INTERVIEW: Marilyn Caserta brings a little bit of herself to her ‘Sabbath Girl’ role
Photo: The Sabbath Girl: A New Musical stars Marilyn Caserta and Max Wolkowitz. Photo courtesy of Dorice Arden Madronero / Provided by Richard Hillman PR with permission.
The Sabbath Girl has had quite the theatrical journey. The show, which tells the story of Angie and Seth falling in love, began life as a play by Cary Gitter, eventually transferring to 59E59 Theaters in Midtown Manhattan right before the pandemic shut down the theater community. Gitter kept working on the piece and adapted the story into a new musical, with him writing the book and co-writing the lyrics with composer Neil Berg. Joe Brancato is billed as conceiver and director, and he helped get the musical staged at Penguin Rep Theatre in Stony Point, New York, where he serves as artistic director.
Now, coming full circle, The Sabbath Girl: A New Musical is playing at 59E59 Theaters, with the same exact cast that premiered the show at the Penguin. Playing the part of Angie Mastrantoni is Marilyn Caserta. Press notes indicate that her character has a lot of “new” in her life: a new art gallery, a new apartment and a new knock on the door. That knock comes courtesy of Seth (Max Wolkowitz), Angie’s Orthodox Jewish neighbor, and the two almost immediately start falling in love with each other.
“I got an appointment from my agent, and I had no idea what it was,” Caserta said about the audition process earlier this year. “I had no idea what the show was about. When I got the audition, I did a little research, and I saw that it had been a play. I looked up the theater and Joe and everybody. It was one of those like, let me go and see if it works out, and it did. And it’s been amazing. It’s been an experience I couldn’t even have anticipated, but I’m so grateful to be here at this point with it.”
When Caserta read the Angie character on page, she immediately adored the role. In fact, she saw a lot of herself in the character. There’s one song in particular that struck a personal chord.
“The first song that I was set to sing was ‘A Life in Art,’ which I sing a piece at the beginning of the show, and then I do the reprise at the end of the show,” she said. “And to me, that is the core of who the character I play is. It’s the core of who Angie is, and I sang the song for my roommate when I was getting ready for the audition. And she looked at me, and she was like, ‘That’s you.’ She just off the bat was like, ‘That song was meant for you. That song is you.’ And I think being able to bring so much of myself and my love for artistry to this role has been huge and really, really cool, and I think the creative team and everybody was so receptive to that from the moment I walked in. I really went into that audition being like, ‘I’m going to be me, and if you all like it, then great.’ And they did, and they really let me bring a lot of myself to Angie. I think she’s a very confident, independent, but beautifully vulnerable adult.”
The audition process was a quick one for Caserta. She didn’t have much time to appreciate the entire story, but upon her first reading, she was taken in by the sweetness of Angie and Max’s journey together. When everything clicked was during the chemistry read for the musical, a process by which actors are paired with other actors to see how well their “chemistry” is on stage.
“They did a chemistry read with the actresses in for Angie and the actors in for Seth, and the first person I even did the callback with was Max Wolkowitz, who plays Seth in the show,” Caserta said. “And I feel like getting to read the scenes with him kind of made me realize the depth of the piece and what these two people were about and what their connection was about. I think that was the first moment that I realized how much heart this show really had and the potential it had. So needless to say, when I was cast, and then I saw that he was cast, I was excited because I really felt like that was a really good teammate to bring the script to life.”
Gitter talked with Hollywood Soapbox a few years ago when the play premiered. At the time, he said the play has some autobiographical elements, but it’s mostly fictional. For example, he grew up with a father who was Jewish and a mother who was Italian, so he had relatives from different heritages on either side of his family.
“My mother eventually converted just because she ended up falling in love with Judaism,” he said in 2020. “Those dual influences in terms of my own background informed the play, even though it’s not directly autobiographical, and also it’s a very New York story. So the experience of being in New York, seeing different kinds of people interact and cross-pollinate and unlikely connections form, that was a big influence.”
Caserta said the musical’s sold-out run at the Penguin Rep Theatre earlier this year was an exciting and enjoyable experience. She appreciated her time in Stony Point, and the cast, all of whom have returned for the off-Broadway premiere, bonded over the material.
“It was our mini out-of-town run, which was really cool, and it also weirdly felt like summer camp because we would take a van together, the cast, out to Stony Point every day,” Caserta said. “So we would all meet up, get in our van, have snacks, hang out, get to the theater, and it was in this converted barn that was so beautiful. And the weather was always beautiful, the trees and nature; it felt like this little get-away everyday, and the community out there is so incredibly supportive of the theater and of the arts in general. So many of them, as here in New York, had seen the play, so they already had an understanding of what the story was about but were coming in with that perspective, getting to see it in a totally new light, and they were just so complimentary and supportive and just celebrating the work that we had done. It was really nice to get that time, and I think we got to experiment a lot with the show and adjust things, change things so that when we finally brought it to New York, it was a really solid version of what we set out to create.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The Sabbath Girl: A New Musical, starring Marilyn Caserta, plays through Sept. 1 at 59E59 Theaters in Midtown Manhattan. Click here for more information and tickets.
