|
The Many Faces
of Chocolate
 BY EMILY DONAHOE
HELENA
INDEPENDENT RECORD
Joan Freed may
have come late to doing theater, but now
that she’s found her calling, Freed is
making a “sweet” sensation everywhere she
goes. Freed’s latest one woman musical
comedy, “Chocolate Confessions,” is coming
to the Helena Civic Center Tuesday, Feb. 13,
for a luncheon performance at 11:30 a.m. and
a dessert performance at 6:30 p.m. Proceeds
benefit the Helena Civic Center Improvement
Fund.
“I always did a
lot of singing, and I loved public
speaking,” said Freed, explaining how she
managed to stay offstage for so long.
Freed earned an
M.A. in mathematics at UCLA and co-managed
the actuarial services department of a large
financial services firm for many years
without any thought of performing. When her
kids began taking classes at a local
theater, Freed felt a pull to get involved
herself and auditioned for a production of
“Kiss Me Kate.”
“I got in – and
it was like my eyes were opened for the
first time,” Freed says.
She worked her
way up through the ranks and ultimately got
to the point where she was frustrated with
the lack of available roles for adult women.
Undaunted, Freed set to work on creating her
own one-woman show, utilizing lesser known
tunes from Broadway shows she’d been
collecting.
“They each told
a really interesting story,” says Freed.
“These are not songs that one single
character could do.”
“Crossword
Puzzle,” a show about a woman attempting to
finish the New York Times’ crossword in a
café, eventually grew into “Make Mine
Mocha.” Freed developed both shows with the
help of music director Craig Jones. She
started out small, performing at retirement
homes and other places before graduating to
larger and larger venues. In 1999, Freed
said goodbye to her day job, and has been
writing and touring ever since.
“I just thought,
you know, ‘I’ve gotta give this a try,’”
said Freed.
Even greater
success has come with “Chocolate
Confessions,” which deals with a subject
that’s a little more after Freed’s own
heart.
“I’m not really
a coffee drinker, but I love chocolate,”
said Freed, who says she’s loved the stuff
since she was “knee high to a box of
truffles.”
“I don’t know
what it is,” she said, adding that she
doesn’t even need to be eating chocolate to
enjoy it.
“I can just be
thinking about it and enjoy it. I do
think about it.”
At the soft
center of “Chocolate Confessions” is the
character of Coco Bliss, sort of a chocolate
bartender who listens as each customer
relates her chocolate-y tale through song
and monologue. There’s the chocoholic, the
chocolate historian and the chocolate
dreamer. One is a biker chick and chocolate
junkie.
“She’s just
about to rob this store. She has to get her
chocolate,” says Freed.
Recently, Freed
has taken a hiatus from “Chocolate
Confessions” to perform in a run of
“Menopause the Musical” at the Portland
Center for the Performing Arts. She says
that working with a group and having to
perform five days a week has revitalized her
as an actress and even given her some fresh
ideas for “Chocolate Confessions.”
Sometimes, Freed
says, she’ll have moments in performance
where she’ll think: Why am I doing this? I
must be crazy!”
The benefit of
being part of a cast is that when those
moments come, Freed can look over at her
fellow actresses and think “Oh – and they’re
crazy, too!”
Tickets to
“Chocolate Confessions” are $35 for the
luncheon performance and $22 for the dessert
performance. Call 442-4000.
< back to
reviews & articles |
