Back to Work

June 2021

 “Safari, imail, Slack, Chrome, Stickies app, Word, Excel…”

 I pop open my laptop and toggle through the open windows. It’s 7:30am and the grey morning light is streaming through the break between the blackout curtains. I’m alone in our apartment. Christian has left for work and the baby is already onto his first nap of the day.

All I need to work from home while he sleeps is my laptop, iphone and Wifi. I take a breath and tear my eyes away from my son to focus on my inbox.

 “We were wondering if you’d be available…”

My eyes grab the preview line of an email from my boss at the theater and instantly my heart is in my throat. 

 “One of the actors we’ve cast for our fall production has a conflict with three performances and we were wondering if you’d be available to understudy her role…”

Snapping my laptop shut, I listen to the blood rushing through my ears. 

So much has changed for this Artist Mama.

Twelve years ago

I push back on the pedal of my purple fixed gear bicycle, slowing to a stop with a bounce in front of the Fremont Coffee Company. I can feel the sweat beading on my forehead. I can see the back of Erin’s curly head on the patio, and I can hear Max’s laugh as I jog up the steps to join them. 

They invited me for coffee to discuss the second Nordo show, we’re going to do it again! The first “dining experience” called The Modern American Chicken was well received. And, more importantly, it was fun!

I was acting professionally for the first time since my college internship at Seattle Shakespeare Company. In 2009, Café Nordo was much, much more exciting than anything art school had prepared me for. 

“This show will take place on a ship heading through Deception Pass, on the Salish Sea. The menu will tell the story of the Big Bang, and how it affected the ocean.” 

 Erin pauses, dramatically.

 “The story will be told with pop rocks in squid ink!”

I swallow my black coffee with a gulp. It sounds so fancy. I’m sweating more now, as Terry begins to tell the script story, of a sea captain, played by Max, who runs aground and shipwrecks, taking his ship and his crew to the Deep. There would be a stowaway, played by Becky Poole, and the rest of the cast would be acrobats, paying homage to Nordo’s circus background. 

 “And Opal, we thought you would play a widow of the Sea. Named Isabella. The character is based on the song of the same name, by Drew Keriakedes. Isabella knows the ship is cursed and tells the audience, but no one listens to her. She is the lone survivor. ”

“A song and The Monologues” I whisper, not wanting to jinx my good luck. 

The Monologues are what Max called my role in the Nordo show. I spoke to the audience, and gave avant garde exposition on the food they were about to enjoy. I had no service experience at the time, and sat backstage, sipping a glass of red wine and going over my monologues reciting the secret life of an egg again and again. It was incredibly luxurious. 

 And now I would do it again, this time with oysters. Incredible!

 As I rode my bicycle home on the Burke Gilman trail, I passed the chocolate factory in Fremont where Nordo was born. I blew the building a kiss. 

August 2021

“I’m apoplectic.”

Terry’s gentle face contradicts the fierce word choice, though he shoves his glasses up the bridge of his nose with some violence. The Governor of Washington has just announced the return of mandatory masks in indoor spaces as a response to the Delta Variant sweeping through the end of our summer.  

The role of an actor in our immersive dinner theater company is to greet the audience in character and tell a story while serving a beautiful culinary creation that acts as a scene partner. Often our artists break into song mere inches from the faces of our guests. 

It doesn’t exactly work with a cloth mask covering your nose and mouth. And while the current edict offers an exemption for performers, we know the virus makes no exception. That much is clear. 

There’s no way Terry will sacrifice the safety of our audience or actors. So the art must adjust. Either that, or we roll the dice and hope the mandate is revoked as the vaccination rate goes up and the case count lowers, before our October opening night. This gamble is causing the aforementioned apoplexy. 

“We must re-invent ourselves and take big risks. As a new mother, how do I fit in?”

 I don’t say these words in our staff meeting, I scrawl them in my notebook. 

It took me twelve years to belong to a theater company where I felt comfortable enough to take a maternity leave, knowing that my artistic contribution would be secure. 

 But what is secure these days?

Six Years Ago, 2014

I put out my cigarette and enter the bar. Beneath the black painted façade on Capital Hill’s 15th avenue, Smith is a sure thing, perpetually cool. I gaze hungrily at the bartender, smoking always makes me want whisky. And the other way around. I place my order before looking at the tables.

There’s Erin and Terry, sitting with their backs against the wall, a taxidermized elk carcass hanging above their heads. Max’s back is to me, but I can see he’s well dressed in a linen blazer, excitedly gesturing with his wine glass as I walk over and slip my messenger bag and bike helmet under the seat next to him. 

Erin loops me into the conversation.

“We’ve toured a couple properties and there’s one with a lot of potential. It’s the old Elliot Bay Book Company Café.”

I down my whiskey ginger, rolling two ice cubes with my tongue. 

“I have so many memories there.” I can see eighteen-year old Opal vividly, beelining for the theatre section of the bookstore, and before her, Opal age twelve, eyeing the moleskine journal display as she trails behind Momma at the cash register. 

“It’s so Nordo, it’s perfect.”

Max cheers my empty glass. Bad luck. I try and catch the bartender’s eye for a second round. “I know.” It’s Max who has made Nordo an adjective of choice, five years into our dinner theater adventure. It is his style that gives us our edge. It was also his suggestion after rehearsal over wine and a cheese plate that I be made a Nordo company member, alongside our composer and stage manager. 

A company member. A lease on a theatrical space. A group of real artists. 

April 2021

“Happy Birthday Nordo’s Culinarium! I’ve been kidnapped by an adorable baby, but I love you all and I am thinking of that toast after you signed the lease six years ago!”

I snap the requisite nap trapped selfie of a new mom peeking over her newborn’s swaddled head and hit send on the text message. 

Max left the company shortly after we moved into our 4,000 square foot venue. So, my text goes out to Erin and Terry, now producers and creators, our stage manager, who has now been promoted to General Manger, and our composer who has become like another sister to me. 

No one responds to my text, but I understand. The pandemic has made everything surrounding live theater a bittersweet pill to swallow. 

At least we still have the venue. 

Late night, at the Peachey Rosso Apartment, Hero is 6 weeks old.

“Don’t make me feel guilty. I feel guilty enough leaving you two.”

Tears are leaking out of my sweetheart’s blue eyes as he stares at a point above our tv screen. When he gets upset, he has a hard time making eye contact with me. 

“You know I support you working. We talked about this.”

I bow my head and breathe in the scent of our sleeping newborn, willing the spikes of post-partum anxiety to dull their edge on my already frayed psyche. 

“We said that I would work full time while you took time off from performing to take care of the baby, since theaters are closed anyway. But now that he’s here, how does it feel? It’s so much time away for me, and my job isn’t satisfying, I don’t know if I want to keep working at Nordstrom Grill.  What happens if I want to go forward with a cottage farm license and start my own business? What happens if I switch restaurants and my schedule changes?”

“I want you to do those things! I don’t want you to blame me and Hero for holding you back!”

Christian sighs, looking up at the shooting star LED lights that shoot a pink aurora borealis on our apartment ceiling. I can feel him sorting his emotions, settled by my widely thrown barb. My Virgo is a righter of wrongs, and a truth-bearer.  He cannot suffer exaggerations. 

“I never said that. I never would.”

He gazes at our son, running his large finger lightly across Hero’s pulsing fontanelle. 

“If I start my own business on top of working full time, It will be a lot of time you’re alone with him. And I want you to be able to do your shows.”

“I don’t know if theater will return this year, or what that will look like for Nordo. If you want to experiment with your career, this is the time to do it. I’ll be Hero’s primary caregiver and if we’re both working, I’ll arrange childcare.”

What we didn’t know six months ago is a blog post I will write another time. But during this messy conversation, Christian and I chose our roles for the first act of Hero’s life.

And is it any wonder we chose the way we did?

1982, Ellensburg Washington

My Momma jammed the wooden toe of her clog sandal into the clutch pedal of the 1970 VW Camper and careened into the Central Washington University’s parking lot, aiming for a spot far behind the other vehicles. She was going to take her time.

She leaned over the gear shift to touch my face, while Baby Opal stares gamely back at her. I’m four months old, and this is our first real road trip. 

My twenty-two year old mother shakes out her feathered brown hair in the rearview mirror and swings open the heavy van door, filling one shoulder bag with three ring binders of sheet music and another with the cloth diapers and pins. She adjusts the two bags on one shoulder and then moves to the passenger seat where I am strapped in. She unsnaps her shirt and pulls up her bra so I’ll have unrestricted access to nurse and carefully folds me into a homemade brown calico front carrier, a pouch with a zipper down the middle. 

As we walk towards the auditorium we join a crowd of other students her age. She avoids noticing that she’s the only one packing an infant, hiding behind the music she studies while walking, humming in my small, shell-like ear. 

“I’d been home by myself while your father worked, and I was convinced I was wasting my education. So I joined a three day choir teaching seminar, and I brought you with me. You were so quiet, except when we sang. You cooed and chortled. Everyone commented that you would be a singer.”

1989, Jacksonville North Carolina

Matt Rosso hits the brakes and slows to take the exit, onto Piney Green Road. He decided at work on the base a few hours before that he would surprise Ava, Corey, and the new baby with burgers and shakes. It’s out of the way, the nearest fast food is miles from their front door. 

The sweltering humidity makes his forearms bead with sweat as he rolls down the window to carefully accept the Styrofoam cups of frosty malted milk, waxed paper bags of cheeseburgers. The milkshakes were for Ava and Corey. For him, the right to open and eat one deluxe, no onions, on the rest of the ride home. 

The potholes as he leaves the parking lot make him think that it’s time to trade in the truck for a larger van, something stroller friendly for his second baby boy. 

It’s the little things that matter, he thinks. After five years of infertility, little Christian Matthew is a miracle and Matt renews his vow to do whatever it takes to make his family comfortable and safe. 

This is where we come from, and here we are. Our son is six months old and carries with him the hope of all the little babies who came before.

September 2021

Here we are. Restaurants have posted new signs in the window “Vaxx card required upon entry” and In-Person theater is rousing itself to re-open this October. 

Chefs like Christian are in high demand and he finds work at a new restaurant easily. But for me, mostly at home with Hero and like my mother before me, I’m restless.

Going back to work means so much more to me than returning to performing after my pregnancy. It is returning to my theater job, when the job of theater doesn’t really exist. 

Since the pandemic hit, I’ve relied on my other skills at Nordo, gluing together several tasks to muster enough hours to pay a share of our bills. I write copy for marketing. I respond to emails answering questions about when we are re-opening for live shows. I find ways of saying, again and again “Who is Nordo?” and letting you know why you should care about our company’s future.

I exit the Lightrail at the International District stop and turn down the volume of the Online Marketing Made Easy podcast. Plastic tarp structures and tents line 2ndAvenue, where the train station under the clock tower advertises free hot showers with a priority for those experiencing homelessness. 

It’s our weekly in-person staff meeting at Nordo. As we push the bistro tables together in the Knife Room, setting up laptop computers and extension cords, No one hugs, eyes are kept mostly downcast, there are only short bursts of small talk. 

“Front Desk, Room Service, Facilities, Admin” as our Managing Director runs down her agenda, I munch on carrot sticks, wiping my damp hands on my short velvet skirt before continuing to adjust the numbers on our weekly marketing report. 

For this new mother, the shift from Zoom meetings in my apartment from the neck up to in-person is a sloppy one. I’m not my best self, and I no longer have the alter ego of my performance to hide behind. 

As of this fall, it will be two years since I will have opened a show at Nordo as a performer. So, you see, “Back to Work” was already loaded, even before I decided to have a baby.

“An actor has dropped out because their family member is high risk, now we’ve got two roles to fill…” 

You’d think I would jump at the chance to reclaim my crown as a Nordo company member. Clearly I miss my art, I’m broken hearted over it. But I’ve got a new vocation, these days. 

I keep my mouth shut. I breathe. And I wait.

 ~

“Do you want the part?” 

Christian gazes at me, then at our large whiteboard wall calendar as I tell him about my hesitancy to grab the available role, and the potential show dates, four nights a week, from 6-11pm, not including rehearsals. 

“We could make it work, couldn’t we?” 

At the staff meeting, I may have been quiet but with Christian, my son’s father, I’m top volume.

 “There’s no WAY!” I run into the kitchen, while talking, and open the freezer to look at the bag of frozen grapes, the pint of ice cream. I’ve always been a nervous eater. “You work nights too. Who would watch him? If it’s not you or me, who would we trust?! It won’t work!” 

I grab a grape, and stuff it in my mouth. Then, he’s behind me, and I melt into his chest.

“I’m not ready. I put him to bed every night and I can’t stand the thought of him crying for me, and not being there. I’m not ready. It’s too soon.”

~

Over the past twelve years in the theater, I have worked with very few mothers of young children. The ones I have known stand out: 

I see Yasmine, carrying her two year old back to the sitter waiting in the greenroom because rehearsal is running over time, her child’s downy head whipping around, taking in the pistols on the prop table and my high heeled rehearsal shoes. 

And Tori, who drove an hour each way to attend Bohemia rehearsals that were scheduled until ten pm to accommodate those with nine to five day jobs. She confided in me that she wouldn’t have been able to return to her theater job at all had it not been for her partner, who took an equal role in parenting their infant son. 

During another production, I complimented an actor on her recent role, a lead at one of the few union repertory houses in Seattle. I asked how it went for her.

“It was very, very hard.” She said, flatly. “My son was three months old. I accepted the role before I gave birth.”

What could be better than a lead in a sold out run, I thought.

At the time, I merely shrugged back at myself in the dressing room mirror, and applied my lipstick. Now, I understand her dilemma.

To go back to work means so many things. It means staying quiet, knowing that my Hero missing me when he wakes and needs resettling at midnight is worth stepping away from applause and fictional connections. 

It means having faith that there will be a place for me onstage when the pandemic ends, and my son and I are both ready. It’s been six months since his birth, but eighteen months since theaters shutdown. 

It means hoping that my audience and my company will welcome my return.

But until then, I’m keeping quiet and breathing. I’m learning the lessons of the past, and the stories of the parents who have come before me. 

My Momma, Deanna playing Mary Warren in an opera version of the Crucible at Central Washington University. She went on as an understudy when I was four months old, and another actor held me backstage when she was performing.

Ava and Matt Rosso with baby Christian.

Erin, Kelly Morgan (Stage Manager), myself and our former managing director toasting our new brick and mortar theater on 109 South Main Street.

The nap trapped selfie of a new mom. Hero is 5 weeks old here.

Our son Hero at 6 months old. Worth it all!