![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) greatwhiteway |
[Jul. 18th, 2009|08:43 pm] |
From the time she was born, Cassandra Lawson was destined to be on the stage. It was something that was just in her blood - her family was one made of entertainers and she was just along for the ride and eventually finding her role in that field as well. She wasn't the only child in her family, oh no, she had an older sister that she got along with rather well (... most of the time, anyway) and a little sister that had a tendency to drive her crazy from time to time. With three girls so close in age, all with varying personalities (though they did share a few common traits, elsewhere they veered entirely), but still close in age, and both of their parents and assorted pets living with them, the house was noisy. Chaotic. Crowded. Even if they lived in a lived in a decent-sized house in a middle-class neighborhood, the house constantly seemed to be a mess of dance shoes and uniforms, costumes, and props with sheet music and random instruments occasionally thrown into the mix.
Both of her parents were heavily involved in the local community theater and had the girls involved with that, as well as dance/voice-type lessons, from a young age. Work was home, home was work, and the two places never stopped overlapping. Luckily, their parents weren't the pushy stage parent sort and if any of the girls wanted out, they would have let them. Cassandra never really felt the urge to leave or quit. She loved being onstage, loved the attention, and she was actually good at it! Not only that, she followed her big sister like a puppy when they were young and she seemed to like it well enough... so Cass decided that she did too. What started out as fangirling and following her older sister like a puppy eventually turned into her own love and passion for the theater. While she never became quite the dancer she had hoped to be because while she's not awful, she's certainly not amazing at it, but she took incredibly well to singing and acting with a lot of stage presence and generally shining above a lot of the others. As is the case with most middle children, she wanted something to make her stand out more, but unfortunately, with siblings who were both performers as well... not so easy, really. It took a bit for her to accept and adjust to this, but eventually she did, and more or less 'fell' more into her place in the theater and made it less of a competition with her siblings. She did find a bit of a niche in playing 'odd' roles in different shows. She much preferred smaller, more intimate shows than the huge ensemble parts but certainly wasn't going to turn anything down and jumped at any role she could get. She was absolutely in love with the theatrical world and couldn't get enough of it.
Her small roles continued over time and she even had a chance to originate a role in the first regional production of The Marvelous Wonderettes (and its sequel, The Winter Wonderettes) a show that, seven years later, would make its off-Broadway debut and become a smash hit. At the time, however, it was still a small project and something she never expected to become as massive as it later did. Then, it was just exciting to be in something new, exciting, and original (that 'original' bit, she would later realize, would be something that would change the direction of her life and career) and a fun little project that she loved. The same year, she participated in the original off-Broadway cast of Reefer Madness a strange project, sure, but she had fun with it. She played the leading lady Mary Lane and spent the show's run going from sweet and innocent to dominatrix to... being dead each night. Funtimes, right?
It was her comedic turn that landed her a job on a new cartoon that would air on MTV. Clone High was set to be the very entertaining take of the clones of historical figures... as modern day teens. For thirteen episodes (before the show got axed before being too 'un-PC'), she played goth girl Joan (of Arc) who was hopelessly in love with best friend Abraham Lincoln... who loved Cleopatra. It was easily some of the most fun she'd ever had on a project, but alas. It wasn't meant to last. The show would later propel itself into a 'cult' status, but there have never been plans for the show to return.
While her sister had been off making a name for herself and having a major career (Tony nom, Tony performance, becoming a huge star), Cass slowly built up her smaller credits away from Broadway, including a role in the 2004 NYMTF production of a small, four (sometimes five!) person show - amusingly enough, titled [title of show]. At the time, she hadn't predicted that people would appreciate the genius and creativity that the show had. It was shiny, it was new, and it certainly wasn't like most shows Broadway had seen. 2005 went by and while she performed in a regional production of Beauty and the Beast, she received the news that [title of show] would be performing off-off-Broadway... a run that turned from one off-Broadway run to one run plus a limited second run. Broadway 'names' left voicemails to play in all of the runs, something that certainly heightened the show's popularity. The show won three Obie awards before going seemingly silent for the next two years, with the exception of their video log.
In 2008 the big news came - [title of show] would be making its Broadway transfer. For Cass, it was a dream come true. She'd been with the show since its first incarnation and to see it grow into an actual Broadway hit was a 'pinch-me-I'm-dreaming' sort of thing. Unfortunately? It didn't last too long and a few months later, the show closed (that closing 'pep rally' was one of the hardest things for her to get through ever) much to the dismay of [tos]sers everywhere. Since then, she's been working on random [title of show] projects and over at The Little Mermaid, but she's going to be jobless soon and has no real plans for anything else. |
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