About a year ago, Stages theater got in touch with actor/playwright Denise Fennell (Sister in the
Late Nite Catechism series) to see what she had ready for the coming season. As it turns out,
Late Nite Catechism will be returning next year with a brand new version entitled
Sister's Irish Catechism.
But it wasn't ready yet. Stages leadership was thinking about bringing back one of the earlier versions of the Sister saga or just skipping a year when her Fennell's new husband, actor Rick Pasqualone said "Hey, you've written some other stuff. Why don't you pitch them one of your other ideas?"
So she mentioned it to Stages Managing Director Katie Maltais and Artistic Director Kenn McLaughlin asked her to send him some proposals.
Fennell pitched him one show with the working title
Winos in Need of Sanity, but McLaughlin urged her to focus on herself. "'I really want something for you,'" he said. 'You’re the one that Houston loves.' We tossed around a few ideas and the idea of a bride came up because I had just gotten married."
She and her husband, who is also a writer, typed up a synopsis. McLaughlin brought it in front of the team at Stages. "And they said we'll commission you to write this show. And I was like gosh, this was unbelievable," Fennell said.
The result is
Denise Fennell's The Bride, Or: Does This Dress Make Me Look Married? on stage now through mid-May at Stages at The Gordy.
Of course, it wasn't all as easy as that.
The day after Fennell got the good news about the commission, her father died.
"It was awful. It took me down," Fennell said. "Grief is real. I was broken really, truly. My job is to be funny. My job is to open myself up to share with other people. And I was lost. I had a bunch of shows on the schedule. I've always been an optimistic person. I've always been a girl who had this attitude the show must go on. My heart was not in it. I was just about to say no because I knew that Stages was getting ready to launch the season and I was in such a bad place. I just never thought I was to be funny again."
When she woke the next morning. her husband was sitting on the coach with a computer in front of him and said: "Hey, I took all of your stories and I wrote the play" I was like: What?" He told her he knew her heart was broken but he said she didn't know where she would be a year from then.
"I do not want you to miss out on this opportunity; you've worked so hard in your life," she said he told her.
They went to a writer's retreat with Stages personnel where the idea was to read the play out loud, take notes and make any adjustments needed. McLaughlin told her he loved it and that carried the day.
"We just kept building from there," Fennell said. She's been in Houston hiding out — as she puts it — just rehearsing.
She had played a bride before in the off-Broadway hit
Tony and Tina's Wedding, but in real life, she said, "I was a bride of a certain age. I got married much later in life and it was a completely different experience for me."
Fennell said she'd reached the point in her life where she thought she would never get married. "I met the man of my dreams [
in Tony and Tina's Wedding, see the New York Times story] ; we had bought a cottage together, we had committed to being together. I just never saw it coming. And when he asked me to marry him I was like 'What!" Most girls would be like yayyyyyyy. I was like 'Are you sure?'"
Once engaged, her life became even more interesting and in some ways, confounding. "People stopped calling me by my name. It was like 'There's the bride. When's the date. What are you wearing?'" Up to that point Fennell had somehow thought they were going to get engaged and that was going to be it.
However her husband came back with a "Babe, we're going to get married." She wasn't sure at all that the money for a wedding might not be better spent on buying a house. She tried to push against all of her family's traditions and rituals; she couldn't see herself getting registered and getting a set of china since she was almost 50 years old.
"I decided to get married outdoors on my parents' lawn in Maine. I didn't want to be in some banquet hall. I had played Tina in
Tony and Tina's Wedding for like 20 years. I don't want to do the chicken dance at my wedding."
A visit to a bridal salon to choose a dress was humbling. Clerks assumed her younger cousin had to be the bride-to-be.
But after it was all done, she said she was happy about it. "After all of the craziness I’m so grateful that I had the wedding that I had. I wouldn’t have all of these beautiful memories. My father walked me down the aisle."
The straight-through play is an hour and 20 minutes long. "After the pandemic and theater kind of went down for a minute, I haven't done this many shows in years. I said to [my husband] last week, I don't think I've stood on my feet this long for two years."
The show itself is interactive and conversational, she said. "The audience is very much present in the room with me. When I was creating this show, I was really thinking of my Houston audiences because I knew that this is where I would launch this show and I really wanted to be present with them.
"I also wanted to share with them kind of what I'd been up to while we were apart," Fennell said. "It's funny, it's heartfelt. It's loosely based on my story. I say it's two truths and a lie."
Performances continue through May 14 at 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, 6 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2:30 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays at The Gordy, 800 Rosine. For more information, call 713-527-0123 or visit stageshouston.com. $30-$84.
