"Honor Your Needs and Boundaries." - Chatting with Melody Bates!
Melody Bates.
Kevin Ray Johnson, Staff Writer
It is my privilege to introduce you to Melody Bates. Melody is currently performing at The Metropolitan Opera in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Tosca, and Idomeneo, and is currently in rehearsals forDon Carlo and Rigoletto. This native Oregonian has had quite an extensive career in Theatre, Film, and Television.
Some of her credits include Law and Order SVU, PBS Great Performances, Ask for Jane, Purity, Naked/ Spurious, Investigation Discovery's I Am Homicide, Occupy Elm Street, Public Hearing, and Have You Seen Tom. Other theatre credits include John Jahnke’s Alas the Nymphs (BAM Next Wave); Mike Gorman’s If Colorado Had an Ocean, Biffin’ Mussels, The Poet and the Lumberjack, and How and Why I Robbed My First Cheese Store, and Andrei Serban’s Caucasian Chalk Circle (La MaMa E.T.C.); WaxFactory’s Blind.ness (PS 122 & Cankarjev Dom, Slovenia); Mac Wellman’s Obie-winning Jennie Richee (Chicago and NYC) and The Invention of Tragedy (Classic Stage Company); No Mother to Guide Her and Craft (Flea Theatre); Robert Woodruff’s Godard: distant and right (NYC and Paris). Melody has also performed at the Cleveland Public Theatre, Boston's A.R.T., Joe's Pub, and several other NYC theatres.
Melody is truly a multi-faceted Artist that has a lot to offer any project she is a part of on both sides of the table. A true triple threat. I am very thankful to have the opportunity to feature Melody in my series for OnStage Blog!
How old were you when you knew you wanted to be a performer and when did writing come into the picture for you?
I can remember making up performances and putting them on for my family starting at a very young age. I was playing dress-up, making up scenes and songs, and inventing characters before I knew what any of it meant. My Dad was a writer and my Mom is a gifted painter; there are writers and painters and photographers among my aunts and uncles–so there were art-makers around in my family…but there aren’t actors. I showed up and was like, yes, but what if we put on a show?
I had a formative experience as a little kid when I acted in a feature film that was shot in Oregon’s wine country. My Dad was not an actor, but he was a handsome man who looked good on camera and he was cast as one of the leads. They needed someone to play his daughter, which got me my first acting job. I have vivid memories of it: working on location in this beautiful vineyard during the golden Pacific Northwest summer, surrounded by grownups who might as well have been wizards, with all of their strange equipment and cameras and Lights Camera Action spells... My Dad rode a motorcycle at the time and he’d basically buckle me onto the bike with him, and we’d bomb down I-5 in the blue-black dawn, towards the sun-drenched August of the vineyard that was our set. I felt full of wonder all the time, and also like I belonged there: telling a story, playing a part, making movie magic out of thin air. A couple of years ago there was a retrospective of the filmmaker’s work in New York and I went to the opening night screening. She introduced me to the audience after the film and there was this audible “Awwww.” It was ridiculous and I blushed a lot and also it felt pretty cool.
On the writing side, I started with poems pretty early, keeping journals and scrawling down words about the world and how it made me feel. I was very shy about my writing for a long time. Sometimes I laugh about how I found the courage to come out as queer as a teenager, but I was a full-grown adult before I came out as a writer. Which I suppose says something about me! I had done some writing-for-hire here and there, including writing political satire pieces for Comedy Central–but I really put on my writer hat in public when my play R & J & Z had its world premiere in 2014. And it’s now published! It’s available from Original Works Publishing, with productions happening in California, Ohio, and at the Rome Shakespeare Festival as we speak. And it’s on the shelf at the Drama Book Shop, something I’m still over the moon about. They have autographed copies! Go get ‘em!
Where did you study? and do you have any mentors that truly helped you become the wonderful performer you are today?
First of all, thank you, that is a very kind way to ask that question. And I love to talk about the great people who have helped me grow and learn. I studied acting and writing at the University of Oregon, and got my MFA in Acting at Columbia University. The great Kristin Linklater and Anne Bogart were beloved teachers and huge influences on me as an artist. The brilliant J. Stephen Brantley is an inspiration as well as a dear friend–he is a multi-hyphenate artist too, which isn’t easy in an industry that really wants to put people in a single box. Acting in J. Stephen’s gorgeous play Eightythree Down was a real launch for me as an actor in NYC and remains one of my favorite theatre experiences. And the visionary theatre artist and producer Judith Jerome has supported me as both an actor and writer. She commissioned and produced the world premiere of R & J & Z and is a beloved mentor. None of us can do this work alone. I’m so grateful for these and the many others who have helped me on my journey thus far.
Congratulations on Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at The Metropolitan Opera. How has your time been at the Met this season balancing a couple of shows?
Thank you! I was so excited to join this marvelous production. I understudy two different challenging and physically demanding tracks, and have to be on point to perform either of them, even if I don’t go on–anyone who has worked as an understudy or swing knows how uniquely demanding a job it is. In addition, I’m currently performing at the Met in Tosca and Idomeneo, and I’m in rehearsals for Don Carlo and Rigoletto, both of which I originated roles in last season. It’s a lot! I like to work hard, and I am always grateful to be working. But I think the key is balance and giving oneself permission to truly relax and recharge. To rest. Lying fallow time is essential for my work to be any good at all, and for my health as a human being. Be like the earth: when she rests, she really rests. Or think of trees–they go hard all spring and summer–they make leaves, flowers, whole fruits and seeds in the course of a few months! And then they’re like, bye, going to sleep until March, see you then. I’m working hard right now, but when my schedule gets lighter, I’m going to rest like a tree in December. I promise. I’m saying it in this interview, so you can hold me to it.
Are there any shows, performances or moments in your career that stick out and are near and dear to your heart?
A couple do stand out. Playing Juliet in R & J & Z in both the world and NYC premieres was incredibly special. Co-starring on an episode of Law & Order SVU stands out because it’s such a rite of passage for New York actors, and because I’m grateful every time a residual check comes in the mail. Playing Shakespeare’s Cleopatra was a giant challenge, such a gift to inhabit that great role. I did that the same year I played Dina in Brantley’s Eightythree Down, and I loved how the two roles spoke to each other–these extraordinary, brilliant, larger-than-life heroes, whose worlds are prisons turning them into tragic party girls, trying to make them smaller than they are. At the Metropolitan Opera, dancing a hilarious harpsichord- and tequila-fueled pas de deux inAgrippinaat was a magical highlight in my career on that stage. And since Halloween is around the corner, I’ll also shout out Occupy Elm Street, a horror spoof I wrote and made a few years ago. It was super cool to make a movie with my friends! A cast member recently crossed paths with Robert Englund, the original Freddy Krueger, who said he’d seen our short and loved it. #goals.
What advice would you give any performer wanting a career in the performing arts?
Here in late-stage capitalism, a performing arts career is not for the faint of heart. Talent is indispensable, but lots of talented people don’t have the patience, resources, and force of will they need to stick it out. You need a motor, and you need to care for your motor so it can keep you going. I despise the starving/ tortured artist idea. It’s terrible and toxic and who does it serve? Not artists, that’s for sure. I wish we had the music Mozart would have written at 80, and the plays Lorraine Hansberry would have written at 90. So, if you seek a career in the performing arts I say you and your well-being matter. Take care of yourself, and honor your needs and boundaries. You can only build a sustainable career if you treat yourself as worthy of care. It is very hard: you have to give yourself that care while also working at your art, while also finding a way to pay your bills.
If you can manage that very hard first part, I think it’s like Hamlet says: the readiness is all. He’s talking about death, but I think it applies to work and life too. Are you ready? Have you done all you can to be ready when the opportunity knocks? The readiness is all, bébés.
If you want to learn more and support my Melody's work, make sure you check out https://www.patreon.com/melodybates and her official website - www.melodybates.com.