Photo by Fred R. Conrad/New York Times
Bonded by Motherhood and Workplaces
By ERIC GRODE
New York Times
Published: February 14, 2013
Suppose you wrote a new play. It’s only your second, but it’s got a great part for an actress who can win over the audience to a character who can be unsympathetic, someone who can convey existential malaise at the same time as tough-day-at-work frustration.
Now suppose that when you’re not working on your plays, you write for a TV show. This show just happens to star, as the title character, an actress who has turned a mob wife and a Vicodin-addicted nurse into audience darlings and who makes a point of returning to her New York theater roots every chance she gets.
This should make for the easiest casting process in the world, right? Just tap her on the shoulder with one hand while holding the script in the other?
“Absolutely not,” said Liz Flahive, whose day job is as a producer of the Showtime medical comedy “Nurse Jackie,” which stars one Edie Falco. “That’s not how I would feel comfortable. It just wouldn’t be good manners.”
Sitting next to Ms. Flahive in a lounge at City Center, where Manhattan Theater Club is staging the play, Ms. Falco said, “I wish you had.”
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