Mommy Dance - Reviews

Quotes from Reviews
"The script is raw and honest..." "Bess lays herself bare and exposes her own shortcoming without pity but with the lightest touch." Whitehorse Daily Star, Whitehorse, BC, January 2005 "Jill Bess is a genius!" Anchorage Press April 2002 "...just gets better and better" Anchorage Daily News April 2002 "...excellent musical tribute to motherhood." Anchorage Daily News May 1996 "It's worth getting a sitter for." Anchorage Daily News May 1995 "...Bess' 'Mommy Dance' is a silly, touching and delightfully accurate homage to the world's eternally unsung hero - Mom." Anchorage Daily News May 1994
Reviews, Articles and Letters Click Below
Article Bess dances again in Juneau premiere Anchorage Daily News - 2003 By CINTHIA RITCHIE September 12, 2003	Article Take a Hilarious Traipse Through Motherhood. Whitehorse Daily Star Whitehorse, BC By Leighann Chalykoff January 27, 2005
Review From Spitting Up to Growing Up ‘Mommy Dance’ Hits All The Right Notes, by Lani Schwalbe, May 8, 2002		Review As parenthood progresses, so does 'Mommy Dance, By Catherine Stadem, April 29, 2002
Article Male director, rewrite freshen Mommy Dance By Cinthia Ritchie, April 26, 2002	Letters Letters and email responses to The Mommy Dance. May 2002
Article SENDING OUR BESS TO THE NATIONALS THE ARTS, By Mike Dunham, May 19, 1995	Review MOMS DESERVE NIGHT OUT FOR THE MOMMY DANCE, By DONNA FREEDMAN, May 26, 1995

B ack To Top		Bess dances again in Juneau premiere By CINTHIA RITCHIE Anchorage Daily News (Published: September 12, 2003) Imagine Juneau in the fall: rainy and cool, with the occasional slant of sun folding into a solitary, peaceful evening. You're walking through the streets, raincoat pulled up to your chin. Maybe you miss your family or find yourself thinking back to the years when your children were young. Then you pass Perseverance Theatre. You walk in, the curtain opens and suddenly Jill Bess is in front of you, jumping madly around the stage, talking and screaming and crying. She's saying all the things you've wanted to but never dared to say about the doubts and reality of raising children: the loneliness and the fight to hang onto that small kernel of who you used to be before the diapers and crackers and the hideous "Barney" videos. You laugh, cry, cheer. You feel exposed yet strangely comforted. You can't believe that someone has so accurately captured the moments of your life. Which is exactly what Perseverance Theatre's production of Bess' "The Mommy Dance" is all about. Bess, who breezed through a successful "Mommy" run in Anchorage last year, thinks careful script tuning has added new depth to the performance. "Some of the things came back to me quickly," Bess said during a late-morning phone call, "and some are new. We cleaned up the script, taking out all the unnecessary segments." The production, which has netted a host of prestigious regional and national awards, including an American Association of Community Theatre award for best actress in 1995, was first produced almost a decade ago. "When I did the first show," Bess explained, "Katie was 4 months old and Kevin was 3 1û2. I was just starting out as a mother and felt as if I were experimenting with all the insecurities that come with it. I didn't know what I was doing. "But as the years have gone by, I've honed my skills as a mother while becoming a better writer -- hopefully," she laughed. Perseverance's artistic director, Peter Dubois, who was present at the original production, had been in conversation with Bess for the past year about the possibility of putting on the piece. When he ran into her during Perseverance's "Moby Dick" run last year, he told her of the board's decision to go ahead with the show to open the company's 25th season on Friday, Sept. 12, in Juneau. "It was a magical moment," Bess said. "I had been wanting to do the show here for a long time. Most of the people associated (with the show) are mothers, which I think is important. And the tech group is doing amazing things. I walk in and think, 'Oh, my gosh.' I don't have to do anything. I just show up, and they already have it done." Used to doing most of the show herself, Bess can't get over her good fortune in being able to hand over a large part of the job to experts. "I feel as if I am being completely spoiled. It's the first time I can fully be just the author and the writer. They have a complete costume and publicity staff, which gives me the luxury of being able to be really nit-picky when it comes to my end." "Mommy Dance" director Anita Maynard-Losh, who is also Perseverance's associate artistic director, explained how her husband had seen the show in Haines years ago with friends and raved about it when he got back to Juneau. "I have three children, so many of the things Jill writes are oh-so-familiar," Losh said, adding that the script has become stronger and more fluent since the taking out of segments with Bess' family, which Losh described as being slightly jarring. "It's stronger as a one-woman show. It's really about (Bess), and it's kind of heroic in the fact that so often as a mother, you feel like you're on your own. You have all of these feelings, and you don't believe that other mothers have them. I find it very real and touching." Bess agrees. "It feels very tight. I see no reason why I can't toss in new items, but right now it feels like a very full production. At some point, I need to let go of it. I do want to move on and let go, and I guess my hope is that that is where the next two years will take me." If things go as planned, Bess might soon be mommy-dancing across the country. With a New York agent tucked firmly beneath her arm, she spoke of interest from various companies in the Lower 48. "At this point, I'm waiting to see if it shows up or comes through. There's nothing in writing. It's just talk at this point." Losh is a firm believer in this happening. She stresses the reality behind the piece, especially the segments concerning Bess' early motherhood experiences, which she finds especially moving. "It's very real and touching, and you can't help thinking, 'That happened to me; that is my life.' It's a universal truth." Which is a good reason to trust that the show will be picked up by Outside companies. After all, mothers are everywhere, and there's little difference between women struggling with potty training in Philadelphia or Casper, Wyo. "I've been wanting to get 'The Mommy Dance' out to the Lower 48 for years," Bess explained. "The kids are at an age now, and my husband, Joe, feels he can handle them. They are very supportive. My husband and I have talked about this project as being a third child. I get a lot of nurturing from my family. They're all willing to let me write." "You can feel so isolated being a mother," Losh added. "There's something reassuring in seeing Jill up there experiencing those same things, affirming all of your ups and downs. It makes you realize how it is all, every minute of it, worthy of our greatest respect."

Web posted Sunday, September 28, 2003
Go see 'Mommy Dance'
Letter to the editorI have to admit that I was slightly apprehensive about Perseverance Theatre's current production of "The Mommy Dance." Not to stereotype fellow moms, but I asked myself: Can one woman so busy being a mom have any energy left to reach the high level of the sensational theatre that we have come to expect from this organization?
Community theatre this piece is not! Jill Bess is an astounding and versatile actress, singer, comedian and playwright. She revels in the topics many moms contend with - the temper tantrums, exhaustion, disarrayed home and the overwhelming desire to know that there is recognition outside motherhood - each with the appropriate amount of humor, song, dance and sympathy.
I have recommended "The Mommy Dance" to many people - stay at home moms feeling they need more, working moms who feel they need less, content moms - and anyone who lives with them.

Go see this play - let someone else watch the kids and watch someone else go crazy for a few hours.
Pam Johansen
Juneau

Web posted Thursday, September 11, 2003
Sunday, Sept. 7. The one-actress show was written by Bess.

Dancing the Mommy Dance
Anchorage comedian turns parenting ups and downs into a one-woman musical about motherhood
By KORRY KEEKER
JUNEAU EMPIRE © 2003
Halfway through "The Mommy Dance," a one-woman musical comedy about motherhood, writer and star Jill Bess finally has to pause.
"I woke up one day and realized that a piece of me was missing," Bess says in a soliloquy while sitting on an oversized couch. "I woke up one day and there was too little of me left."
Her breakdown - a desperate grab at clarity and rest - is one of the rare moments of calm in Bess' 85-minute production, the opening show for Perseverance Theatre's 2003-04 season opener. "The Mommy Dance" premieres Friday, Sept. 12, and closes Sunday, Oct. 5.

The show is a mostly manic, often funny, sometimes tragic and 99 percent autobiographical glimpse at Bess' experiences as a mother, wife and individual. Not much is off limits.
"It gets crazy at my house, and I think it does at most mothers' houses," said Bess, 44, an Anchorage resident. "There's the balance of trying to portray to the audience that it gets frantic at your house, but you also have to find the balance of being relaxed on-stage.
"The Mommy Dance" evolved out of a series of journal writings. Bess wrote the first version in 1993 and 1994, and the show premiered in Anchorage in 1994. Since then, it's gone through almost 10 runs and revisions. On stage, she sings, dances, runs up stairs, jumps off beds, screams, swings, hits a ball with a bat and even gives birth.
Anita Maynard-Losh, the associate artistic director and training and education coordinator at Perseverance, is directing the play. This is the first time Bess has had a director for "The Mommy Dance."
"The hardest thing about this show right now is not improvising," said Bess, a former improvisational comedian with regional personality Mr. Whitekeys at the Fly by Night Club in Anchorage. "The show feels improvisational to me, and Anita doesn't want it to be. She's right. That's the challenge, to keep to the script and to keep it steady and fresh."

Bess' husband, Joe, her 13-year-old son, Kevin, and her 9-year-old daughter, Katie, go by their real names in the play. All three will make the trip from Anchorage to be at Friday night's premiere.
"We're a normal family," Jill said. "The kids have good days and bad days, just as I do and my husband does. Katie likes the play; she's really supportive. Kevin is sort of, 'Gee, Mom, do you have to tell them all of that?' He sort of puts up with it."
"In some aspects, it's almost like her third baby," said Joe, 44, an engineer. "We have the animals, we have our children, we have our house, and then there's Jill's play. There's truth to it, and then there's not. Some of it has nothing to do with our children, but something that happened with other children."
At one point in the play, Jill talks about being a bad mother for feeding Kevin a meal of Cheetos and mineral water. The culprit was actually Joe.
"I was absolutely exhausted, and it was my day to take the weekend shift so Jill could sleep late until 9 a.m.," Joe said. "I could barely move, and she came down and saw me feeding Kevin Cheetos and mineral water and she blew a gasket."
Other scenes from the play are less humorous. Joe still gets emotional every time Jill performs "13 Steps," a piece about child mortality based on the time Kevin fell down a flight of stairs at the Bess home. Kevin was hurt, but ultimately fine.
"I can still remember the very vivid memory of Kevin falling and hearing him and just sprinting out of control after him," Joe said. "Everytime she does that piece, it chokes me up."
"The Mommy Dance" was the first play Jill wrote, but she's acted since she was 8. She grew up performing at the Santa Barbara (Calif.) Youth Theatre, earned a degree in drama from the University of California-Irvine, spent a few years acting in shows in San Diego and Los Angeles and worked her way up the West Coast with commercial and voice-over work.
Jill married Joe in June of 1989. They met when they were 29, though they grew up within 40 miles of each other. They also were born three weeks apart.
"We discovered quickly that our parents lived in the valley within five miles of each other," Joe said. "That's destiny right there."
When Jill began writing the journal entries that evolved into "The Mommy Dance," Kevin was 3, and Jill was pregnant with Katie.
"I was home with my kids, and I couldn't make time to be away," Jill said. "They were too young for me to be out in the theater. I was starting to go a little crazy, so I just started writing."
"Mammary Song" came to her in a dream. She woke up and scribbled the lyrics into her notebook. She wrote the "Gross Song," a song about young Kevin vomiting in her face, in the shower, the day after young Kevin vomited in her face. "Master Kevin" came to her in a fit of sleepless frustration, after she spent the night trying to make him go to bed. A friend, Darcy McMullen Kreger, arranged the songs.

Back To Top	Take a Hilarious Traipse Through Motherhood. By Leighann Chalykoff January 27, 2005 Nakai Theatre’s latest production The Mommy Dance is, at moments, both a preventative measure and a glowing endorsement for procreation. Jill Bess, writer and performer in this one-woman musical, takes us on a startlingly honest and hilarious trek through all the crazy, wonderful, disgusting things that happen to you when you become a mommy. "I’ve always loved to dance," says Bess to start off the performance. "I never really learned to dance until I became a mommy." And dance she does, through all the good, the bad and the ugly of the first 12 years of her life as a mother of two children, Kevin and Katie. The script is raw and honest; it doesn’t shy away from the late night feedings and the dirty diapers. Bess lays herself bare and exposes her own shortcoming without pity but with the lightest touch. There is a bit of everything in this piece and Bess does it all herself; she dances, sings, acts and, every so often, breaks into a stand-up comedy routine. It also runs the gamut of emotion ranging from tears-rolling-down-the-cheeks funny to heartbreakingly tragic without straying into sentimentality. Don’t let the title of the play keep you from the theatre; this production deals with universal themes so that everybody who has a mother can relate. There is so much to take in and so much to choose from it’s like the weather in Newfoundland; if you don’t like what you see, wait a few minutes and it will change. This play is enjoyable if you have kids, you know kids or even if you’ve spent any time with kids. When Bess is acting like her four-year-old son, you can see every four-year-old boy in her gestures. Her facial expressions and body movements speak louder than a 1,000-page treatise on the subject ever could. Bess is a thoroughly engaging performer and throws her whole self into every song and dance number in this production. Darcy McMullen Kreger is Bess’ collaborator and musical accompanist on piano. Sometimes touching and sometimes comical, McMullen Kreger provides the soundtrack to her life. This musical play uses sound effectively; piping in the voices of Bess’ friends, children and husband creates the illusion of a house full of screaming people, though she’s the only one on stage. The props and set design complement the piece perfectly, right down to the fact that Bess pulls her shoes out from the only spot they could be in a busy family home: jammed in between the couch cushions. This play will make you want to go home and call your mother to thank her for every horrible thing she did for you, or better yet, take her to see the play. Bess hails from Alaska, and has been involved in more than 60 productions up and down the west coast of the United States. The play was originally written in 1994 for Out North Theatre Company based in Anchorage. The Mommy Dance is presented as part of Nakai Theatre’s 25th season and is the second theatrical collaboration between Whitehorse and Alaska. Last year, Nakai presented Up (The Man in the Flying Lawn Chair) with Juneau’s Perseverance Theatre. The Mommy Dance continues at the Yukon Arts Centre tonight, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m.

From Spitting Up to Growing Up

‘Mommy Dance’ Hits All The Right Notes
by Lani Schwalbe

May 2 - May 8, 2002 / Vol. 11, Ed. 18

It’s been a rough week. My 3-year-old has perfected the art of bringing a wail to a screech in 3.5 seconds flat. My six-month-old is going through what I’m told is "a growth spurt," which means she’s crying a lot, eating a lot and sleeping very little – which means I’m crying a lot, eating a lot and sleeping very little. My husband is tiptoeing around the house, ducking from the invective I’m hurling at him for no good reason (if you don’t count the fact that he’s the one who knocked me up in the first place). So as I turned the key in the ignition and escaped my life to catch "The Mommy Dance" last Saturday night, I was in an emotionally susceptible state. I probably would have teared up during a rerun of "The Incredible Hulk." But on to my unbiased review.
Jill Bess is a genius.

Bess’s take on everything mommy, from spitting up to growing up, is as truthful and honest a portrayal of motherhood as I’ve seen. If you’re thinking about becoming a mom, if you have a mom, if you live with a mom, or, most especially, if you are a mom, you must see this one-woman show. Hilarious one moment and raw the next, it has dead-on pitch.
Through song, dance and monologue, Bess relates her experiences as a stay-at-home mother and, later, a working mom. It opens with stuff we all know about: The jeans don’t fit anymore, the baby won’t stop crying, the husband sleeps through everything. But this is just a platform from which Bess high-dives into the deeper sea of mommyhood.

Written by Bess, with musical collaboration from Darcy McCullen Kreger, "The Mommy Dance" was first presented by Out North Theatre in 1994 as part of its "Under 30" program (for works under 30 minutes). It’s since grown to a full-fledged theatrical production. For the current run of "Mommy Dance" at APU’s Grant Hall, Bess has added material covering everything from giving birth to dealing with adolescence. The expanded production meant hunting for a director, which made Bess nervous. "I was very protective of [The Mommy Dance]," she said. "I was afraid someone would try to change my writing. I just had to let go of that."

Helping her let go is Forrest Attaway, a playwright and actor in the Anchorage theater scene. Bess was familiar with Attaway’s work, and their connection as professionals helped her to turn "The Mommy Dance" over to him. Under Attaway’s direction, Bess flies from heartache to hilarity without missing a beat. If this is any indication of what we can expect Attaway to bring out in actors in the future, Anchorage theatergoers can look forward to some fine times to come. Bess had help, too, from choreographer Kristen Vierthaler. "Mommy Dance" has complex dance numbers that incorporate ballet, ballroom, tap and tango. Vierthaler’s routines perfectly complement Bess’s emotional rollercoaster.

While the whole performance is terrific, Bess saves the best for last, as her two children – Kevin, 12, and Katie, 8 – make an appearance, letting us see the accuracy of her portrayals. We even get to meet her husband, Joel Niemeyer (portrayed earlier in the show by Paul Schweigert – because, according to Bess, "Joel can’t dance"). Niemeyer makes no attempt to hide his pride in his wife and kids. It ends an evening of high emotion and taut humor on a note of touchingly honest affection that no amount of makeup, set or lighting could mask. In the unscripted moments where Bess acknowledges her family onstage, the soul of the show shines through.

What’s most impressive about "The Mommy Dance," however, is that it does the one thing I’ve always thought impossible: it accurately portrays motherhood for the intense experience that it is, without resorting to cliches or fluffy sentimentality. For those of you wondering what to do for the mom in your life, take her to "The Mommy Dance." She’ll love it. Trust me.

"The Mommy Dance" is presented by Anchorage Community Theatre and Mommy Dance Productions. Performances are at Alaska Pacific University’s Grant Hall Thursday May 2, Friday, May 3 and Saturday May 4 at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, May 5 at 3 p.m. Tickets are $12, available at Carrs Tix, 1-800-478-7328 or www.tickets.com

As parenthood progresses, so does 'Mommy Dance'
By Catherine Stadem
Daily News Theater Reviewer
(Published: April 29, 2002)

Jill Bess' "The Mommy Dance," in its fourth incarnation since 1994, just gets better and better. If there's a soul left in Anchorage who hasn't seen this show, that's a shame. When Grant Hall's red velvet curtain closed at the end of Friday's opening performance, the nearly full house leapt to its collective feet in a well-deserved, spontaneous standing ovation.
Bess, a professional actor and singer before launching the family chapter of her life, uses her considerable creativity to explain why motherhood can test a woman like she's never been tested before. The play has grown from a 30-minute one-act to two-acts running one hour 45 minutes. And, miracle of miracles, her new dialogue, music and lyrics are as charming as the old favorites ("Mammaries" to the tune "Memories" still stops the show, and the tap-dancing labor scene is even funnier).

As Bess' children have grown, she has incorporated more scenes in which she plays her son and daughter at their different developmental stages. The "I Don't Want To" number, in which Mommy throws a tantrum, has gotten wilder, if that's possible, and there's a tender new song for her daughter that places Bess center stage on a swing, as the child wonders why "I'm Me."
Though her children in real life, Kevin and Katie, are no doubt mightily embarrassed by Mommy's stage depiction of them, in this version they actually appear in a few scenes. Another new twist is actor Paul Schweigert in a brief but effective appearance as the husband.
In a show packed with high points, the second-act tango between Bess and Schweigert (comically choreographed by Kristin Vierthaler) is a huge hoot. Without giving the joke away, let's just say the tango theme is birth control.

As the show has grown, so has Bess' approach to the subject matter. No longer the frenzied, frantic new mom of 1994, Bess -- playwright, actor, composer, lyricist, singer, dancer -- now has more distance from the emotional content of all the material. The result is enriched humor deepened by wisdom. Direction by Forrest Attaway has sharpened the show, and Bess' continuing musical collaboration with Darcy McMullen Kreger lends consistency.
Though Bess is retiring from her two-year stint as artistic director of Anchorage Community Theatre, she promises in the printed program that "The Mommy Dance" will continue to evolve. That's excellent news for local theatergoers. Just imagine what it will be like when Kevin and Katie are teenagers.

Catherine Stadem is a fellow of the National Critics Institute and a member of the American Theatre Critics Association.
THE MOMMY DANCE will be presented at 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday at Alaska Pacific University's Grant Hall Auditorium. Tickets are $12, available at 1-800-478-7328.

Male director, rewrite freshen Mommy Dance

The ArtsBy Cinthia Ritchie(Published: April 26, 2002)

Labor pains, stretch marks, toilet training and temper tantrums: Ain't motherhood grand?
Yes and no, according to Jill Bess. The latest version of her one-woman show "The Mommy Dance" opens with a diaper full of new surprises this weekend at Grant Hall. Originally part of Out North Contemporary Art House's "Under 30" program in 1994, the show has received enough awards to fill a playpen.

But Bess didn't just write the piece. She birthed it. Fed it, nurtured it and pushed it out of her head in small, sometimes agonizing gasps. Starting as a journal to outline her thoughts and fears as a stay-at-home mom, the work grew and fattened as she struggled with going-back-to-work issues. Even then, Bess didn't consider herself a writer. Or at least not a serious one.
That changed after she began reading her journals to her husband. He encouraged her to send the work as a proposal for "Under 30." She did, and the rest, as they say, is pure mama dancin'.
And it hasn't stopped yet. Bess considers the piece a work-in-progress.
"The kids keep growing," she said. "So I keep writing. All that new information just keeps coming in."

The latest version includes four new songs and 80 percent new material in the second act. Bess believes her work has evolved along with herself, veering from the humorous to the more introspective as she deals with such soul-searching questions as "Do I want to have another child? Is it time for me to go back to work?"

Bess has opened up and put more of her deeper emotions in the show, adding more elements of fear, anger and sorrow.

"I hope that my writing has matured," she said. "I hope it shows a growing and maturing woman facing some of life's issues."

Another change is that this time there's a director. And not just any director but a young, single, male director.

"The piece always called for a director," Bess said. She admitted to being overprotective toward her work, almost as if it were her baby and she needed someone motherly to direct it. After talking with several people whose opinions she respected, she realized that because the piece was so centered, a man's perspective might offer an unsurpassed freshness.
Enter Forrest Attaway. Playwright, actor, director. A man with many faces and now a bona fide Mommy Dancer.

"I knew he was right the minute I talked to him about it," Bess said. "It was instinct."
Attaway more or less agreed.
"Women have always been a big influence in my life," he said, adding that he didn't quite believe Bess was serious when she first approached him about directing her piece.
Still, once he read it, he noticed right away small ways of fitting these things here, those things there.

They didn't make a lot of changes, instead collaborating and asking "What if?" and finding ways to expand and clarify Bess' vision.
"All the words are still there; we just switched them around a bit." the director said. "Some of the things in the show are exceptionally beautiful, powerful and moving."
Bess couldn't say enough good things about Attaway's direction.
"I didn't expect his sensitivities," she said, "or the way he appreciated the tenderness and vulnerabilities."

With the new material and direction, Bess is both apprehensive and excited about the performance.

"I never want this piece to be fluff or comedy. I just want to keep it honest."

Back To Top	Letters and email responses to The Mommy Dance. May 2002 What a wonderful show, Jill! Thank you for bringing it back to life. My friends and I raved all the way out to our cars ... "every woman in America DESERVES to see this show -- no, dammit, they have THE RIGHT to see it!! " Another Standing O For You!! Patti Greene __________________________ Saw the Mommy Dance yesterday and was quite impressed. I am on the State Arts Council and it was delightful to see our funds going towards such a wonderful production. Keep up the good work and thank you from the community! Hilary A. Morgan __________________________________ Jill, What a terrific show! We all enjoyed it so much………You were wonderful - you really captured the mommy experience. It was just great. Congratulations on a great job! Thanks again, Sue Marchant _________________________________ Friday, May 3, 2002: Anchorage Talent Agent and more importantly mother, Grace Olrun of Cup'ik Warrior Productions cried like an idiot in the front row of Grant Hall's theater (without any tissue for 2 hours) during Jill Bess's brilliant melo-comedy "Mommydance". Olrun's previously clean black cord pants were a sloppy snot repository as Olrun related to Bess's poignant delivery of the trials/tribulations of motherhood vs. individualism in post-20th century America. Olrun was reportedly seen exiting the performance venue in haste because of swollen eyes and copious amounts of mucus flowing from a normally dry nose and face. You leave me in awe. Grace Olrun _______________________________ That was a great production and performance. I am glad we were able to catch the last show today. You have such great talent, though we knew that, we continue to be amazed. Jim and Kay LaBue ______________________________ I just came from your show. There aren't enough adjectives to describe how brilliant it was. There is so much truth in what you do, it's no wonder that everyone present felt as though you were talking about them. I hope you take this show places, it needs to be seen. Kristen Vierthaler __________________________________ Jill, Thank you for endurring MOTHERHOOD and the FAMILY. Each is assaulted in our society grievously and you made it painfully clear you grasp the essence of MOTHERHOOD........You're a danger to the enemies of the family - the enemies of a civil society! Thanks enormously, Jean Bugg __________________________________ Hi Jill, I hope you are able to extend. I can't believe everyone in town isn't lining up to see this show...........Keep us posted on other productions of MD so we can tell listeners about it on the show. Cathy Stadem (local reviewer with radio talk show) __________________________________ Hi Jill! Geez I didn't know you were so diversly talented. The end message of your play is so important today - thanks for doing something about it and sharing it with us! Has anyone ever approached you about doing your play as a film? It would make a great one..........Congratulations on a super job well done! The best, Elisa Fleener (local television producer) _________________________________ It was a magical evening which I was pleased to attend with both my girls. God I wish I could monkey dance or use a yo-yo! Joyce Laine ____________________________________ Jill, you are absolutely a joy to watch on stage. Needless to say you had us all eating out of your hand. I can't imagine being able to get out-of-the-picture perspective while living the experience! It certainly is easier to laugh at motherhood years further down the road! You expressed it to a "t". Can't wait for the next installment!!!! Most sincerely, Melissa Johnson ______________________________________ "My husband and I went to The Mommy Dance and really, really enjoyed it! Thank you for producing and performing such a wonderful show- we laughed, we cried, we smiled. I haven’t jumped on my bed yet, but have been thinking about it! I hope (you) will produce one after the teen years — I could use that now!" Cheryl Stewart __________________________________ "…we very much enjoyed the show. …The "Vasectomy" song is now a household tune!" Matthew Dixon ___________________________________ "Hi! We saw the Mommy Dance last weekend and it was delightful. Brought tears to my eyes, both from laughing and crying! … My daughters now have some insight into what being a mommy is all about." Hattie Small __________________________________ "Great Show!!! Mommy dance was a wonderful time for me, I could relate in all situations. Thank you for a fun time." Marilyn Gogolowski __________________________________ 'Just a note to say "Thank you" for so eloquently expressing all the emotions of motherhood in THE MOMMY DANCE. I laughed, I cried, and as I'm in the midst of living the next "act" with teenagers - I longed for the years gone by. You have a true gift for expressing what many of us cannot. Thank you for sharing your gift with us! Fondly, Stephanie Lawley

MOMS DESERVE NIGHT OUT FOR THE MOMMY DANCE
By DONNA FREEDMAN, Daily News reporter

Anchorage Daily News © Copyright 1985-1999
Friday, May 26, 1995 Page: D1 Section: Lifestyles Edition: Final

In "The Mommy Dance," Jill Bess makes tantrums look like so much fun. Wouldn't it be great, she muses, to "clench your fists and grit your teeth and scream, 'I don't want to!' "
Then she dedicates a hissy fit to every mom who's ever been completely fed up, stressed out and pushed to the brink. This scream-of-consciousness rant is couched in the mannerisms of a tantrumy kid.

"No! romantic weekends. No! sleeping in. No! designer jeans. No, no, no clean clothes. Yes, hemorrhoids. No parties, no vacations, no sleep. . ..Oh, God, I just want to go to sleep. . " "Sex? What's sex? A planned act of uninterrupted intercourse at 2 o'clock in the morning when the kids are finally asleep and you're totally physically and emotionally exhausted. . .I don't WANT TO!!!!"

Thankfully, "The Mommy Dance" isn't an Erma Bombeck column with musical accompaniment. It's a funny, human and occasionally wrenching look at what it's like to fit your life around the needs and wants of these enchanting little creatures you have miraculously created.
Sure, there's a fair amount of plot devoted to the, uh, moist aspects of children. Bess fends off projectile vomiting, changes diapers as toxic as Superfund sites and even copes with the sight of her dainty daughter slaking her thirst at the toilet. (Boy, turn your back for one minute. . )
There were plenty of nods of recognition in the mostly female audience at Cyrano's on Sunday, as moms recalled their own worst, and best, moments of motherhood. Been there, done that. Been there, wiped that up. Been there, cried over that.

The show is like a day-minder of motherhood, recording every appointment, every chore -- and every unexpected, serendipitous joy. Do you remember the first time your child walked up to you and said, out of the blue, "Mommy, I love you." Sure you do. So did all the women in the audience, who emitted slight sighs.

Bess shows the job of mothering for what it is: demanding, never-ending and often damned thankless. You can create 100 wonderful lunches in a row, but your kid will burst into hysterical tears if you serve him apple juice the day he really wanted milk.

Yet she reminds the audience that motherhood isn't really a job. There's no salary, no vacation, no performance evaluation (except, maybe, the one you give yourself, lying awake guilt-stricken at 3 a.m.).

"Wouldn't it be wonderful," Bess says, "if somebody walked up to you every once in a while and said 'Wow! You're a mom! What an incredible job! The places you've been! The things you've seen! The things you've survived!'"

Most moms will never hear this, let alone give themselves credit for the great jobs they've done. I've had trouble with this myself. When friends and relatives did tell me I was a good mom, I couldn't accept the compliment gracefully. I'd say something like, "It's easy when you've got a perfect child."

Well, she's not really perfect. She's an angel compared to most, but I do remember Those Days -- and Those Nights -- when I would have given $1,000 to be somebody else for just five minutes.
So, damn it, I do deserve a pat on the back. We all do. Go see "The Mommy Dance" and you'll agree. It's worth getting a sitter for. And don't worry if you're wearing sweat pants, or that your hair isn't quite right. The woman sitting next to you probably has spit-up stains on her shoulder.

THE MOMMY DANCE WINDS UP ITS ANCHORAGE RUN TONIGHT AND SATURDAY AT OUT NORTH THEATER, 1325 PRIMROSE (OFF DEBARR, ONE BLOCK WEST OF BRAGAW). LOCAL COMEDIAN JENNI LOU OAKES IS THE OPENING ACT. SHOW TIME IS P.M.; TICKETS ARE $12.50, $7.50 FOR STUDENTS AND PEOPLE ON LIMITED INCOMES. FOR RESERVATIONS, CALL 279-8200.

Back To Top	SENDING OUR BESS TO THE NATIONALS THE ARTS By Mike Dunham Anchorage Daily News © Copyright 1985-1999 Friday, May 19, 1995 Page: 7 Section: Weekend Edition: Final Two years ago, itinerant actress Jill Bess -- you may remember her from the Old Alaska Repertory Theatre, Anchorage Opera, Anchorage Light Opera Theatre, Carrs and GCI advertisements or as the dancing outhouse in "The Whale Fat Follies" -- was going through pregnancy with her second child while trying to toilet-train her first. "I was shocked at the amount of energy it took to be a mother," she said. "I was exhausted and depressed. I started keeping a journal, partly for therapy, partly because I was up at midnight anyway, and tried to keep a sense of humor in what I was writing." Her husband, Joel Neimeyer (Jill kept her maiden name for professional purposes because, she said, "nobody misspells 'Bess,' ") read the journals and found them funny. He encouraged her to turn it into a performance piece for Out North's "Under 30" show last May. "The Mommy Dance," the resulting half-hour of one-woman dance, comedy, pain and miscellaneous madcap maternalism, was an instant hit. This winter, Out North selected "Mommy Dance" -- now evolved into a 50-minute piece -- as its entry in the 1995 ActFest. Held every two years at the Chilkat Center for the Performing Arts in Haines, ActFest draws community theater groups from across the state. Winners go on to compete with groups from the Pacific Northwest region, regional winners go to a national competition hosted by the American Association of Community Thea-tres and national winners face off under the auspices of the International Amateur Theatre Association every four years in Monaco (the Association was the brainchild of the late Princess Grace). Sort of an acting Olympics. Leaving the kids with Neimeyer for the first time in her motherhood, Bess, along with technical director Frank Mengel, musical collaborator-accompanist Darcy McMullen Kreger and Kreger's stagehand son, Jesse, made the 16-hour drive to Haines the last week of April. "The 250-seat hall was filled every night," Bess said. "Everyone was talking about what they'd seen the ight before. I had no idea there was so much good theater in the state." Community theater presentations from Ketchikan to Fairbanks, including two musicals with large casts, were in the contest. "Mommy Dance" was the only solo act. Only once in the 22 years of the festival had an Anchorage show taken first place, though troupes from Juneau, Fairbanks and the Kenai Peninsula had gone on to the nationals and one -- Juneau-Douglas Little Theatre's 1991 "Nunsense" -- took top prize at the international level. If the pressure of history wasn't enough for Bess, she contracted laryngitis. As her turn loomed, the Juneau people let Bess borrow a body mike. She hid throat lozenges around the stage and popped them in her mouth during blackouts. The rules gave contestants 10 minutes to set up, 60 to perform and another 10 to break the set. While the set came down, two out-of-state judges wrote up their critiques. Then, with the audience still in place, the performers sat down and listened to the judges give them the Siskel-and-Ebert treatment. "Both said they were moved by it," Bess said. "But they also said that I needed a director, someone else to take care of the transitions. They disagreed on other things, like whether the stage was too cluttered or not. But it was all smart critiquing." Two entries were presented each night. "Mommy Dance" fell on a Wednesday. "I wasn't getting four hours of sleep a night" before that, Bess said. By Friday, her laryngitis had turned into bronch-itis. The last competitor presented a piece, then, after a long intermission, came the awards announcements. Best direction to First City Players of Ketchikan's "Side by Side by Sondheim." Best actor, a three-way tie. Best production, "Mommy Dance." Best original script, "Mommy Dance." Best actress, "Mommy Dance." "I was croaking, 'Thank you, thank you,' over and over," Bess recalled. In addition, Mengel won the award for backstage professionalism. ("He was so cool through the whole thing," she said. "There are 82 tech cues in 52 minutes.") The following day, Susan Claasen, the regional adjudicator, watched a repeat of "Mommy Dance" and the runner-up, "Side by Side." Claasen had already seen the winning productions in the other Pacific Northwest states. There was another long intermission, then she announced her selections for the regional winners. Best actor went to a man from Washington state. Best actress and best production went to Bess. Next stop, the nationals in Midland, Texas, in June. In addition to Bess' current run at Cyrano's, "Mommy Dance" will probably be workshopped under Gene Dugan's direction at Out North later this month. It was recently presented before 500 students at Clark Junior High School. "The principal wants me to develop it as a sex-education piece," said Bess, "so that the kids see that motherhood isn't all sweetness and fun." (One of the things that the principal noticed was that, as the boys snickered during Bess' song about her breasts never regaining their shape after having a baby, the girls grew quite serious, as if they were apprehensively digesting this fact of physical biology for the first time.) There are tentative plans for touring other Alaska cities after returning from Midland. But Bess is also working to have the script published. "That's the only way I can let go of it -- make it available for other people to perform. I don't want this to be a full-time thing. I hope there are other things in me besides 'Mommy Dance.' "