Alexandra Cohen Spiegler
Role:
Jenny in Falling Behind
Hometown:
New York City
Current Residence:
Upper East Side, Manhattan
When did you know you wanted to be an actress?
I can't remember a time I didn't want to be an actor! As a young child, I didn't want to live just one life -- I wanted lots of them! I used to pick a different character to be each day (Dorothy, Cinderella, Maid Marian) and I would only answer to that character's name, would dress like them... I guess it was my own version of immersive theater! Luckily, rather than checking me into an asylum, my parents enrolled me in acting classes and the rest is history.
What attracted you to Re-Works: The Fabulous 80s?
I love everyone involved in this project -- MTWorks, the writer and the director. I've appeared in readings of two of Duncan's plays but never performed a full production of one of this plays, so that's really exciting. That and I love pieces with surprise endings, which this has. I've also always been attracted to coming-of-age stories and (spoiler!) I get to snort (fake) coke onstage.
One guilty pleasure:
Watching "Sex and the City." And reading hair blogs. I guess that's two ...
If you could get anyone to see the show, dead or alive, who would it be and why?
Cyndi Lauper. I actually got to meet her when I was a teenager apprenticing at Powerhouse Theater in Poughkeepsie, NY (the same summer I met Isaac, director of Falling Behind). Her song "Time After Time" has always evoked that magical summer for me -- the first time I really was treated as a professional actress -- and it's what inspired Duncan to write this piece!
Don't miss Re-Works: The Fabulous 80s, part of MTWorks' BENEFIT WEEK, September 10-14, 2014 at The Theater at the 14th Street Y.
To learn more visit www.mtworks.org/reworksfabulous80s
Alexandra Cohen Spiegler is a proud company member of MTWorks! Credits include: The Family Shakespeare (MTWorks); After Tartuffe, The Tragedy of Dandelion and The Empress of Sex (Newborn Reading Series); Any Which Way Thou Wouldst Have It (Medallion Productions); Iago in Writing Othello; the title role in Hamlet’s Apocalypse; Gospel Parodies; The Three Marys and As You Like It: The Big Flush (Dark Lady Players); Venus in Fur and Clybourne Park (East Hampton Guild Hall); More; What Do You Mean?; Sins of Our Fathers; Hamlet Bound and Unbound (Ego Actus); Buckingham (Southampton Cultural Center); Plan 9 from Outer Space (DMTheatrics). Next she’ll be playing Cordelia in a new feature film of King Lear. See AlexandraCohenSpiegler.com for more information. For Alex Adam.