
When I was a kid and I used to play Barbies, I would create these pitiful scenarios for them to re-enact. The scenarios would consist of things I was grappling with but on a much bigger, more ridiculous scale. After I came up with a better-than-ever type solution and I saw my Barbies to safety, I always felt a lot better about what was possible for me.

Once my aunt told me that art was a bridge, a way to connect with other people. I’ve always felt a little awkward and this was a way to tell my story in a way that maybe, hopefully, other people would connect to and then maybe feel less awkward themselves. I’ve always wanted to do that. I felt that I’ve always stuck out in a hilarious, grand way and I thought, there’s got to be a way to use this. I can’t be that different. Surely other people feel this way.

The show details I noticed and remembered forever but didn’t know why or what they could be used for. I used some for stand-up, and some happily belong right here in this show. I write things down and save them.

Your director, Rod Menzies, has worked with a lot of solo show performers as a director and a voice coach. How did you first come in contact with him, and how did you know he would be the right director for your piece?
I saw a very talented actress, Jayne Larson, do a solo piece in Larry Moss’s class. I saw her and thought, “that’s it! That’s the kind of thing I want to make!” Stand-up just wasn’t right for what I wanted to make- I couldn’t figure out how to make it a well-rounded experience. I didn’t know how to manipulate the form of stand-up in order to say what I wanted. Some people can do that, and I admire them very much.

But she was telling a story. I’ve always written; I wrote short stories but I knew they weren’t stage-worthy. I wanted to know what makes a story from one narrator stage-worthy. I randomly saw Jayne at a party and I asked her about her piece. She told me about Rod. I contacted him, and the minute he began talking I knew we were on the same page. I brought him some stories and he said; “Now if these all have to go together- say they have to- how would it go? What is the theme? What do all of these have in common?” I knew then we’d be a good team. Because I was writing the same story over and over and he has enough literary wherewithal to see that, even when I couldn’t. And together we figured that the heart of the show is hubris, the subsequent failure and the inevitable embarrassment. And how to reconcile that.

Can you describe the development of the writing? Did you work together to shape the writing, or did you hand him a completed script? And as you worked together, was it difficult to trust someone else with material you are so close to?
I had some basic episodes that we decided were relevant from the very first meeting. It was a matter of making them smooth and putting them in a grand arc of a story. Rod was my partner in developing the script. He would point out where we needed more detail or less. The story was always there. Somebody said something about a sculpture always being there in the raw material; it just takes the sculptor to find it. We found the story together.

I came to him at a very tender, shall we say, point in my life. I saw him work with others in workshops and classes and I always agreed with his assessment of their work. He has a gift for expressing things in such a specific, truthful way and yet with real love and respect for artists. I knew I was safe with him. I’d never felt like that before. He’s also just a real smart, real well read guy. That is one of his fundamental truths. I like and trust that about him. He knows lots of stories. He knows how they work.

I also have some good buddies with good taste who helped me figure things out as well. I’d read them things and they’d tell me what they thought. They were sweet and supportive but candid and truly helpful. My writer friend Leila Howland is very smart. Mike O’Connell is a knowledgeable, talented performer and he helped me figure out the show in a huge way. They saw the show in all of its many stages and really encouraged me.

Being the only performer in a solo show means there are only two people in the rehearsal room working intimately together, they’d better develop a good working relationship. Can you describe how you and Rod worked during the rehearsal period?
We riffed on certain themes. I mean this is my life, the material is never-ending. I would go off sometimes and we’d figure out what was useful, have some laughs, and then eventually rehearse what we had before in a new light.

Tell us about the shaping process you had a lifetime’s worth of material to draw from. What did you choose to edit out, what made the cut, and why?
There were things that I loved that I just had to face didn’t serve the story, or things that Rod or other people liked that I felt didn’t serve the story. We edited out things that were redundant no matter how cute or uncanny we personally found them. Rod calls that editing process “killing babies.” We always wanted to serve the story, and the audience’s experience of that story.

You play 30 characters in the piece, were you ever afraid that you wouldn’t be able to differentiate between the characters, or that some characters would come to life more fully-formed than others? How did you write and rehearse for 30 people?
That has always been a huge concern. It has taken a while to get everybody real specific. Some characters have bigger parts than others. Some are more developed than others because they are more developed in the story. But they’re all different people. You can see that by their physicality, their attitude in a split second.

How do you handle interactions between the characters?
It’s all about rhythm. It’s about turning on a dime. It’s a matter of knowing the material, basically, and knowing when somebody else is coming up without showing the audience. And then switching back and forth.

Music is an important part of your life and that of the show’s lip-synching heroine. Talk about making musical decisions in the formation of the show, how did you decide what types of music to use, when to use songs and how to stage them?
I remembered songs that were important to me at the time, no matter how ridiculous and clichéd they seem to me now. I always felt I had a talent for lip-synching. It would make people laugh because I was so accurate. I mean every breath, every pause. I know it. I would make an awesome drag queen. Remember when lip-synching almost seemed a viable career in entertainment? There was the show Putting on the Hits and there was a lip-synching category on Star Search too. Rod and I instinctively know how to stage them given the context of what’s happening in the story.

As I began to work on the show, almost everything I would listen to relates in some way to the themes of the show and the struggle of our heroine. That’s why I like to hand out mix CDs to the audience. So they go home and think, “oh yeah, I see how that relates.” Sometimes lyrics can be so simple but the subtext is so complex only music can express it. My dad always played a variety of music on road trips. I got a reluctant music education that I’m real grateful for now. Professor Longhair, Clarence Gatemouth Brown, lots of blues guys. Country guys. Sometimes boys use sports to bond with their dads; me and my dad used music to say what we were too embarrassed to say.

The world of solo shows is very supportive, have you been able to meet any other mentors or heroes from the solo performance world? Who do you think has influenced you most as a writer and performer?
Ann Randolph has been very helpful. I admire her a lot for her show and also for her hard work and success. She gave me lots of great ideas on how to get the show up. Once I saw Deb Margolin do a show at Tulane and I still remember parts of her show verbatim. I love Lily Tomlin. I love Tracy Ullman for her skill and keen eye, and I love Amy Sedaris's absurdity. Gilda Radner seemed so heartfelt and empathetic. Mostly I’m influenced by books. I like southern gothic writers like Carson McCullers and Flannery O’Connor. But I make what I make because I think I’m the only one who can make it. And I’ve always wanted to go to a theater and see something like what I make.

Tell us a little bit about your background. When did you first begin to study theater?
In my town in Georgia, we had one community theater and at the time, the schools didn’t do much in terms of plays, or at least the schools I went to didn’t. I always wanted to be in a play. We did have a dance school, which I settled for, so that I could be in recitals and wear costumes and stuff, but I knew that I wanted to perform in some other way. I kind of had to wait until I went to college to act. As soon as I got to Tulane I auditioned for a play, USA- an adaptation of a John Dos Passos novel- I got in and I was thrilled. I had a great director, Buzz Podewell, who used to play the banjo all the time during rehearsal.

You’ve also performed stand-up comedy around the country. In your opinion, what makes stand-up comedy an important outlet for actors?
There’s a real “put me in coach” kind of feeling about actors. With stand-up you can feel as though you have some control. You decide when you perform. Actors love performing; and, true, it’s a way to perform. You have something vaguely interesting to tell people when they ask the dreaded “how’s the acting going”, and you have the opportunity to be special. Unfortunately, some actors only do it to perform and don’t really have anything pressing to say.

You’ve lived in New York, and are performing now in LA. Why did you choose Los Angeles for the debut of “St. Alice of Chattahoochee?”
Because now is the only time I could’ve done the show. I didn’t imagine the show in New York. I met Rod here. I wanted to do a show in New York- I’ve always wanted to do something like this- but I had to grow up. It didn’t all come together in my mind in New York. Things in real life had to happen in order to help me figure out the story.

Can you compare your experiences as an actor in the two cities?
I love New York. I had a big time there but I was also over stimulated. I would have like ten newspapers in a big old bag, I’d be reading ten books, staring at people on the subway and listening to my walkman. I couldn’t concentrate. You can feel successful just by surviving there- or at least I did, but I’m a little provincial. You can think, “I thrived today, I’m doing great”- with all of the people and everything moving so fast, life could feel like a clichéd movie about making it in the big city. And you could get tricked into thinking getting by was enough but in actuality not really moving forward. I got seduced by that. It clouded me up. I feel like in LA you have to face the truth. You spend a lot of time with yourself. I had to really think.

Tell us about Fountain City Productions and the Powerhouse Theatre Company how did you hook up with the people who are currently producing the show?
My brother is producing the show with me. We are Fountain City Productions. I found Eric Sims at the Powerhouse through a friend of a friend. He read the script and decided to help out. It’s nice to have some people on the team.

What advice do you have for people who are interested in creating their own solo shows? Have you learned anything that can save them a step or two, or keep them inspired as they undertake the process?
Don’t be afraid to ask for help. You can’t do it alone. Perform as much as you can, whenever, wherever you can. And don’t stop. I think it takes a long time. So settle in and relax. Be around people who love you and whose opinion you trust. Call Rod Menzies.

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