Playbill.com's Cue & A

Below is the Playbill.com Cue and A interview I did with Matt Blank during Tony season. It may seem strange, but filling out Playbill's Cue & A has been a dream of mine since I started following the site since first coming to New York.

Elizabeth A. Davis, a 2012 Tony Award nominee for her performance in Once, fills out Playbill.com's questionnaire of random facts, backstage trivia and pop-culture tidbits.

Davis has appeared onstage in The 39 Steps, Wolves, Dally With the Devil, The Misanthrope, Opus, A Streetcar Named Desire, Ride the Tiger and Doubt.

Screen work includes "Fringe" and "All My Children."

Full given name:	Elizabeth Anne Davis
Where you were born/where you were raised:	Born in Dumas, TX. Grew up all 18 years in Channing, TX. (Pop. 363)
Zodiac Sign:	Libra
What your parents did/do for a living:	Daddy and Mama (retired early) were both in education. Frank was the superintendent of schools. Previously, he taught 5th grade and music. Melody taught English, speech and communications.
Siblings:	Jonathan works with his hands: interior design, landscape architecture. He makes things look amazing.
Special skills:	Violin, empathy
Something you're REALLY bad at:	Volleyball, unwinding, swimming.
First Broadway show you ever saw:	Thoroughly Modern Millie. Anne Nathan's tap dancing still has me reeling.
If you could go back in time and catch any show, what would it be?	The first production of Uncle Vanya
Did you have any particular mentors or inspirations as a young actor?	My parents directed the high school play together from before I was born until after my graduation. Their influence on my passion for theatre can't be overstated.
Current show you have been recommending to friends:	My husband and I always recommend Fuerza Bruta because we're obsessed. Also, One Man, Two Guvnors and Peter and the Starcatcher are on my "I haven't been able to see this but you totally should" list.
Favorite showtunes of all time:	"Your Daddy's Son" from Ragtimeand "Not for the Life of Me" fromMillie.
Some favorite musicals:	The King and I Fiddler on the Roof My Fair Lady
Some favorite modern plays:	The Last Days of Judas Iscariotjust won't leave me.
Some favorite modern playwrights:	Bill Mastrosimone, Sarah Ruhl, Rob Askins, Bridgette Wimberly, Tom Stoppard
Do you consider yourself an actor, a musician or a singer first?	I say my violin is my first voice because I've been playing since I was three, but I am most certainly an actor first. That's where I trained and where most of my professional life has existed so far.
Stage or screen stars of the past you would most have loved to perform with:	Audrey Hepburn. I mean, come on. She's it for me. Also Michael Chekhov and Danny Kaye.
The one performance – attended - that you will never forget:	Bowfire at the NJPAC: violin & fiddle virtuosos that ALSO tap danced like insane people. It sort of made me want to quit the business, they were so good.
Music that makes you cry, any genre:	Billy Joel, any 90s country, Melanie Penn (makes me laugh AND cry)
You personal acting idols:	Elizabeth Marvel, Betty Buckley, Warren Kelley
MAC or PC?	MAC
Most played song on your iPod:	"Restless" by Switchfoot
Most-visited websites:	Yahoo, Twitter, Chase: how lame!

Others include Flavors.me, Playbill.com, Oncemusical.com and of course my new webseries highlighting subway musicians, "Underground Sound," @ www.elizabethadavis.com.

Last book you read:	I'm in the middle of "Balancing Act," Angela Lansbury's authorized biography by Martin Gottfried
Must-see TV show(s):	"Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives" on the Food Network
Last good movie you saw:	Terrence Malick's 1978 "Days of Heaven"
Some films you consider classics:	"East of Eden" "The Court Jester" "Last of the Mohicans" "Giant" "The Boys Next Door" (Hallmark Special version)

Performer you would drop everything to go see:	Atomic Tom
Pop culture guilty pleasure:	Katy Perry's song, "Teenage Dream"
Favorite cities:	New York City, Edinburgh, San Diego
First CD/Tape/LP you owned:	Alanis Morissette
First stage kiss	Justin Martindale in Two Gentlemen of Verona at Baylor University
Moment you knew you wanted to perform for a living:	Sitting in my dorm room, spring semester of Freshman year. I loved theatre so much it seemed like a trick to actually get to pursue it as a career until that moment.
What do you find most challenging or taxing about this project?	Sitting still, then bursting into movement, then sitting still again is up there. Also, singing and playing the "Falling Slowly" finale simultaneously isn't a walk in the park for me.
Who were the first people you called/texted after learning of your nomination?	I called Daddy and Mama, and I texted back Lelund Durond Thompson.
How did you celebrate the good news?	I just tried to stay on top of all the wonderful calls, texts, emails, etc. Also, my husband Jordan made me strawberry pancakes, and I celebrated with my cast by doing the show!
Favorite pre-/post- show meal:	Juice Generation on 45th and 9th. Pretty much anything on their menu, but especially the Amazing Green Acai Bowl. I get pineapple on top.
Favorite liquid refreshment:	Soda and cranberry, and caffeine free Diet Coke. I have lame allergies.
Pre-show rituals or warm-ups:	Vocal Coach Liz Caplan's adrenal gland filler-upper breathing exercise and violin warmups that sometimes include Orange Blossom Special and often Kreutzer arpeggios.
Worst flubbed line/missed cue/onstage mishap:	I was in high school playing the Madwoman in The Madwoman of Chaillot, and I happened to play the violin in that show as well. There was a handoff of the fiddle and in one performance, our hands slipped and the violin went crashing to the ground. The crowd gasped. In my "maddest" fashion, I picked it up with my heart racing, noticed the end pin totally busted, and began playing anyway. It remarkably stayed in tune.
Worst costume ever:	I played Athena in The Oresteia. I was painted gold. ALL OF ME. Even my hair. It looked really cool, but it wasn't fun to "put on" every night. Or take off. Actually, it never really all came off for three weeks. It was worth it, though.
Worst job you ever had:	It's a tie between doing math at an abysmal temp job (oy) and selling cowboy boots and belt buckles to rich corporates in suits on 59th St. My rancher grandad would have fallen out.
Most challenging role you have played onstage:	I played Leonide in Triumph of Love. That chick never stops talking, or switching from being a man/woman. It's an amazing challenge, but a beast.
Favorite screen or commercial gigs:	I did a "Fringe" episode that Michael Cerveris was on set for, so that was happy. And I did a Crest commercial that never aired but I was in pajamas the whole time. Score.
Leading lady role you've been dying to play:	Isabella in Measure for Measureand my biggie, Eliza in Pygmalion. Also, Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Scarlett just crushed my dreams!
Something about you that surprises people:	That I don't have an accent. But it comes out in no time if I'm talking on the phone to the (806) area code.
Career you would want if not a performer:	Interior designer or theatrical producer
Three things you can't live without:	My morning elixir (Protein Extreme Energy), my busted up hair dryer, a copy of Madeleine L'Engle's "Walking on Water"
Words of advice for aspiring performers:	Set goals down in ink, do free work, let diligence and excellence be your constant companions. Work harder than you think is necessary.

Broadway.com's "Fresh Face"

Broadway.com caught up with me and did a story in their "Fresh Face" section. It debuted between a story on James Earl Jones and one on Mike Nichols. It was a surreal thing to see my face sandwiched between those two greats for a day or so. It will probably never happen again, so I enjoyed it. Below is the text:

Current Role: A Tony-nominated performance as violin-playing, man-eating Czech immigrant Reza in the Dublin-set love story Once.

Jill of All Trades: In many ways, Elizabeth A. Davis has been preparing for her multi-faceted role in Once her whole life. Growing up in the Texas panhandle town of Channing (“I think the population sign now says 363”), she did absolutely everything. “There are not enough people in school to make up a team for anything unless everyone does it,” she says. “So I ran track, I played basketball, I was a cheerleader, I was in one-act plays, I played the violin, I was in choir—I got this wide net of opportunities that made me feel like nothing was impossible.” Her love of performing came from her parents, both educators, who met in a singing group and went on to direct local plays. Davis started playing the violin by age three, after attending a performance of The Nutcracker. “At intermission my dad took me to the orchestra pit and pointed out all the instruments,” she recalls. “All the way home, I cried because I wanted to play the violin.”

New Horizons: Leaving her hometown for Baylor University was an eye-opener for Davis. “For the first time in my life I encountered poverty,” she says. The issue became a lifelong passion, which has manifested in different ways. First came pageants. “I competed at the Miss Texas pageant and the Miss Ohio pageant,” she says. “My platform was homelessness and poverty, and I did them because I wanted to be able to take that platform to a state and perhaps a national level.” Pageants eventually made way for plays. Davis, who got her MFA in acting at Cleveland Playhouse, is also a gifted writer. She is currently at work on a solo show, inspired by her work in the homeless community of Waco, Texas, and a man named Joe Lightfoot Gonzales, to be produced at New York’s Cherry Lane Theatre.

Once in a Lifetime: Davis has earned a Tony nomination for her first Broadway role, but the road to Once was long and the role itself scary. “Until our first performance in Boston, I had never belted in front of an audience,” she says. “It was pure joy and absolute terror.” The joy has been uncovering the character Reza. “Any person that brash and brazen, that’s just phase one,” she explains. “I get to fill in the other layers and build this deliciously full character.” Now that she's headed to the Tonys, her pageant experience is coming in handy. “This process of getting a dress and doing interviews seems vaguely familiar!” she says with a laugh. “I'm thrilled to be working with [Project Runway winner] Christian Siriano.” As she preps to attend the big event with her husband, freelance TV director Jordan Richard, Davis' feet remain firmly on the ground. “It’s not been roses,” she says of her career path. “I have an arsenal of struggle stories within me that will always remind me to be thankful, and never take anything for granted. It’s much sweeter this way.”

Celebrating 'The Nod'

I sat down with Mark Kennedy of the Associated Press. He wrote a wonderfully constructed and thoughtful article that I feel proud to share. Thankfully so: the article showed it's face on Huff Post, WSJ, CBSNews, etc. Below is the lifted text.


NEW YORK — Elizabeth A. Davis is the kind of woman who sets goals, writes them down and puts them on the fridge. It just makes sense.

"People need to know where they're going. If you don't have a map and you're driving a car, you're going to end up who knows where. So I have a map," says the actress and musician.

How's the journey going these days?

"I'm getting good gas mileage," she says with a laugh.

Davis is indeed. After years of toil in regional theater and off-Broadway, she made her Broadway debut in March in the hit musical "Once" and promptly earned her first Tony Award nomination.

"I'm incredibly honored and very thankful," she says during an interview in her flower-filled dressing room at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre. "I will carry it as a banner for all of us and say, 'This is a nod for us, for our ensemble.'"

The show earned 11 nominations, including the lead actors Steve Kazee and Cristin Milioti. Davis, who plays a friend of Milioti's character, was nominated for best performance by an actress in a featured role in a musical.

Next month, she'll face-off against Jayne Houdyshell from "Follies," Judy Kaye in "Nice Work If You Can Get It," Jessie Mueller from "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever" and Da'Vine Joy Randolph in "Ghost the Musical."

Davis admits to being very competitive, but she isn't even thinking about winning the Tony. "I don't know if I could handle it. Up to this point, I'm like up to here," she says, patting the top of her head. "I'm like, 'Guys, that's enough for one year.'"

The musical is based on the film "Once," which follows the love story of a Czech pianist and an Irish guitarist in Dublin. Made for about $150,000, the film earned $20 million, thanks in part to an original score that included the sublime, 2007 Oscar-winning song, "Falling Slowly."

The 31-year-old Davis has been with the show since it was developed at the American Repertory Theater outside Boston in the spring of 2011. She originally auditioned to play the lead role of the Czech pianist but there was a snag: She only plays piano by ear.

But the actress had too many tricks up her sleeve: Besides singing, dancing and acting, she has played the violin since age 3 and the production was in desperate need of a fiddle player. It didn't hurt that Davis looks like a model.

Davis was offered the role of Reza and she soon defined the part to suit her skills. Her Reza is now a whiskey-drinking Czech seductress who loves Irish soap operas and has some of the funniest lines. "I don't have regrets. I can't imagine a more perfect fit for me, personally," she says.

Watching Davis onstage is like watching a whirling dervish. One minute she's jumping up on a bar, the next she's moving tables, dancing while playing the violin, doing the tango or swaying delicately to the choreography. She does it all in a short skirt and boots, with an athletic grace.

"It is physically demanding," says the actress, who has sworn off alcohol and caffeine because they trigger migraines. "I'm being kept in shape by the show, I'll tell you that much."

She learned that she'd been nominated for the Tony when her downstairs neighbor excitedly pounded on her door and woke her up. Davis and her husband, Jordan Richard, a freelance TV director and tour manager for the band Atomic Tom, had turned off their phones.

John Tiffany, the show's director, gushes that Davis has been an incredible asset to the show and was absolutely delighted that she was recognized by the Tony Award nominating committee.

"Sometimes it goes the way you want it to. Elizabeth deserves it. She works really, really hard with no sense of expectation," he says in a phone interview. "There couldn't be a better example of divine justice."

Davis grew up in the Texas Panhandle town of Channing, population 356, and earned a bachelor's from Baylor University in theatre arts after deciding that a career in the orchestra pit wasn't for her. She also holds a master's degree in theatre performance from Case Western Reserve University/Cleveland Play House.

Her credits include "The 39 Steps" at New World Stages, "The Misanthrope" at The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey and playing Emily Dickinson at Theatre Row. Her TV roles include stints on "Fringe" and "All My Children" and playing Pretty Girl in an episode of USA's "White Collar."

"I have struggled immensely in this city," she says. "Definitely, I'm working my way up. There have been many nights of crying myself to sleep because I didn't know how I was going to pay the rent."

The show, which is the actress' first professional musical, has given Davis a chance to reconnect with the violin. And the one she has been playing onstage has a very personal connection: It was made in 1897 in Paris and Davis' grandmother bought it for her when she was 12. It is named Greta.

"To be able to have that piece of personal history onstage with me every night is so special," she says. An emotional highlight for her came when her family came from Texas to listen to her play on a Broadway stage with that special violin tucked under her neck. "I was onstage with tears running down my face. Just feeling — I don't know — the completion of a journey."

She and her husband had become fans of the simple, bittersweet film "Once" when they saw it during an early date in a downtown movie theater in 2006. She remembers walking out and debating what happened to the couple in the film — Marketa Irglova and Glen Hansard. Fast- forward to today: Now she can text Hansard whenever she likes and recently played violin on Irglova's upcoming album.

Not that she's at all jaded. She admits to recently battling nerves while performing songs at a concert at New York University alongside established singing stars like Kate Shindle, Danny Burstein and Rory O'Malley.

"About 15 minutes before we went on, I was crying in the corner. I'm not used to this. I have never sung in concert. I don't know how to do this," she says. "It's just so brand-spanking new."

ONCE upon a time...

This was written for Broadway.com about my journey with ONCE. 


At the Landmark Sunshine movie theater, circa summer 2007, I saw Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová in Once with my future husband, Jordan, on our first movie date. Afterward we debated what happened to the guy and girl “post-piano,” and promptly became obsessed with the album. I couldn’t imagine that the movie and music that underscored the great romance of my life would also sway its way into my career and sweep me off my feet. But that’s exactly what has happened.

My heaven-sent Once journey began a little over a year ago at Harvard at the American Repertory Theatre. I’ve never been stretched like that as a performer. We learned the whole show in about 3 1/2 weeks. My back went out, I started singing and playing the violin simultaneously, I belted in front of an audience for the first time, and we all just about lost our ever-loving minds trying to learn the “Gold” choreography. I’m fairly certain none of us knew we would be full-on dancing while making the music we were dancing to. Thankfully, Steven Hoggett, our movement director, is a genius and wasn’t just inventing ways to improve our hand/eye coordination.

More than that, we became a family: obsessed with one another, our creatives, producers, the music and the gut-wrenching humanity of this piece. Some of my favorite memories are of looking around the room and discovering half the cast also fighting back tears while Steve Kazee sang “Sleeping,” or walking from rehearsal with Anne Nathan, wheeling her newly acquired accordion in a cart down the cobblestone. I’ll remember making music on our breaks with our amazing men and Erikka Walsh. (We just couldn’t stop playing.) And the gradual realization that Cristin Milioti is as heartbreaking as she is hilarious. It’s these small familial memories that make it possible to look around the stage night after night and think, “Oh my stars and garters, I love these people. I can’t believe I get to make music and art with them.”

And then New York Theatre Workshop: what an equally vital step. East 4th Street became home, and the preparation and comfort that our off-Broadway run afforded us made the show muscle memory for me. It got in my bones on 4th Street. By show #40, I finally could play the finale without terror. The transfer to Broadway was literally seamless. We moved into the Jacobs and joked that the only difference was “a few more chairs in the house.” NYTW and the Jacobs should work in tandem all the time!

Then there’s the pre-show: I’m a part of a theatrical company, yes, but I’m also a part of a raucous band that gets to jam out together eight times a week. There’s something special that happens to a company when you play music together, a higher level of trust.

And all sorts of wacky wonderfulness happens as we mingle with the on-stage, pre-show bar audience. People try to pick up tambourines and join in, or sometimes people know the lyrics and sing along. I love when they begin clapping, stomping. It’s as if we aren’t in a theater; we are truly in the Dublin pub Bob Crowley has designed for us. It’s beautiful to see 18- and 75-year-old faces alike joining in the fun. I’ve also never been in a show where I don’t get stage fright. The “big reveal” doesn’t happen for us, as we’re rubbing shoulders, quite literally, with our audience 20 minutes before the show begins.

Personally, I can’t believe I’ve found myself in a show where I get to do most all of the things I love in a span of three hours. It’s truly a blessing for my Broadway debut to include singing, playing, dancing and acting. You won’t find musical theater credits on my resume because I’ve never done any. Landing a job like this seemed far from reach, with my violin and closeted voice just on the side. But over the past year, our musical director, Martin Lowe, has made me into the musician I could have only hoped to become on my own. He’s given me the confidence I need to get up on a Broadway stage and belt, or play those notes that terrify me on a cast album. Between director John Tiffany, writer Enda Walsh, Steven and Martin, I’m a changed artist.

Five years ago, I was sitting in a movie theater watching Once. Last month, I was in a Broadway theater hugging Glen and Markéta as we opened the musical based on their story. I literally tremble, and can only be immensely thankful—and keep showing up to work for as long as the dream lasts.

thanks, but no thanks

Variations on a Theme...

In continuing on the topic of failure and rejection, giving way to perseverance and triumph, check out this article about superstar musicians who were dropped by their previous labels and had a rocky path to stardom.

Thankfully, I have my own 'my-agent-dropped-me' story, so I'm safe. Gotta have that badge of honor, it seems!

http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/thatsreallyweek/134460/september-26october-2-la-reid-explains-why-he-dropped-lady-gaga-from-island-def-jam/

Falling on My Face

I've made a mess out of several things this week, like fall-on-my-face / wow-i-really-just-did-that mess. My body reacts and despite my best conscious efforts I get a fuzzy, migraine head. The first two days are living in disbelief that I could actually do something so stupid and I berate myself for such. I feel small and fragile, as if a rain drop could melt me. The air is too thick to breathe; I wonder *again* why I've chosen a field where I endlessly place the soft flesh of my neck on the chopping block. (Then I reconsider my prescription meds and their 'loss of memory / confusion' side effects.) I find myself not wanting to even mention the names of the people involved with the incident. I shy away from any thought or memory path that will lead me back into the uncomfortable encounter with the incident.

But today was different.

I woke up to an email response that simply said, "stop fretting." I responded in contrition and with the sudden perspective that comes when you realize your neurosis has bled all over the computer screen with a simple, "yes ma'am." It put the rest of the mess of the week in it's place and I started thinking about Failure once more and my intimate relationship with it.

I realize what a gift I have as a performer to be presented with the opportunity to confront majestic, big failure on a regular basis. While it never gets easier or less painful, I'm getting better at it, decreasing my lag / recovery time. I'm learning to bulldoze into the aftershocks instead of recoiling back from them. How true is it that there are people walking around in this city with one big failure hung around their neck and they can't let it go. It stares them down, mocks and bullies them. It wins every single day.

We all know that feeling though. It's not neuroscience to see how that happens. I have to talk to my heart like my therapy patient when Failure strikes again. "Elizabeth, don't let the shame of disgust with yourself bind you. Don't try to hide in the corner from your own idiosyncratic

hang-ups that drive you and everyone else nuts. So you're imperfect. That's not news! You are broken and flawed and in need of Grace for survival. So press into this failure."

I literally have to feel myself pressing forward. I imagine ways I can take the failure and flip it for profit, searching for angles I never would have had, had I done the job perfectly. I smile. I write a card and reach out and get proactive instead of being the victim. I make myself write the person or incident's name down so I don't create secret ways to hide from myself. Is this easier for a man? I'm getting better.

For most of my life, up until the second year of grad school I wouldn't say the word "nose" in public or let pictures of my profile be taken because I hated my nose so much. My entire face was a failure until I was 24 years old because I didn't have a straight nose. When I finally learned to press into it, to say the word at my Shakespeare professor's dinner table with my MFA classmates one late Fall night, I started learning about what a friend we have in failure. And then I had the Joseph Scriven hymn in my head all night.

I don't know if any of this is right. All I know is that Failure is a tool in my tool belt. I am not its servant. And that makes the air a little less thick. Holy Ghost, rush.

Indian Joe

I spent a day in Waco, TX recently. It was hot. 108 degrees hot. Usually Waco is muggy and miserable with a dripping-wet, humid heat. This time it was a dry heat that I could almost enjoy. I baked. I won't tell the locals I actually enjoyed the frying-on-the-pavement feeling it provided.

I went to Waco for a day to see an old friend. I hadn't seen this friend in seven years, though innumberable phone conversations have kept us connected. When I last saw him he was homeless, 59 years old & cancer free. Now, he's off the streets and in a house he shares with an El Salvadorian, taco making couple, old enough to draw social security checks and riddled with bone and prostate cancer.

He's in it for the fight, though. He always has been.

"He" is Joe Lightfoot Gonzales, the Native American / Hispanic man that has filled so much of the last 12 years of my life. Recently, however, we've learned 'Joe' isn't his real name. It was simply the name given to him by his siblings since he was immediately tossed into the foster system and never had a present mother. His real name, recently acquired to get social security and Medicade, is free of a prison record; something 'Joe Lightfoot Gonzales' can't necessarily boast.

Our reunion is made with my mother-in-law present. He attempts to impress / scare her by saying, "Oh, you lived in north Dallas? Yeah, I used to run over there. I huslted a lot of rich white folk over there. Made a lot of dough."

I call his bluff and we burst into laughter.

"Oh, I've missed you girl. I'd take a bullet for you."

We go to his chemotherapy appointment. He talks too loudly in the waiting room and he tells me how nothing else matters now but getting right with God, makes duplicitous and incorrect political statements and asks how my family is. We read the newspaper. They call us into the office to check vitals and time has marched on: seven years flashed before me as Joe sits there weakly.

I've missed you too, Joe. I've missed you, too.