Westerly’s Jen Christina spent three years on tour with the traveling company of “Annie.”
“I was very happy being home in Rhode Island,” she said in our recent phone interview. “I was finally settled in after being on the road for three years, settling into my groove.”
But after six months being home, she got the call, asking “if I’d consider going back out.” Christina was being offered the position of associate music director with the touring company of “SIX.”
“I cried,” she said. “I was torn. The road takes you away from family and friends. It’s a huge sacrifice.”
But it was an opportunity she simply couldn’t pass up. “You can’t beat this gig. The cast and band are very grounded individuals, women who know their worth. This could not have come at a more appropriate time in my life.”
“SIX” allows the six ex-wives of England’s Henry VIII to tell “their stories to determine who suffered the most from their shared husband but ultimately seek to reclaim their individual identities and rewrite their stories.” (Thank you, Wikipedia.)
It’s a musical best described as a pop/ rock concert. Each queen gets to tell her story in song, backed by a four-piece on-stage band. Christina plays one show a week – usually the Saturday matinee – and is on call in case the music director needs a day off.
“I play the rehearsals,” said Christina. “We have six queens and four alternates. Each of the alternates covers one, two, even three queens. So, we’ll have rehearsals to brush them up on their parts.”
Christina’s been with the show for just a little over a month now and will be with it through June. “I got hired three days before they flew me out to Denver,” where she was trained by the woman she was replacing. “She decided to take a long-term offer where she lives.”
When the show was looking for a replacement, “my name was floating around.” The music director knew her. “I had auditioned for ‘Some Like It Hot.’ It’s such a hard show, with very tricky music. I didn’t get that, but when they were looking for a new associate music director, they said, if she can play that, she can play ‘SIX.’”
Because she will be appearing on stage, Christina has been given a stage name. “I’m Joan,” she says. “They call us the ‘Ladies in Waiting.’ I didn’t realize until just recently that Joan was actually Anne Boleyn’s lady in waiting.”
And of course, when she appears on stage, she must be in costume. “The black pleather outfit,” she chuckles. “That’s why I signed up.”
Christina will have the summer off. “I know they’re booking dates for next year,” she said, “and if they ask me back, I’ll be there.”
While she’s home, she’ll have the opportunity to get back to work on a six-part docuseries she started working on while she was on the road with “Annie.”
“My uncle Fran Christina was a member of The Fabulous Thunderbirds back when I was younger.” Back in the 80s, the T-Birds had a couple of big hits – “Tuff Enuff” and “Wrap It Up.”
Back then, says Christina, “I had an idea that Uncle Fran was a big deal. I remember going to see them at Great Woods when they opened up for Crosby, Stills & Nash. I went backstage with my dad, and kept asking him, ‘Can we go?’”
She was young and bored. Not so much anymore. When she visited with her uncle in Texas, he was going through a lot of archival items for his website. “I thought, somebody has to document this, tell this story.”
The more she thought about it, the more she realized that a lot of wonderful musicians from Westerly had some really incredible careers. Her Uncle Fran was the inspiration, but there’s also Greg Piccolo, Duke Robillard, Johnny MacLeod (Jen’s uncle and Fran’s brother-in-law), and Johnny Nicholas.
Christina got together with two videographers, Jesse Liguori and Richie Boylan, and started interviewing the musicians. “They were never in it for the money or the fame. They were in it for the music. They had priorities, and their families came first.”
The docuseries is called “Songs, Stories & A Seat at the Table.”
The title was inspired by Christina’s grandparents. “When they knew the T-Birds were coming home, my grandmother and grandfather would spend weeks cooking so they’d all have a good meal to sit down to. Some of my earliest memories are sitting around, eating dinner with these rock stars.”
The purpose of the docuseries, which is still in production, is “to introduce younger musicians to these folks. It’s really important to learn from them.”
Anyone interested can find more information on the docuseries on the Facebook page, “Songs, Stories and a Seat at the Table.” There is also a GoFundMe page set up if anyone would care to donate to the effort. That will help the crew to get to Texas and Nova Scotia to do on-site interviews.