Cue & A: Cricket Calladine on Getting With the Times, Genderbending, and Why You Shouldn't Share Your Soda with Her
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| Cricket Calladine |
American Psycho will mark Calladine's return to Broadway since the closing of Lysistrata Jones in 2012. Other stage work includes the Off-Broadway productions of Fly By Night, The Last Five Years, and Love's Labour's Lost at The Public Theatre.
| Full given name: | Cristine Marie Calladine |
| Where you were born/where you were raised: | East Hartford, CT. |
| Zodiac sign: | Gemini, but I'm on the Cancer cusp - it's called the magic cusp, and it means I have traits of both signs. Meryl Streep and Cyndi Lauper are on it too, so I'm in good company. |
| What your parents did/do for a living: | They're both happily retired now, but Dad was a business analyst, Mom was a medical lab tech. They're the greatest. |
| Siblings: | I'm the oldest and wisest of four, two sisters and a brother. Three of us are performers, all of us are loudmouths. Family reunions are a handful. |
| Special skills: | Table magic, juggling, and eating one of those giant tubs of popcorn in the time it takes for the trailers to roll at the movies. |
| Something you're REALLY bad at: | Getting popcorn kernels out from between my teeth. |
| Who were your major inspirations when first starting out? | I've always been inspired by funny women - Jennifer Coolidge, Allison Janney, Wendie Malick, Reese Witherspoon. Jane Krakowski was my queen, I loved her in Ally McBeal, and I remember how I just kept thinking that she was exactly who I wanted to be, because she was funny, and she was beautiful, and she was so sharp. |
| First Broadway show you ever saw: | Once Upon a Mattress, the 1996 revival. I was 16 and had just really started to get into theatre, so my parents had told me if I made honor roll, they'd take me to see a show. We stagedoored afterward, and naturally I freaked out and made a huge fool of myself. |
| If you could go back in time and catch any show, what would it be? | This list keeps growing for me all the time, and it's so hard to pick just one, but seeing the original cast of Hair would be amazing. |
| Some favorite modern musicals: | Rent, A New Brain, Fun Home, Kinky Boots |
| Some favorite classic musicals: | A Chorus Line, Guys and Dolls, Cabaret... where do we draw the line for classic? Is Hair a classic now? |
| Broadway or screen stars of the past you would most have loved to perform with: | Gene Kelly, Lucille Ball, Madeline Kahn, Robin Williams |
| MAC or PC? | I have a Mac, but it's only because my brother told me I needed to buck up and get with the times. I'm not sure I'd be able to tell you the difference if you put both in front of me and I couldn't see the apple on the front. |
| Most played song on your iPod: | Probably "Hollaback Girl" by Gwen Stefani, it's on all of my workout playlists. I'm not cool at all, my music taste is stuck about a decade back. |
| Most-visited websites: | Twitter, Facebook, Seamless, Gothamist |
| Last book you read: | "Thank You, Goodnight" by Andy Abramowitz |
| Must-see TV show(s): | I know I'm behind (this is a running theme) but I just started watching "Empire" a couple of weekends ago and I'm obsessed. I also love "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" and "Veep". |
| Last good movie you saw: | I finally saw "Nightcrawler" because it made it onto Netflix - I don't get out to the movies nearly as much as I'd like to - and wow, Jake Gyllenhaal. Fantastically acted. |
| Some films you consider classics: | "The Wizard of Oz", "Singin' in the Rain", "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes", "Before Sunrise", "Waiting for Guffman", "Die Hard" |
| Performer you would drop everything to go see: | The Spice Girls, with or without Posh |
| Pop culture guilty pleasure: | I follow a lot of hot male models on instagram who I've never and probably will never meet in real life. |
| Music that makes you cry, any genre: | Catch me in the right mood and I'll cry at anything, but especially Adele. |
| Three favorite cities: | NYC, Providence, Chicago |
| Favorite sport/team/player: | The Patriots! Don't talk to me about the Super Bowl, I can't handle it. And don't talk trash around me about Brady either because I'll try to fight you in that completely nonthreatening, kind of pathetic way only white girls can. |
| First CD/Tape/LP you owned: | I'm not sure about first album, but it might have been Step by Step from New Kids On The Block. I definitely know the first CD I ever bought was volume 1 of "Jock Jams", I thought I was so cool. |
| First stage kiss: | I was a junior in high school and was playing Sandy in Grease. I remember freaking out about how my breath smelled a lot. |
| Favorite pre-/post- show meal: | Adana kebabs from Turco or the beef and hard boiled egg empanada from Bar Centrale. |
| Favorite liquid refreshment: | I'm easily wooed by a good margarita. ¿The Por Que No? from Empellon Taqueria is one of my favorites. |
| Favorite Halloween costume you ever wore: | I did Elastigirl from The Incredibles a few years ago! I'm usually pretty lazy and just buy a costume, but I worked hard on that one. |
| Worst flubbed line/missed cue/onstage mishap: | In Lysistrata Jones, we had some choreography with basketballs, and in "You Go Your Way" there's one move where the girls toss the ball backwards between their legs like they're hiking a football and the guys catch it... only my aim was off one night and I ended up nailing Josh [Segarra] in the face. Luckily he's very forgiving. |
| Who have you played on “Law & Order”? What edition? | That was my first TV role, in 2004, and I played a TV star who was raped in her trailer - SVU, of course. |
| Leading lady role you've been dying to play: | Susan in Tick, Tick... Boom!, among many others. Is it weird that I feel like I'm jinxing myself if I list them? |
| Leading man role you wish you could play: | Now this I can make a list for. Hedwig in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Mark in Rent, Claude in Hair, Cinderella's Prince in Into The Woods, Lafayette/Thomas Jefferson in Hamilton... seriously, if anyone out there is ever considering genderbending a show, call me, I'm your girl. |
| Something about you that surprises people: | I really value my quiet time. I don't need a whole lot of it, but I have to get some or I'll go crazy. |
| Something you are incredibly proud of: | My siblings. |
| Something you're embarrassed to admit: | I have the loudest, most unappealing burps in the history of humankind. I shouldn't be allowed to drink sodas. |
| Career you would want if not a performer: | Teacher, or maybe a children's book author. |
| Three things you can't live without: | Family, friends, and comfortable shoes. |
| "I'll never understand why…" | ...people still think it's funny to use the "I guess it must be free!" joke when something they're trying to purchase doesn't ring up the first time. |
| Words of advice for aspiring performers: | Others succeeding doesn't mean that you've failed. Appreciate the work of the people around you, and always be open to learning something new. |
