new story in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette (my hometown paper!)
rduckett@telegram.com
When: 8 p.m. Wednesday Where: Café 939, Berklee College of Music, 939 Boylston St., Boston How much: $12. To buy tickets: http://www.berklee.edu/events/detail/12015 /alicia-witt- young-pandas-ken-yates
Worcester’s talented, attractive, redhead actress Alicia Witt is performing a new role these days, and pouring her heart and soul into it.
Witt (who was a regular on the TV series “Friday Night Lights” and also has a recurring part in “The Mentalist”) has made five movies over the past few months that are in various stages of preparation, pre-release and release. But Wednesday you can see her in a different artistic milieu when she appears at Café 939 at Berklee College of Music, 939 Boylston St., Boston.
It’s a real-life part: Wittt as singer-songwriter. Also performing at the show, which starts at 8 p.m., will be Mike Maven and Ken Yates.
“I usually play a bunch of my original songs,” Witt said about what to expect at tomorrow’s concert during a telephone interview last week from her Los Angeles base. She’ll have a couple of New York City musicians playing guitar and drums. Witt will be at the piano.
“I’ve been playing the piano my whole life, but being a singer-songwriter in a band is a very different endeavor,” she said.
And she’s found that performing as a singer — especially when it comes to singing her own songs — is rather different than performing as an actor.
“Acting — playing a role — in a way, it’s very safe,” Witt said. “When you’re singing your own music, you’re really putting yourself out there. It’s definitely much more personal and much more vulnerable. You can almost hide behind a character if you’re playing one. A lot of my songs, even if it’s not something I’ve personally experienced, it’s a great way to communicate what you’re feeling and be much more expressive.”
The sight of Witt at a piano will bring back memories for some local music fans of a certain age who might recall a brilliant and precocious child performing piano at a couple of local nightspots including the former Clarion Suites in Worcester. The talent extended to other areas. On the TV show “That’s Incredible,” a very young Witt recited Shakespeare. In 1984, avant-garde director David Lynch cast her in his movie “Dune,” and later in his TV series “Twin Peaks.”
It’s been a stellar acting career for someone who is still only 36. Among other notable films are “88 Minutes” (playing opposite Al Pacino), “Two Weeks Notice” and “Mr. Holland’s Opus.” TV shows have included “Cybill,” “Law and Order” and a memorable appearance on “The Sopranos.”
Still, Witt, a classically trained pianist, never forgot about music, and, as she related in an earlier interview, found that songs started calling to her to be written.
“I’ve always written songs and dabbled in writing songs just for fun, but this thing all started coming out so seriously,” she said. “A friend said you need to start playing them some place other than your living room. Now I can’t imagine my life without it.”
She’s been performing them at venues across the country such as Hotel Café and Universal Citywalk in Los Angeles, and Joe’s Pub and The Living Room in New York.
She released a self-titled EP and made her first music video for the track “Anyway” (about a “toxic relationship”) that played on MTV and VH1.com. The songs can riff sharply, as in an angry sounding but cathartic statement about a broken relationship. Elsewhere, the feel is sometimes jazzy and poignant. There are a number of surprises, including Witt’s interpretation of Paul Simon’s “Call Me Al.”
A more recent iTunes single, “Me or New York,” has had good radio play and been described by Mike Mettler in Sound and Vision magazine as “an instant heart-grabber.”
Witt appeared on the cover of Sound and Vision recently, and it is a measure of how far she has come as a singer-songwriter that the story and Q&A with her focuses much more on the sound — i.e. her songs — than the appealing vision Witt always conveys in her movies (although there is a very good looking photo spread).
“When I’m working on a movie I’ve always got lyrics and melodies in my head,” Witt said last week. “I’m constantly writing.”
But don’t think that Witt is considering giving up the day job, if that’s what acting can be called in her case.
“No. No,” she said emphatically, then mentioned some of her new films that will be coming out soon.
“Joint Body” (about a parolee who finds kinship with a troubled woman who helps him re-evaluate his life) is already hitting the film festivals, Witt noted. “Away From Here” is “about to go to festivals.” Meanwhile, “Cowgirls n’ Angels” (rodeo trick riders) is being put together for release soon. And filming has just been completed for “I Do,” which tackles immigration. “I think it turned out really well,” Witt said. She has a pending appearance on “The Mentalist” early February.
The critically acclaimed “Friday Night Lights” (a drama based around a high school football team) ended its run February 2011. “That was so fun,” Witt said. The cast had such a natural rapport that “we just felt that we weren’t even making a television series.”
Performing your music live is one way to hopefully get an instant rapport with an audience. After one recent show, someone in attendance approached Witt and told her a song had “ ‘made me feel less lonely.’ ”
“Certainly if someone is moved by my music, it means the world to me.”
Being “out there” and vulnerable, however, can also mean the potential of slings and arrows.
Criticism?
“I wouldn’t take it personally because music is so subjective,” Witt said. “If someone were to say ‘you’re phenomenally under-talented as a musician,’ that would hurt a little bit. But I’ve been playing music all my life.”
Another difference between acting and singing is process — as in the process of building a career. With acting it can often be as simple as trying out for an audition and being hired or not, Witt observed. “With every connection I’ve made in the music business it’s someone listening to a song and introducing me to someone.”
Witt would like to make a full studio album, “but I’m still trying to figure out who I’m working with … For an album I want to make sure I produce the songs exactly the way I want them.”
She’s considering releasing a live album.
Of course, a big hit would probably help the cause, with “Anyway” and “Me or New York” showing promise in that direction.
“It would be fantastic if a song would take off. It’s amazing when a song takes off and people are humming it on large scale. It’s a massive, massive honor.”
Witt is undaunted about the challenges.
“It’s just a real labor of love trying to figure out how it all fits together,” she said. “I just try to have a really great time with it and see where it takes me.”
Her travels do take her back here, but her performances are usually in Boston.
As ever, therefore, the final question was — what about Worcester?
“That would be nice,” she said of doing a show here. But she’s not so familiar with the scene as she once was. “I don’t even know where to play.”
But she might entertain suggestions.
Witt’s music is at www.aliciawittmusic.com.