Etheridge, Melissa

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    Solo Shows in Theater This Fall: Patrick Page, Isabelle Adjani and More

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    For theatergoers who love uncrowded stages, the coming months bring a range of works, from musical comedies to Shakespearean dramas.Solo shows have been around as long as there has been theater — longer, actually, if we count storytelling by a campfire. There is an elemental intimacy about the format and, let’s face it, an economic appeal at a time of belt-tightening.Despite their seemingly restrictive approach, one-person productions come in many shapes and forms: tales told by a single narrator and ones in which the performer embodies many characters, for example; dramatic yarns; and comic efforts that can flirt with stand-up. The last hybrid seems to be enjoying a kind of golden age, illustrated by the successes of Mike Birbiglia (“The Old Man and the Pool”) and Alex Edelman, whose recent Broadway hit, “Just for Us,” will be at the Curran Theater in San Francisco, Oct. 26-28.The coming months are a boon for theatergoers who love uncrowded stages, starting with the fall iteration of the cornucopia known as the United Solo Theater Festival (through Nov. 19 at Theater Row). Here is a selection of notable shows.Interrogating biographySometimes, it takes one icon to take measure of to another. The French actress Isabelle Adjani (“The Story of Adèle H.,” “Camille Claudel”) engages with Marilyn Monroe, myth and woman, in “Marilyn’s Vertigo.” The show, presented in French with supertitles as part of the Crossing the Line Festival, is framed as a dialogue with the Hollywood star, and was written by Adjani and Olivier Steiner. Oct. 12-13; FIAF Florence Gould Hall, Manhattan.John Rubinstein in Richard Hellesen’s “Eisenhower: This Piece of Ground,” adapted from Eisenhower’s memoirs, speeches and letters.Maria BaranovaIn a different register, John Rubinstein returns for an encore of Richard Hellesen’s “Eisenhower: This Piece of Ground,” a dive into the life of the military leader-turned-president that has proved quite popular. Through Oct. 27; Theater at St. Clement’s, Manhattan.One’s a crowdThe formidable Patrick Page is a versatile actor, but let’s face it: He is best known for portraying antagonists, including the Green Goblin in “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” and Hades in “Hadestown.” Maybe it’s his basso profundo voice? In “All the Devils Are Here: How Shakespeare Invented the Villain,” directed by Simon Godwin, Page — whose command of his craft our critic described as “stupefying, effortless” — scrutinizes those classic characters. This might be the only time we ever see his take on Lady Macbeth. Through Jan. 7; DR2 Theater, Manhattan.Following his acclaimed solos “The Man in the Woman’s Shoes” (2015) and “I Hear You and Rejoice” (2018), the Irish writer and actor Mikel Murfi is bringing to New York the trilogy’s conclusion, “The Mysterious Case of Kitsy Rainey.” Murfi portrays a range of characters from County Sligo, and performs all three pieces in repertory. Audiences can see any of the shows, or all of them. Oct. 24-Nov. 18; Irish Arts Center, Manhattan.Lameece Issaq has written for ensembles in works like “Food and Fadwa,” but her new piece, “A Good Day to Me, Not to You,” is a solo. In the show, presented by the Waterwell company and directed by Lee Sunday Evans (“Oratorio for Living Things”), Issaq plays a 40-something former dental lab technician reconsidering her life as she moves into a rooming house run by nuns on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Nov. 8-Dec. 9; Connelly Theater, Manhattan.Stand-up or theater?The comedian Caitlin Cook returns to SoHo Playhouse with her show “The Writing on the Stall.”Mindy TuckerGabe Mollica and Caitlin Cook are usually called comedians, but their work blurs the line with theater. Both performers are returning to the stage with encore runs of pieces that have been building a buzz. In “Solo: A Show About Friendship,” Mollica explores his realization that he has buddies but no close friends, and tries to dig into the reasons for that. Our ideas and hangups about masculinity may well play a part. Oct. 10-28, Connelly Theater Upstairs, Manhattan.Cook’s “The Writing on the Stall” is inspired by the gold mine of comic material found on the walls of bar bathrooms. She has turned graffiti spotted over the years into a show integrating songs (a nice micro-trend among comedians; see also Catherine Cohen), bits of anthropology and autobiographical sharing. Oct. 16-17, SoHo Playhouse, Manhattan.Birth of a performerEdgar Oliver, a longtime fixture of the downtown New York theater scene, revisits his days at the Pyramid Club in his new work, “Rip Tide.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesFour years ago, Ben Brantley described Edgar Oliver’s body of work as a “singular series of elegiac performance pieces,” which essentially amount to an oral history narrated by one person. Oliver’s new piece, “Rip Tide,” revisits his days performing at the Pyramid Club, the East Village boîte where renegade drag, rock, spoken word and performance art thrived in the 1980s and ’90s. Through Oct. 28; Axis Theater, Manhattan.In her review for The New York Times, Laura Collins-Hughes pointed out how Melissa Etheridge turns Circle in the Square into an intimate music club for her concert-cum-memoir show, “My Window,” now on Broadway. Some of the rocker’s most fun anecdotes cover her early years playing lesbian spaces from her native Kansas to California. Through Nov. 19, Circle in the Square, Manhattan.Table for how many?Geoff Sobelle most recently performed his dinner party as theater spectacle at the Edinburgh Festival.Iain MastertonTechnically speaking, Geoff Sobelle’s “Food,” which is part of the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival, involves a lot of people. Sobelle (“The Object Lesson”) is the host of a dinner party at which audience members sit at a very large table for what is described as “a meditation on how and why we eat.” Since “Food” was created with the magician Steve Cuiffo (“A Simulacrum”), it is no spoiler to mention it involves entertaining trickery. Nov. 2-18, Brooklyn Academy of Music.Repertory of onesPlaywrights Horizons is making smart use of its space by presenting three solos in repertory. Drawing from years as a tutor, Milo Cramer wrote and performs in “School Pictures,” a play with music that looks at our education system via a range of New York students. The comedian Ikechukwu Ufomadu, who opened for Catherine Cohen at Joe’s Pub this summer, brings more of his surreal musings in “Amusements.” And Alexandra Tatarsky’s “Sad Boys in Harpy Land,” which involves clowning and nudity, looks to be the wild card of this bunch — emphasis on wild. Nov. 2-Dec. 3, Playwrights Horizons, Manhattan. More

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      ‘Melissa Etheridge: My Window’ Review: Musings on Life and Music

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      On Broadway, this rock concert spliced with memoir has gained a striking intimacy.In 1979, when Melissa Etheridge was an aspiring rock star getting ready to leave Leavenworth, Kan., for music school in Boston, she got a 12-string guitar. Her father made a macramé strap for it — a sturdy, intricate piece of knot work that was a portable souvenir of his love.“And this is it,” his Grammy Award-winning daughter said during her Broadway show, turning around to give everyone a view of the strap that held up her instrument.It was a charming moment, and in our high-definition, multi-screen world, refreshingly analog: just Etheridge, life-size and in three dimensions, sharing the room with us.Share it she does, superbly, in “Melissa Etheridge: My Window,” which opened Thursday at Circle in the Square Theater, just one block east of where an earlier version of the show ran Off Broadway last fall. On Broadway, this rock concert spliced with memoir has gained a striking intimacy, as if Etheridge had shrunk an arena to fit in the palm of her hand.A stage stretches across one end of the space, floor seats and a center aisle are where the theater’s thrust stage would usually be, and a tiny satellite stage sits behind them. Circle in the Square never struck me as a warm, embracing theater, but Etheridge makes it one, paying graceful, diligent attention to every section of the 726-seat audience, and occasionally coming down off the stage to sing and stroll.Written by Etheridge with her wife, Linda Wallem Etheridge, and directed once again by Amy Tinkham, this musically gorgeous, narratively bumpy show starts with Etheridge’s hit “Like the Way I Do,” ends with “Come to My Window” and fits 15 husky-voiced songs in between, including a trippily comical “Twisted Off to Paradise,” an arrestingly beautiful “Talking to My Angel” and a winking ode to her current gig, “On Broadway.” (Sound design is by Shannon Slaton.)On a set by Bruce Rodgers whose spareness serves the complexity of Olivia Sebesky’s projections, this is a visually slick production, with abundant jewel tones in Abigail Rosen Holmes’s saturated rock-show lighting, and Etheridge looking glamorous in costumes by Andrea Lauer.The show is shorter, more polished and more assured than it was Off Broadway — though Etheridge still seems undefended when she doesn’t have a guitar strapped across her or a piano in front of her. She also doesn’t speak memorized lines but rather tells versions of stories mapped out in the script. It’s a valid approach that sometimes leaves her fumbling for words.Kate Owens plays the small, clowning role of the Roadie, a character whom the audience loves but who I wish would desist from upstaging Etheridge with antics.Etheridge herself is very funny, and she knows how to handle a crowd. Such as when she got to the point in her life story when she fell for a woman who was married to a movie star — “a for real, for real movie star,” she added, for emphasis.“Who?” a voice called out, not that the performance is meant to be interactive.“Look it up,” Etheridge said, shrugging it off.Unlike her recently published memoir “Talking to My Angels,” which opens with a recollection of “a heroic dose of cannabis” that changed her understanding of herself and the universe, “My Window” proceeds chronologically, starting with Etheridge’s birth. (Projections show baby Missy with fabulous hair.) So the talk of what Etheridge calls “plant medicine” comes later.This is a passion of hers, so it belongs in a show about her. But the performance devolves into speechifying every time it comes up, except when it morphs into an enactment of experiencing an altered state — which, despite some vividly kinetic projections, can be as tiresome to watch onstage as it would be off.Surprisingly, the most starkly powerful part of the show Off Broadway — Etheridge recounting the death of her son Beckett, at age 21, in 2020 — works less well on Broadway.I cannot fault Etheridge for her stiffness in that delicate section at the performance I saw, or for reaching for words — like her blunt assessment, “He was difficult” — to convey her memories. But this is where relying on the script’s gentler, more contextual language could assuage what must be a terrible vulnerability.Logistics also undercut that scene. While Etheridge speaks from the large stage and the auditorium is plunged in darkness, a guitar is placed on the satellite stage by a technician who crosses in front of many people. No distraction should break the connection between Etheridge and her audience in that moment.She is, throughout “My Window,” a marvel with that audience.Back when her fame was rising, she told us in Act II, she started playing arenas and stadiums.“Thousands and thousands of people,” she said, “and the funny thing is, the more people there were, the further away y’all got.”On Broadway, they’re near enough again for her to commune with. And so she does.Melissa Etheridge: My WindowThrough Nov. 19 at Circle in the Square Theater, Manhattan; melissaetheridge.com. Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes. More

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      Melissa Etheridge Is Ready to Rewatch ‘Barbie’

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      The singer, who brings her autobiographical show to Broadway this month, on her longtime love for the Kansas City Chiefs and what she’s looking forward to in New York.Melissa Etheridge has lived a lot of life. So much so that the early version of her autobiographical show was four or five hours long.“I had to snip out a lot of the story lines,” Etheridge, 62, said in a phone interview from her home in Los Angeles. “And then even more so for Broadway. It was taking out some of my really early childhood stuff, tightening up some of the stories.”But there was one moment in the show, “Melissa Etheridge: My Window” — which will have its Broadway opening on Sept. 28 after a well-reviewed run at New World Stages last year — that she knew she couldn’t cut, even though it’s the toughest part to get through: Her son’s death at 21 from a drug overdose.“I’m still working through it,” the Grammy-winning singer and songwriter said of losing her son, Beckett Cypher. “But that’s how I knew I had to wrap it up — show people what I’ve learned about myself, and being a mother, and about addiction and not taking guilt on.”Before relocating to New York to begin “My Window” rehearsals, Etheridge shared her cultural essentials, including the album that made her a fan of Taylor Swift and her love for the Kansas City Chiefs. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1Lululemon PantsI was a jeans girl, and then the pandemic hit, and I became a sweatpants girl. Now my daughter and my wife have got me hooked on Lululemon. I found this pair of pants — they’re sweatpants, but they’re really thin, but not like yoga pants that are like “Oh, here’s my ass” — and I was like, “These are fantastic.” Once you get into your 50s, it’s all about comfort.2Kansas City ChiefsI was born and raised in Leavenworth, Kan. I was 8 when we won the Super Bowl in 1970 and have been a fan ever since. I’m beyond crazy about the Chiefs. My house is kind of a Chiefs shrine — I have a pool table with the team logo on it and a Chiefs guitar strap.3XeriscapingWhen we had our huge drought in Southern California, I looked at my big, beautiful yard with all this grass and I’m like, “Why do I have big, thick grass in a desert? And why am I watering it constantly?” So I turned to xeriscape, which is going back to native, drought-tolerant plants.4Quinton HypertonicI’m always looking for ways to get enough electrolytes and magnesium. My tour manager, who’s even more of a health nut than I am, said “These are great, try this.” Plus, it makes my water taste really soft.5Esther HicksWhen I went through cancer 19 years ago, it was a big wake-up call about health and life. I came across her early law of attraction stuff — the idea that we’re creating our reality and that our joy and our happiness creates more joy and happiness — and it really spoke to me. It makes more sense than any religion.6My Gibson Chuck Berry 1970s ES-355 Replica Murphy Lab GuitarI recently went down to Nashville with my band and my crew, and we all went to the Gibson Garage. They took me back into the vault, which dazzled me. They said, “Here, you can borrow this guitar for your tour,” and I started playing it and was like, “OMG, this is the greatest thing! I have to have it.” I think I’ll use it in the last few numbers of the show.7Smoking With Strangers OutdoorsI love that cannabis is finally legal in New York City. The last time I was there over the summer, looking for a place to smoke, I saw some women sitting on a bench in Washington Square Park smoking, and I asked, “Do we just sit and smoke now?” And she was like, “Yeah, it’s great.”8Taylor SwiftIt was my daughter who got me hooked — I used to drive her up to boarding school, and we’d listen to the whole “1989” album. Then I went to a show in Chicago with her in June, and I looked around at the audience and said, “This is amazing.”9Springbok PuzzlesI’m a huge puzzler. It started 20 years ago when I was undergoing chemotherapy and didn’t have the energy to do anything else. It helps keep my mind sharp and relaxed. I love Springbok puzzles not only because they’re from my home in Kansas City, but because the pieces are unique — I don’t like the puzzles where all the pieces look the same — and the quality is fantastic.10Dine-In Movie TheatersI love this new trend of really fancy theaters. Here in Westlake we have one called Cinépolis where they bring you dinner in the theater — and this is actual real food; you can get a hummus platter or a nice salad. I saw “Barbie” on the road recently at a dine-in theater in Lexington, Ky. I loved it! It made me laugh so hard. I’m ready to see it again. More

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      Melissa Etheridge’s Autobiographical Show Is Coming to Broadway

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      Combining stories from her life with her musical catalog, the singer’s show will open in September.The singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge’s theatrical memoir in which she weaves stories from her life will be staged on Broadway this fall, the production announced Sunday.Called “My Window,” a reference to one of her hit songs, Etheridge’s show recounts the arc of her life and career, from growing up in Kansas to reaching rock fame and coming out as a lesbian in the ’90s.The show, which had a brief Off Broadway run last fall, was written by Etheridge and her wife, Linda Wallem Etheridge, a television producer and actor who helped create the TV series “Nurse Jackie” and worked on “That ’70s Show.” The production plans to begin previews at Circle in the Square Theater on Sept. 14, with opening night scheduled for Sept. 28.Etheridge, 62, has loved theater since childhood (“‘Godspell’ just set me on fire,” she said last week), and performed briefly in the rock musical “American Idiot” in 2011. She had long wanted to write for Broadway, she said, and so she was delighted to see the industry embrace Bruce Springsteen’s production, which she viewed as setting an example for productions by musicians that are part concert, part storytelling.“I’ve been in front of audiences for 40 years, and I like to talk,” Etheridge said. “I enjoy story and drama, and I’ve always brought that into my music.”Plus, she joked, “It saves on therapy.”The show, directed by Amy Tinkham, verges into deeply personal territory for Etheridge, including when she discusses the death of her 21-year-old son from opioid addiction.“It really helped me to just say it over and over,” Etheridge said. “I found it freeing, actually, to be very open about my life.”In between the recollections, Etheridge plays her hits, such as “Come to My Window” and “Bring Me Some Water,” as well as snatches of more obscure titles, including the first songs she wrote as a child. Currently, Etheridge is figuring out what to cut; the Off Broadway show was three hours, including an intermission, and the singer said the Broadway version will most likely be about a half-hour shorter.The production plans to run through Nov. 19. More

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      ‘My Window’ Review: An Out-and-Proud Trailblazer Finds Her Way

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      Melissa Etheridge’s limited run at New World Stages is a celebration of its smoky-voiced 61-year-old star, and contains some confessions, along with her hits.Not long into the second act of Melissa Etheridge’s new Off Broadway show, she tells a funny, sexy, completely charming tale of falling in love with a married woman in the late 1980s, and pairs it, playfully, with a gorgeous version of her 1995 song “I Want to Come Over.”Discreetly — no names — she recalls what a blast she and that partner and their showbiz friends used to have together in 1990s Los Angeles, in the heady early days of Etheridge’s rock fame. Then she mentions cannabis, which she didn’t enjoy at the time.“It always made me feel like everyone knew I was hiding something, you know?” she said on Friday, the second night of a 12-performance run at New World Stages. “Like they could all see this sadness that I was hiding.”In an almost solo show that wants very much to be a good time for the audience, and a kind of celebration of its smoky-voiced 61-year-old star, suddenly here is a confession of personal vulnerability — spoken, not sung. It turns out to be valuable foreshadowing, because there is some deep, dark sadness in “Melissa Etheridge Off Broadway: My Window — A Journey Through Life.” And mostly, amid some staggeringly beautiful renditions of songs, that sadness is well camouflaged.Written by Etheridge with her wife, Linda Wallem Etheridge, and directed by Amy Tinkham, the show recounts the story of Etheridge’s life in strict chronological order, from the day she was born in 1961 in Leavenworth, Kan. It’s a journey from midcentury, Midwestern conformity to a career as a Grammy Award-winning, out-and-proud trailblazer.Starting with darling black-and-white baby pictures shown huge on the upstage wall, the smart projections (by Olivia Sebesky) become increasingly intricate and eye-popping throughout the evening, particularly when Etheridge’s memories turn psychedelic. (The minimal set is by Bruce Rodgers, the luscious lighting by Abigail Rosen Holmes.)Some Etheridge hits are, of course, among the two dozen or so songs and song fragments strung through the performance, including a fiery version of “Bring Me Some Water,” from her 1988 debut album, and a buoying, sing-along “Come to My Window,” the 1993 hit that gives the show its name. She also plays endearing obscurities, like the first songs she wrote as a child.For all its musical polish, though, the show is verbally shaggy; Etheridge isn’t reciting memorized text but rather improvising, storyteller-style, from an outline of the piece’s main points, which scroll by on her monitor. (You will notice the monitor only if it’s behind you and you cheat like I did and turn around and look for it.) The upside to that looseness is a sense of thoughts articulated in the moment. The downside is a certain lack of eloquence.The instant Etheridge gets a guitar to strap across her chest, her whole body relaxes.Richard Termine for The New York TimesClocking in at three hours, including an intermission, the performance is surprisingly light on songs for about the first 30 minutes, and pushes a little too hard with the comedy of a roadie character (Kate Owens), who comes on to swap out Etheridge’s many jackets and guitars. (Costumes are by Andrea Lauer.)Initially, Etheridge doesn’t even have the armor of an instrument as she roams the stage. The instant she gets a guitar to strap across her chest, her whole body relaxes. Similarly, she is most expressive when she has the rhythm and structure of music to hold onto. So the show’s chatter works best when it’s threaded around and through a song, as happens gracefully with “Juliet,” the companion to Etheridge’s reminiscence of her brief time at Berklee College of Music, and of finding lesbian community in Boston.A life is a delicate thing to parade onstage, even or maybe especially in front of an adoring audience — lots of women, many apparent baby boomers and more straight couples than you might expect. A theatrical autobiography that’s honest can’t be neat, because some roughnesses refuse to be smoothed. So it goes here with the discussion of family, both the one Etheridge was born into and the ones she formed with the two women who are the other mothers of her four children.Personal details are skated around, presumably for the usual reasons — privacy, or to spare someone’s feelings, or because humans are complex and there simply isn’t time. Her father, who chaperoned her at the gigs she played when she was underage and responded with love when she came out to him as a young adult, emerges as a sympathetic figure. Others, in some ways including Etheridge, come off less than well. It’s here that you sense the sadness, hidden until it’s not.There comes a point, near the end of the show, when the stage plunges into inky blackness and Etheridge tells the story of the death of her 21-year-old son, Beckett, in 2020. It is spare and searing, the words uttered from a pit of grief.And as she speaks of the healing power that performance has for her, you realize that this is part of what she’s doing here — that music and memories and the embrace of an ardent crowd might help, just maybe, to assuage the pain.Melissa Etheridge Off Broadway: My Window — A Journey Through LifeThrough Oct. 29 at New World Stages, Manhattan; melissaetheridge.com. Running time: 2 hours 50 minutes. More

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      Melissa Etheridge and Jill Sobule Bring Their Whole Lives to the Stage

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      They both first made a splash in the ’90s. They’re now in New York to present new theatrical memoirs that mix storytelling and songs.When musicians as popular and as varied as Brandi Carlile, King Princess, Syd, Hayley Kiyoko and Girl in Red can be so openly, so matter-of-factly gay, it’s easy to forget that the vibe was not quite as welcoming 30 years ago.In the 1990s, singing paeans about making out with other women was a bold move. So when the Kansas-born lesbian rocker Melissa Etheridge released the album “Yes I Am” in 1993, featuring the hits “Come to My Window” and “I’m the Only One,” she made a splash. A couple of years later, Jill Sobule, a sly, funny bisexual pop singer-songwriter, released “I Kissed a Girl” — with a video starring the actor and model known as Fabio.Coincidentally, both women are currently settling in New York to present new stage memoirs that mix storytelling and songs. On Thursday, Etheridge starts previews for “My Window — A Journey Through Life,” with a book by her wife, Linda Wallem, at New World Stages. The next day, Sobule follows suit with “F*ck7thGrade” at the Wild Project.Born a few months apart in 1961, the two women have been on parallel trajectories over the years but did not really meet until Sobule joined the musical lineup on the 2019 Melissa Etheridge cruise. “We were getting done in our room, and we were all singing, ‘Come to my porthole,’” said Sobule, whose recent land-bound experiences have included starring in Matt Schatz’s musical “A Wicked Soul in Cherry Hill” at the Geffen Playhouse.On Friday morning, Etheridge and Sobule gathered again over a breakfast of oatmeal, fruit and herbal tea. It was the day after the Denver Broncos had lost an excruciating game to the Indianapolis Colts, and Sobule, a Colorado native and football fan, was still reeling. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.The two women did not really meet until Sobule joined the musical lineup on the 2019 Melissa Etheridge cruise.Luisa Opalesky for The New York TimesWhy did you both decide to look back on your life and music in a theatrical format?JILL SOBULE I have a theater agent, and he said, “You should come up with a concept and maybe something with your songs.” So many of them directly deal with the worst year of my life: seventh grade.MELISSA ETHERIDGE That’s everyone’s worst year.SOBULE I was this badass little girl. I was the best guitar player, but there were no role models for us. And as a little strange girl with queer feelings in the ’70s, the only role models I had for that was Miss Hathaway from “The Beverly Hillbillies.” Or my gym teacher, who looked like Pete Rose.ETHERIDGE My wife’s gym teacher was named Miss Lesby. It’s like something out of “S.N.L.”! One of my major influences was the Archies [they both start singing “Sugar, Sugar”]. I thought, “Why can’t I grow up and be Reggie? I’m going to have Veronica and live a happy life.”SOBULE We wanted to make sure that the show wasn’t just for people interested in my career because most people could give a [expletive]. I’m not that famous. It’s kind of this universal story of a weirdo growing up.What was it like coming of age at a time when it must have been difficult to put words onto some feelings?SOBULE I have a brother who’s six years older than me. I happened to stumble upon one of his softcore magazines, and there was a series of soft-focus photos of girls in a French boarding school. I thought, “Oh my god, how do I transfer to that school?”ETHERIDGE I think the first media I saw was “The Children’s Hour.” All of a sudden I’m feeling stuff. And then she [Shirley MacLaine’s character] hangs herself, because anything gay you saw, they were criminals or killed themselves. I remember Time magazine had something about gay liberation on the front. My father was a high school psychology teacher, and he had a book that said, “Homosexuality — we don’t think it’s a mental illness anymore.” It was kind of nice: Maybe I’m not crazy.Etheridge and K.D. Lang. “It was the drama geeks getting together and having fun,” Etheridge said about Hollywood in the ’90s.Steve Eichner/WireImage, via Getty ImagesHow did you get into music?ETHERIDGE In high school, I was in professional bands. I made money every weekend; I was very independent. I was a security guard in college. I made $7 an hour, and that was hard work, in a hospital. So I went down to the subway — it was in Boston, I went to the Berklee College of Music — I opened up my case, and I played for an hour. And I made seven bucks. So I went, “Well, I can make as much here as I do doing that job.” I never looked back after that.SOBULE When I was in eighth grade, I was the guitar player in our jazz stage band, and we won State because I brought my brother’s Marshall amp and wah-wah pedal, and I did a solo of “2001.” That’s the only thing I’ve ever won in my whole life. Later I was in Spain, and a friend said, “Let’s go busk on the street.” A guy walked by and went, “Would you guys like to play in my nightclub?” I ended up dropping out of school.ETHERIDGE I dropped out of school, too.Is it difficult to tell your stories in a new medium?SOBULE I think it’s a natural progression because we’re storytellers, and now we get to grow it out, we get to be more cinematic, in a way. I was telling my theater friends, “I’m moving on from music to Off Broadway because it’s so lucrative.” [They both roar with laughter.]ETHERIDGE I always hate to say “at our age,” but in this phase of our life to be able to have a different creative expression is fantastic. I came from rehearsal last night, and I could not get to sleep. My brain was so tickled and delighted by what I can do.Melissa, what was it like playing St. Jimmy in “American Idiot” in 2011?ETHERIDGE It was amazing. This was a full Broadway show, and there were so many things that I didn’t really realize I was getting into. Especially when they said, “Now we’re going to rehearse the death drop.” I said, “Excuse me, the what?” I climb up two flights of these stairs that move around, and I fall backwards into two people’s arms. And I’m not a dancer! To me it represented my own fear of stepping into the theatrical world. So I said, “You got it!”SOBULE Theater was a learning curve. I remember the first time a director said, “OK, move stage left.” And I was, “What the [expletive] is stage left?” We have so much dialogue, and I don’t even memorize my own lyrics. I was like, “Can I have a monitor? Did Springsteen have a monitor?” They were like, “You are not Springsteen.” OK, fair enough.Jill, you’re working with the playwright Liza Birkenmeier on your show’s book. And Melissa, your wife, Linda, is helping out. How do you collaborate with them?SOBULE Basically we have conversations, and we figure out how to best put the jigsaw puzzle together. Every day, I’m like, “Let me add this little one-liner.”ETHERIDGE My Covid experience really focused this show because I did a thing called Etheridge TV. I turned my garage into a streaming studio, and every week I would stream five shows. On Wednesdays my wife and I would do a chat show, and on Fridays I would do what I called the Friday Night Time Machine. I started digitizing my old pictures and old videos, and I would show them and tell my life story. I got used to telling it, and my wife started writing it down. But I’m going to still be speaking extemporaneously in the show — I’ll hit the beats so that everything matches right, but I’m not reciting lines.How much excavating did you do in terms of music?ETHERIDGE I’m playing a couple tracks that I hardly ever play live because they were so theatrical, so dramatic that there was never a place for them in my concerts. There’s one from “Your Little Secret” called “This War Is Over” — I think I did it in concert in ’96 and that was the last time. There’s one from “The Awakening” called “Open Your Mind.” You’re going to hear a song I wrote when I was 11 years old, and four or five songs that were never recorded.SOBULE We took out the first song I ever wrote, which was called “Nixon Is a Bad Man, Spiro Agnew Is Too.” I don’t remember the music, but I’m sure it was hot.ETHERIDGE Unfortunately, I did remember the music of mine.Sobule performing in 2000. “When I had ‘Kissed a Girl’ coming out, it was dicey because it was like, ‘Is she a lesbian singer-songwriter?,’” Sobule said.Hiroyuki Ito/Getty ImagesJill, reassure us: Does your show include “I Kissed a Girl”?SOBULE Yeah. People call me a one-hit wonder, and I say, “Wait a second, I’m a two-hit wonder!” When I had “Kissed a Girl” coming out, it was dicey because it was like, “Is she a lesbian singer-songwriter?”ETHERIDGE It was revolutionary. I remember seeing that, my jaw dropped, and I went, “Wow, here we go.” It was punk, it was edgy, it was that MTV cool. Someone called me once, like management, and said, “Your songs are too sexual.” It was the “Lucky” album. I was having a lot of sex, what can I say?I read that you were involved in some fun parties back in the day.ETHERIDGE It was Hollywood in the early ’90s. I happened to know K.D. Lang; Ellen DeGeneres was this stand-up comic, so was Rosie O’Donnell. I met Brad Pitt after he did a little independent film with Catherine Keener, who’s a real good friend of mine. None of us had kids, and we were all young and crazy. There was a lot of smoking and drinking. It was the drama geeks getting together and having fun.What do you do for fun now?ETHERIDGE Fun is getting in bed before midnight. I watch football. [To Sobule] You’re not a Broncos fan, are you? Last night was brutal. I have to hug you.SOBULE My whole family was at the game and they FaceTimed me. I almost didn’t make today, it was so awful.ETHERIDGE I’m with the Kansas City Chiefs: We’re set. In high school we had powder-puff football. We showed up for the first practice — I was the quarterback, thank you very much — and then they came and said, “We’ve got to shut this down, we don’t have insurance,” or something. Because of Title IX, we were supposed to be able to do it, but we didn’t, and it broke my heart.SOBULE The last couple years I’ve been totally into basketball. I like it because there’s so many games and it doesn’t matter.ETHERIDGE Oh no, I like something to be on the line. Every. Play. More