PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER
We’ve always heard that familiar advice, “if you don’t ask, you don’t get.” I was able to recently prove this and the results are every bit as universally affirming as ever and the lesson worthy of being told. Perhaps those of you who will read this will gain inspiration and courage to just “put it out there.” If nothing else, you’ll get some food for thought. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Ooops, there I go with those truisms again.

Let’s rewind to a year and a half ago, yes it has taken was that long for things to finally come together. But good things come to those who….ooooh, I can’t help myself!!! I was invited to attend an off-off Broadway show at a little theatre called Theatre 80 St. Marks in the lower East Village of Manhattan. My friend, Marcia, a manger/agent said her client was performing in this play called Pieces. Marcia mumbled something about the rest of the title being ….of Ass. I laughed and figured it would be one of those off off awful Broadway debacles that try to be funny and risqué and end up being contrived. But, hey the tickets were free and I was able to invite my boyfriend along. How bad could it be?

I love the Theatre 80 St. Marks. In all of my twenty some years in Manhattan, it has always been one of my favorite places. Used to be an old movie theatre in the 70’s where I actually remembered seeing Double Indemnity with Barbara Stanwyck. Back in the days when dollar movies were a standing room only event with the screamers and the freaks yelling at the screen at every dramatic eyebrow raise or over-the-top acting choice. Then home video hit and the dollar movies dried up. Luckily Theatre 80 St. Marks still maintained its status as an “art house” and went back to being a little jewel box of a living stage.

The theatre was packed and the seats were good. I had no idea what I was in for, but I keep an open mind about these things. The lights dimmed and the on screen telewall in the stage right corner started off with pre taped interviews, a la women on the street, asking various random women what they liked to be called by their men. Various responses ensued, “Sweetie, hot stuff, mamacita, babycakes until the final woman declared, “I like to be called a piece of ass.” Thus started the show of to a er…bang. The tag line of the show is “so you think pretty girls have it easy?” I admit I was curious as to what each of the women on stage, delivering monologues about their own experience, had to say about the burden of beauty and what the show’s creator refers to as “hot chick angst.” There were many different types of women in the show – a professional gold-digger, a professional beauty pageant winner, a black woman, a stripper, a lesbian, a rape victim…all coming out to tell their stories in their own words. Fascinating. About the fourth monologue thru I was hooked. I cared about what each woman had to say, her down-in-one stance challenging the audience to appreciate her, empathize, fantasize and ultimately appreciate what she had learned in her travels down the path of catcalls and whistles and soul searching realizations that made her the woman we saw standing before us. At intermission, even my Italian boyfriend, Stefano, was enjoying the show. He said it was funny, entertaining and “sexy.” I told him that I was fully expecting at some time during the show to see at least one woman who wasn’t the cookie cutter expected “beauty.” Most of the actresses were “standard” size 2, 4, 6 , and I felt less and less “included” and more and more enraged that the full figured beautiful woman was somehow not represented in the roster of hotties.

At show end, after a few sponsored Vodkas, I was charged and fired up. I went backstage to tell Marcia’s client how much I enjoyed her performance but asked here why she thought that once again, we full figured femmes were being dissed and excluded from the definition of desirable beauty. I know now after years of being who I am that there are men who actually prefer full figured woman and who certainly don’t look at us as second class citizens in the beauty brigade. I knew my years of modeling and various roles as spokesperson in the “plus size industry” were being put to the test. I told her point blank, without reservation, “I loved the show, you were great, but it really pisses me off that the director doesn’t think that pretty comes in a larger package.” She could see my determination and insisted I share my thoughts with the director who just happened to be standing across the room. She pulled me over to him and stood in front of him and said, “This is Catherine Schuller and she has something to tell you.” I felt like I didn’t come backstage to tell this guy how to run his show. He looked at me as if to say, “Well, say; it. I can take it.” So, I told him what I told her. His first reaction was smacking himself upside his forehead saying, “Oh, I HATE when someone comes up with an n idea before I do.” I was instantly taken in and forgave him merely for his accepting and acknowledging attitude. I gave him my card and he gave me his saying to “call him.” I figured he was serious and told him I was the perfect person to help him fix the show’s dilemma.

True to my word, I emailed him the next day and said we should meet and discuss how I could help him cast the right woman to portray the full figured “pretty girl.”. We decided at our first meeting that it was groundbreaking and newsworthy and he said he was looking to tell the “model story” but didn’t want to do it with the obvious Cindy Crawford type as that would be way too “predictable.” He wanted to tell the model story thru the plus size model’s eyes. We said we would work together on fulfilling that goal. He said he would be moving and reopening the show in the China Club on West 47th Street in NYC and I suggested I bring a bevy of plussies to see the show. I brought several of my full figure friends and they, too, LOVED the show but felt that it lacked that “added dimension.” I kept the project ever in the back of my mind and made sure that if I ever encountered a plus size model with acting aspirations that I would tell her about the Pieces project.

At a Christmas party last year, I ran into several models and told them of the potential for the project to come to fruition. My problem was, at the time, that I was traveling and afraid that I couldn’t devote the time necessary to “stay on Brian” and oversee the various aspects of getting it done. I asked one of the models at the party if she wanted to spearhead the audition and speak to several other models and get them jazzed. She spoke to Brian, I gave her his number and they chatted at length on the phone. Brian has reinvented the modern day audition process and redefined the actor/director relationship. He can practically tell from people’s emails if he is going to like them. Katie sent him a long email which poured out her soul about the joys and trepidations of living in her voluptuous body all of her life. Brian loved getting those emails and he responded, writing back, asking more questions and deciding that this was a flavor he truly wanted to add to the show. When I returned from the road, the show was still in Los Angeles and months away from a New York opening. Patience, patience…..It was a smash hit and stayed for seven months garnering great press and that LA buzz. He started the practice of adding celebrity “centerpieces”, a cute twist on the Playboy staple in the navel beauties favored by Hugh Hefner. Brooke Burke, several soap and series stars came in and out of the show and eventually it closed. Its next incarnation was in Las Vegas. This one I flew out to see as I was closeby doing a job for my client, Charming Shoppes. I wanted to see Rachel Hunter and hear her story…Mrs. Ex Rod Stewart. And there she was, taller and curvier than anyone else in the cast, telling her story and reading a fan letter as her monologue. She was engaging, but not riveting. She had to fight the Vegas hecklers with their chortles of, “I love you Rachel!” “I love you too,” she shouted back, seemingly surprised at her own reaction. Not the queen of quips, but it worked somehow.

Meanwhile, Brian and I kept up our email campaign and my hope was fueled to aid him in casting the plus beauty role. I had met many plus size actresses and models in the interim, and told them of the backstage meeting with Brian, helping them to think of what they would say in a monologue if and when the time came to tell their story in an audition setting. Every actress and model was excited by the possibility and you could see their wheels churning as they left my pep talk.

Eventually Brian was ready for prime time NY and suggested I just do a huge “cattle call” and invite everyone down to meet him who had expressed interest. I called Wilhelmina, Click and Ford. Willy and Click were ecstatically enthusiastic about the project and loved the idea. Ford was less than interested and referred me to Innovative Artists whom, upon leaving five messages for them, received not so much as a call back expressing interest in the least. I said to myself that this is why I do what I do and they do what they do. They work for a salary, I work as a free lance person who is a spokesperson for the industry. My conviction comes from a different place and my vision is on a higher plane. But that’s okay, because I had assembled over 60 models and actresses and pre screen them one day at my office and “coached” them on what to expect when they met Brian for an interview.

The interview day finally arrived and Brian sat in the studio at my office interviewing in depth model after model. Asking them what it was like to be them…sending them the thirty acid test questions, eliminating those he loved and those he didn’t. At the end of the first interview day he was in disbelief. “These girls are too happy! This is bizarre. I don’t believe them.” I tried to tell him that they get to earn a living, or at least be in a profession that had shunned them in the past, and this project went once step further. It required them to act. How many opportunities come by for plus size actresses? I reminded him of the reality. He still had his favorites. He narrowed it down to about eight girls and constantly was weighing the possibility of who would be right. I would add my two cents, listen and go on.

Finally, the last call backs happened at the beginning of November. Brian sat in a room for seven hours, his interviews consisted of seeing other actresses because he has to constantly be interviewing for shows that will open around the country and internationally with new stories to tell along the way. He asked me if I knew of the perfect “trophy wife.” Did I know a middle aged woman who was hot? He now realizes that the diversity in the show and the various forms that “hot chicks” can take are the lifeblood that will keep the show interesting.

So, here we are ….two and a half weeks from opening. Check out the cover of this month’s Bombshell magazine and you’ll see Brian’s final choice. The show opens December 8th at the World Wide Plaza theatre, the newly renovated complex on 50th and 8th Avenue called Dodgers Stages. I still have my hand in shaping what the world will view as the model as told thru the plus size model’s eyes. My mission is to make her look HOTTER than anyone else in the cast. The best clothes, the coolest shoes, the best makeup and hair and as much hype as you can shake a stick at. It’s just gotta be that way. We have a chance to let the world see that we are included in the pretty lineup of all desirable and hot women. That we can compete, that we do have our insecurities but nothing that we can’t overcome somehow with a little soul searching and therapy. This is theatre as confession, as much therapy for the audience as well as the actress. Stay tuned for more of the Pieces story. It is just beginning to unfold as December 8th is the opening night date. I’ve already pitched Emme to be one of the celebrity centerpieces and she was thrilled. Once the plus size element is established, the stage has been set and the story can be told over and over, in many different ways, from many different women of substance. For more visual eye candy, check out the show’s website at www.pieces of ass.com.

Allright, I got out of my comfort zone and made this happen….what are you doing? Ask not what the plus size industry can do for you, ask what YOU can do for the plus size industry. Make no mistake, I am not doing what I do out of passion. I am merely passionate about what I am doing. One small step for woman….a giant step for the Curvy Chicks of the World!!!!
_________________________________________________________ Catherine Schuller of CurveStyle: Reshaping Fashion has been an actress, model, spokesperson, author and now promoter and marketer. Her quest to find opportunities to change the world’s perception of full figured woman continues to forge new projects and endeavors. Her desire and ambition is constantly rekindled as she finds ways to create new ways to help solidify the full figured femme as the image of the new fashion and real life woman icon.