We recently asked Murphy to pen a list of her most memorable nights in the theatre; her responses follow.
The Grapes of Wrath
Opening night on Broadway, our party was at Sardi鈥檚, and the president of Steppenwolf鈥檚 board stood on a table and read the Frank Rich New York Times review aloud while we cheered. It was like a 1930s movie.
Carousel
The Wild Party
There was a moment in the show where I sat with Eartha Kitt on a big poof upstage, and we would have a private little conversation, but I had to pretend I was high on morphine.
Fiddler on the Roof
Fiddler was nothing but fun. It was a two-year run, and we fooled around a lot. I was in a war with the Russian dancers, and one night, I came in to my dressing room at the end of Act One and my entire dressing room was empty鈥攖wo years worth of stuff. This was in retaliation for the old 鈥渇rozen underwear at the end of the show鈥� trick. We would also pass a horrible thing called 鈥淧ickle in a Bag鈥� onstage鈥攁 dill pickle perma-sealed in plastic. One time I passed it to Harvey Fierstein when I showed him my new baby. Harvey was all in鈥攈e supplied the Russians with a gigantic amount of Christmas stuff, and they decorated my room in October. It was like a Christmas store with moving parts鈥攃arousel horses and music鈥攏uts. I left the show a couple weeks before closing, and after my final show the Russians carried me over their shoulders into Cafe Un Deux Trois.
August: Osage County
We did August at London鈥檚 National Theatre. There are four floors of dressing rooms at the National that surround a large, square, open atrium, and you can see all the dressing rooms from your window. There is an opening- and closing-night tradition there that, at the half-hour call, the actors from all the shows pound on their windows with open hands, and it creates this incredible sound and vibration: four floors. The whole building shakes, and it鈥檚 very primal. It鈥檚 just astonishing.
The Apple Family Plays
We did a European tour, and in each city we performed all four plays in one day. Sometimes we would finish a play and have 10 minutes until half-hour for the next play. It was darn cool.
Linda Vista
I鈥檝e been fortunate to have done a lot of new works, and there was a moment during one of our final Linda Vista rehearsals where I thought, 鈥淲e鈥檙e all exhausted, we鈥檙e rehearsing all day and performing at night. I鈥檓 sitting down because I鈥檓 too tired to stand.鈥� Tracy and Dexter were doing their final rewrites/adjustments and as drained as I felt, I could tell the changes were so smart and making the play better, and as I was sitting on the stage, talking about the picnic scene, I thought, 鈥淭his is the pinnacle. This is heaven.鈥�
The Miracle Worker
In high school, I was the understudy for Helen Keller. I didn鈥檛 bother to learn the second act and had to go on opening night. Yup.
