Jill Paice
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For an American actress who is only 28, Jill Paice already has an impressive international career. In September 2004, she made her West End debut as the beautiful Laura Fairlie in the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical,
The Woman in White, originating a part she then repeated in the show’s Broadway transfer 14 months later. Once that closed, Paice segued to the comparatively light-hearted world of
Curtains, playing Niki Harris, ingénue to Tony winner David Hyde Pierce’s detective, Frank Cioffi. Now, she’s back in London, reunited with her
Woman in White director, Trevor Nunn, this time playing none other than Scarlett O’Hara in the American sociologist Margaret Martin’s long-aborning stage musical of
Gone with the Wind. This actually marks the second time that the West End has attempted an adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s celebrated novel and its no less legendary 1939 film version, starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh; the first played Drury Lane in 1972 with June Ritchie and Harve Presnell in the central roles. With less than 36 hours to go before her potentially star-making opening night, Paice took time backstage at the New London Theatre to talk shop about opening two very different types of shows in the West End, London’s reduced preview period by comparison to Broadway, and how she has conceived of filling such huge and mightily iconic shoes.
Here you are preparing your second West End musical opening in four years. That’s not bad!
What a lucky girl I am!
Jill Paice in The Woman in White
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Trevor Nunn has said that he was first approached about the project while he was running the National, so did you know about this when you were doing The Woman in White?
Yes, actually it came up at a dinner party during that show when I happened to ask Trevor what he was getting on to next. He said, “Someone’s written a musical of Gone with the Wind,” and I said, “What do you want to know?” [Laughs.] I’ve been such a fan since I first saw the movie when I was 10 years old. I’ve been to Margaret Mitchell’s home in Atlanta, and many of our family vacations were spent going to plantation houses. I was fascinated with the film and with the era as well and started spouting off information to Trevor. But I never expected to be in it! Fate sort of intervened.
Fate, yes, and also the show’s 2004 London workshop.
Trevor asked me whether I would be interested in the long hours and the long days, which meant rehearsing 10-6 during the day and then I would walk down to he Palace Theatre from the American Church and go do my job [in The Woman in White]. I think a lot of actors like to do that kind of thing. You need other things to stimulate your mind some times when you’re doing a show, so something like that reinvests you in the job you’re currently doing.
Jill Paice as Scarlett O'Hara
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That prompts the question, what happened between 2004 and now?
They never did another workshop, so every time I would get another job, I would phone up Trevor and say, “Is Gone with the Wind happening?”, and he would say, “Not yet,” so I would sign another contract, always with an out clause that I could do this if it was happening. I started to hear some pretty reliable rumors around June or July of last year but no one breathed a word to me. That didn’t happen until November when [lead producer] Aldo Scrofani had me into his office in New York. I had a good feeling about it at the time, but there was always the chance that they would have to get a name to do it. It turns out Aldo thought I might say no. We were both terribly nervous. Finally, he said, “Would you want to do it?”, and I said, “Of course.” [Laughs.]
I suppose the very title Gone With the Wind is the name in this instance.
That’s going to bring in a huge amount of our audience. I know just as a fan of the film that I would love to have seen a live version.
But you’re not in fact a southerner, are you?
No, I was born in South Dakota and was brought up in Ohio as an air force brat. But I can remember the conversation between our parents before I’d even seen the film: “Should she be allowed to see it yet?” because I was only 10 and it was pretty heavy material with a little girl dying. I’m fascinated by the Civil War and I’ve always loved that time period: every little girl of course wants to dress up in those costumes, and I always wanted to be Scarlett O’Hara for Halloween. It’s always been a part of me and who I am. I would collect Gone with the Wind things; it was like an unnatural obsession. Now it seems to have come full circle.
Do you still look at the film, or have you put that to one side?
I still love the film, and I still learn from the film. But now it’s about picking up the novel and just reading random passages, which is always informative. Margaret Mitchell goes into such detail, and I feel well-rounded and so informed. Also, Margaret Martin and Trevor have created this easy pathway for me, so it’s all there.
Gone with the Wind stars
Darius Danesh and Jill Paice
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Going from Andrew Lloyd Webber and John Kander to an unknown like Margaret Martin must be fascinating, just because this show’s composer and principal creator is so new to the whole commercial musical process.
I think it’s a good team, and Margaret’s learning as well. A lot of the time she has let the higher authorities take control because Trevor knows what he’s doing. He’s so smart, he makes genius decisions at times. There’s been no tension in the rehearsal room between the writer and the director, which makes for a safe haven for actors to play in.
Now that the show has been up and running for a few weeks, are you getting audience members shouting out some of the better-known lines in anticipation—sort of like the Spamalot of the American South?
[Laughs.] They don’t shout them out, though they do clap or laugh when they recognize the line. I think it’s important that some of those lines are there, and people do expect to hear them. I don’t mind that at all; it just shows that the audience is with us and listening and paying attention; they’re living and breathing it with us, very much so.
Is the show a tough sing for you?
It’s not a huge sing, though there’s a lot of talking—a lot of ordering people around. I love what I’m doing, therefore I don’t feel tired. It’s more just the pressure of getting to opening night. I have to be honest: at this point, I just want that part of it to be over.
I can imagine, though I think people are surprised at how few previews there have been, relatively speaking. Even Curtains had more previews on Broadway, and that show had the benefit of a West Coast run before hitting New York.
I don’t think Trevor’s a fan of the preview period, and I’m not sure why. It only becomes stressful when you need to make major changes, and there’s just not enough time so you feel like you’ve come sliding into home plate at the last minute. I’m sure we all wish we had more time now to mold and sculpt things, but this is our show, and I think we’re ready.