➤ BETH MALONE, from p.28
in New York in my 20s as a lesbian
who couldn’t get anything going. I
think back on it now: Ohmigod, if
I’d just had some skills!
“I went back to Colorado and Michael
put a ring on my fi nger when
I said, ‘Yes,’ and I was with him for
fi ve years, a long distance relationship
from the age 18 to 22. That
winter I moved to Aspen because
there was this dinner theater where
you could make a ton of cash, like
ten grand, singing and serving
to pay for my wedding laughs.
There, I met Rochelle Schoppert,
who is now my wife. She was this
girl who was running the offi ce for
the dinner theater. The day I saw
her, I clocked her and she asked
if I wanted to go skiing and I was
like, ‘Okay.’ It was Gay Ski Week in
Aspen, so I took off my ring, stuck
it in my jeans pocket, went to the
opening night, and there she was.
“‘Aha! I knew it,’” I thought and
walked across that crowded room
and said to her, ‘Hi. I am engaged
but I want to have sex with a girl
before I get married. Want to?’
“That was it — no game! And
she’s like, ‘No.’ But we started skiing
together and then kissing a
little and I took the ring off and
the rest is history. That was 1992
and I’ve been with Shelley 27 years
now, Ohmigod!”
Malone totally understands now
why she got an initial refusal.
“You know, whiny straight girls
who go, ‘Can you help me?’ ‘I’m not
here to be your diary entry.’”
Malone describes her partner
as a Muggle: “You’ve never read
‘Harry Potter?’ That means she’s
a civilian, not in showbiz, which is
dreamy. She’s a realtor and a technician
who rebuilds pianos, the
most industrious person I’ve ever
met, never sits still, and thank
God, takes care of all my practical
stuff.”
Malone’s coming out to her family
resulted in her not speaking to
her father for seven years, something
many of us can relate to.
“My mother is a country singer,
‘Pickin’ Peggy’ Malone, who’s very
big in the cowboy culture, which
involves cowboy poetry, Native
American culture, rodeos, bull-riding
— a way of life that is dying out.
My Dad is a Fox News-watching,
Trump-supporting old racist Irishman
from South Boston. He was
my hero, my fi rst friend, and he’s
fallen so far off the pedestal that
I now cannot have a conversation
with him. He now has a kind of dementia
and I have to attribute some
of his toxicity to mental illness and
having drunk a ton of whiskey. Being
in this play has been an amazing
vacation from that, not having
to process and suck up all the shit
that he says and is and still fi nd a
way to love him.
“I grew up in super-white Castle
Rock, Colorado, the youngest of
four and the only girl. I was his
pet plus a tomboy who held his
hammer while he did the drill.
What did he expect? All he had
to do was open his eyes! We got a
VCR and he once came in, while I
paused it, because I was drawing
Cybill Shepherd’s face. I would rent
‘Little Darlings’ from Hy’s Western
Wear and Video Rental over and
over. Kristy McNichol was magic. I
didn’t know what to do with myself
but, ohmigod, I want to watch her
again and again, Holly Hunter, and
Jodie Foster in ‘Candleshoe.’ That’s
me!I certainly didn’t identify with
Tatum O’Neill!”
Besides all those early idols,
Malone says she is in love with her
“Molly Brown” cast, and freely confesses
to be something of a Pollyanna
in her life.
“I can fi nd something to absolutely
adore about everybody, especially
actors,” she said. “They’re
so delectably broken yet optimistic
at the same time, ever hopeful, trying
to fi gure it all out and actively
engaged in their lives. That neverending
process of breaking it all up
until you feel something and then
busting it all up and starting over.
There’s something so admirable
about that, and brave, and weird.
Why would you even do that? But
the alternative is death. If I was
in the suburbs with two cars and
three kids I would not recognize
myself.”
THE UNSINKABLE MOLLY
BROWN | Abrons Arts Center, 466
Grand St., btwn. Pitt St. & E. Broadway
| Through Apr. 5| : Tue.-Sun.
at 7:30 p.m.; weekend matinees
on varying schedule | $65-$85 at
transportgroup.org/ Two hrs., 30
mins., with intermission
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