In brief: LaLa has been acting in Atlanta since moving here in 1987. She’s doing five characters in The Waffle Palace: Smothered, Covered and Scattered 24/7/365 at Horizon Theatre through July 1. They are: Tooty, who likes to go huntin’, fishin’ and six-pack drinkin’ with her man Bubba; Charlie, a buttoned-up Chicago real estate mogul; Veronica, the British goth girlfriend of a Kid Rock-ish type; Candy, a rapping cop; and Erica, who, with her proctologist husband, moved intown from the suburbs and found religion amid the waffles. Sadly, the hilarious beat poet she played in Waffle workshops didn’t make the final script.
How she does that: “One way to look at it is changing your vocal quality so that when you come out, you don’t resemble the person you just left. Costumes and wigs help. And how you physicalize your movement. And accents. Once you’ve done it four or five times you don’t even have to think about ‘who am I now?’ It’s in your body.”
Age: 48. A “damn good-looking 48!”
LaLa? Elizabeth was too tough to say for her sandbox pals. So LaLa it was, and it stuck.
Hometown: Nashville.
Lives now: In Virginia-Highland with her sports journalist husband and their stray pit bull Roscoe, aka “the Fella.”
Where you’ve seen her: In Escape From Happiness, Superior Donuts, Night Blooms, True Love Lies, Almost Maine, The Algae Eaters and many more at Horizon. Also at Georgia Shakespeare, Actor’s Express, the New American Shakespeare Tavern, Aurora Theatre, 7 Stages, Theatrical Outfit and the Alliance Theatre.
Awards: Won a Suzi (Atlanta’s version of Broadway’s Tony Awards) as best lead actress in a play in The Little Dog Laughed by Douglas Carter Beane at Theatre in the Square (2008).
The bug bit: At age 4 or 5, she flew to Birmingham to visit an aunt. As a Suzuki violin student, she had to take her tiny instrument with her. A flight attendant asked if she’d play. She did and everyone on the plane broke into applause and began whooping. “I remember thinking: ‘Oh, my God, that feels good!’ ”
For fun: Rides her bike “all over the place.” Gardens on a 2,200-square-foot plot in Ormewood Park. Tomato plants, peppers, beans, peas, okra. “I love to cook. I love to eat.”
Ouch! If you see Waffle Palace and stay afterward to chat with the actors, as you’re invited to do, it might be nice not to remark that she’s much prettier in her headshot. It’s been done.
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Kathy Janich, Encore Atlanta’s managing editor, has been seeing, editing, writing about and working in the performing arts for most of her life. To suggest someone for this column (and prove that someone actually is reading), please email her at kathy@atlantametropub.com.
