Los Angeles actress Lauren Weedman is thinking about moving to Boise. At least that’s the premise of her new one-woman play that opens Saturday at Boise Contemporary Theater (BCT.) It’s called Boise: You Don’t Look A Day Over 149 and it’s part of Boise’s 150th anniversary celebrations this year.
Weedman has done two plays for BCT in the past. But you may know her better from her numerous film and TV appearances which include two years on the “Daily Show.” Weedman says Boise offered plenty of comedy material for her latest play. That includes how everybody knows each other and the city’s unique political landscape.
“It’s been whispered to me a couple times ‘I’m a Democrat.’ I went into a store and I won’t say what store because everybody will be like ‘I know that store, she’s talking about Steve.’ He had a New York accent and asked him how he liked living here and he was like ‘I’ll tell you in a second.’ He was waiting for people to leave the store and after everybody was gone he was like, ‘I’ve got some different political views. I’m kind of a liberal.’ And then every time someone would walk into the store he’d be like ‘tell you more later.”
Weedman will do two performances on Sept. 21 and two on Sept. 28, but each show will be different. She’s known for combining improv and scripted material in her stage work, and using her own life as a jumping off point. But this show is less scripted than most of her previous work.
She says this new style she’s trying out is “acid reflux producing” but fun. She’ll flip through index cards and decide in the moment what stories to tell from her several trips to Boise.
“The thing that stays the same [from show to show] is the idea of being at this point in my life, I guess it’s mid-life crisis-y, where I’m like 'now what, now what, now what'. I can’t stay in the same apartment; I can’t imagine raising my kid in Los Angeles.”
This is the second time she’s done a play based on the premise ‘should I move to this place.’ She did a similar play in Portland called The People’s Republic of Portland.
Weedman says moving is not just a theater premise. Every time she’s in an airport she asks herself 'could this be the city that would solve everything?' But not everything in her life is going wrong. Her career is good. She’s in the cast of a new HBO dramedy called Looking scheduled to air next year. Weedman doesn’t think she could have this career if she moved to Boise. But it nags at her.
“I just never knew you could get to a point where you could do what you want to do, because I am happy about the work I’m doing. But yet I always have this craving to be part of more of a community. And I don’t feel that so much in Los Angeles.”
Copyright 2013 Boise State Public Radio