NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� was fiddling around with songs and sketches for a new musical stand-up special she was hoping to take on the road when the pandemic hit in 2020 and, as she describes it, 鈥渢he world exploded.鈥�
The actor and writer, best known for creating and starring in 鈥淢y Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,鈥� had recently brought her newborn home after time in the neonatal intensive care unit and was feeling grateful that her daughter was OK. At home during quarantine with her new family, she got the devastating news that her close friend and musical collaborator,
The singer-songwriter known for founding the band Fountains of Wayne and writing and composing many songs for TV and film was only 52. As she grieved, Bloom says she stared at her whiteboard filled with show ideas and realized it all felt silly and stupid. But she鈥檚 now channeled all of that into a new thought-provoking and funny off-Broadway show called
She recently talked to The Associated Press about turning trauma into art, physically preparing for the show, and when she knew she was funny. Answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.
AP: There is some risk to bringing the pandemic into art 鈥� did you worry that people didn鈥檛 want to hear about it?
BLOOM: The show is all about the tension of 鈥業 know you guys don鈥檛 want to talk about this,鈥� and me actually voicing what the audience might be saying, which is 鈥榙on鈥檛 talk about the pandemic鈥� no one wants to hear about that.鈥� We all went through a collective trauma in 2020. If you lost someone, if you didn鈥檛 lose someone in lock down, that was a trauma that we need to be talking about. We need to be decompressing. People didn鈥檛 talk about the Spanish flu, and now a century later, we are unprepared. So we need to talk about these things. And that鈥檚 one of the central questions of the show that I had in my own life is how do you acknowledge death, prepare for death, but continue to live your life?
AP: Has the writing and performing been healing for you? How has it been reliving this live every night?
BLOOM: Reliving it live I think scabs it over because it turns it into, I don鈥檛 know, it turns it into a story. I think it seals the wound a little bit. It鈥檚 also become part of my personal narrative. I think when stuff is really traumatic and in a place I wouldn鈥檛 be ready to share, as if something hadn鈥檛 sunk in. But it鈥檚 basically sunk in at this point that this happened, and this show forced me to actually work through the idea: How do live with the fact that when we die, there might be nothing and not let it send me into an existential panic every time I think about that?
AP: Do you have plans for the show after this run ends?
BLOOM: I want to do more with the show. It depends what the appetite is. The theater world is very small, so it depends. Where else do people want to put it up? And then I eventually want to film it, be it selling it to someone, or paying for it myself to be filmed.
AP: You鈥檙e onstage basically alone for the whole show. How do you physically prepare for this?
BLOOM: I should say that I have help right now, so I am getting a full night鈥檚 sleep every night. I鈥檓 very, very lucky to have that full night鈥檚 sleep. So I鈥檓 always trying to get as much sleep as possible. I do a 30-minute vocal warm up and I try to stretch for at least 5 minutes.
AP: When did you know you were funny?
BLOOM: My parents and grandparents always laughed at the things I did. But in fifth grade I wrote a solo sketch. I would have called it a skit, but the proper term is sketch (smiles) for my school talent show called 鈥楾he Me Station鈥� about a TV station with only one person. It was basically a rip off on the old 鈥楽NL鈥� sketch, 鈥楾he Judy Miller Show.鈥� It was something I wrote and starred in, and I made the whole school laugh. And I was really unpopular in school. But after I did that sketch, I was like popular for a couple of weeks. So that鈥檚 when I realized. I still remember every line. I could do it for you right here!
Brooke Lefferts, The Associated Press
