IRTE's Nannette Deasy

We're here with the Artistic Director of IRTE. Besides that, she's also the creator and a cast member of "The Groovy Gang Adventures". She's playing Lorna Blue, girl detective. Let's find out a little about her inspirations for IRTE's first project of the 2013 season.

Did you watch cartoons like Scooby-Doo or Josie and the Pussycats when you were young?

Oh, yes. Scooby Doo, Josie and the Pussycats, Speed Buggy - I watched them religiously. Jabber Jaw bothered me, though. Although I was too young to go see the movie Jaws, my parents, for some reason, thought it was okay to bring me and my brother to see Orca, the Killer Whale when I was five. They must have thought that Orca was some Disney live-action movie and not the horror flick that it actually was. We left, my brother and I in tears, shortly after the dead baby whale miscarriage scene. (Parents, don't ever bring your kids to movies featuring whale fetuses). I think that's why I never liked Jabber Jaw, even though he was a shark and not a killer whale - that and the fact that I found the shark's voice (He spoke like Curly from The Three Stooges) very grating.

Who was your favorite?

Scooby Doo was my absolute favorite show from the ages of five to eight, followed closely by Josie and the Pussycats, especially when they were in Outer Space! (although Melody was annoying - she seemed so dumb, almost to the point of mental disability.) The original Scooby Doo series was actually pretty scary. The supernatural elements were thrilling, though I often felt disappointed that the villain always turned out to be some regular shmoe in a mask. Frankly, the fact that they'd been stalking a flesh and blood psychopath, all without the help or even knowledge of the police, should have been infinitely more terrifying; but, hey, I was five.
I also considered the SD Gang's life pretty glamorous. Tooling around, completely on their own, in a van with a talking dog - no school, no parents, no  responsibilities other than solving fun "mysteries" - now that was cool!

Tell me a little about Lorna Blue, the character you're playing in "The Groovy Gang Adventures". What inspired you to create her?

I originally created Lorna Blue for IRTE's very first show ever, Hint!, which was a spoof of the board game, Clue. Rather than play the traditional Clue characters (Mrs. Peacock, Colonel Mustard, etc.), Curt [Dixon], who was directing, asked that we all come up with color-themed "mystery characters."

I first thought of developing a spunky "girl detective" character - a cross between Nancy Drew and Velma from Scooby Doo. In rehearsal, I quickly dropped the Nancy Drew aspect and stuck with the Hanna Barbera teen nerd/brainy girl who grew up in Tampa, FL solving "mysteries" with her fellow teen adventurers, the Groovy Gang. However, I thought it would be fun to play her as a 40-something, whose Groovy Gang days were long past. I wanted to explore the idea of what happens to these characters down the road. In Lorna's case, very bad things happen. For the run of Hint! I made Lorna the last surviving member of her Groovy Gang after all her friends had been horribly (and stupidly) murdered by a serial killer, the Bayside Strangler. They had been pursuing a particularly promising clue in the completely unrelated case of the Haunted Holiday Park when they ran afoul of the cannibal rapist. Lorna luckily did not share her friends' fate as she was spending the summer at fat camp outside of Philadelphia. Unfortunately for Lorna, this led to years of guilt, regret, mental breakdown and substance abuse.

The IRTEs all had so much fun playing with Lorna in Hint!, that we quickly decided our opening show this season would follow the adventures of Lorna and her Groovy Gang's happier youth - a sort of prequel, I suppose.

 Nannette Deasy as Lorna Blue

Did you belong to a groovy gang when you were a kid?

Not really. Like most improvisers and actors, I was not overly burdened with a huge abundance of friends. (Don't look at me like that, performers. Let's face it, very few of us ever made it to the "cool kids table.")   Miss Popular, I was not. However, when I'd go visit my Grandparents in Ireland for the summer, I'd suddenly have a ready-made gang of friends 24/7. Both my parents came from large families who all had kids, so when we met up, I'd have loads of cousins around my own age to hang out with. My maternal Grandparents had a farm, so there was plenty of land, animals and trouble to get into.

 Can you tell me one a memorable adventure you had when you were young?

One summer afternoon, my cousins Xarifa, Siobhan and I were playing in the local church. It was a small country church, so it was frequently left empty and unlocked. We taste tested the holy water, sang in the microphones (Siobhan was obsessed with Madonna that summer) and lit all the candles (matches had been conveniently left out), including the votive candles.

I was up in the choir loft playing with the nativity creche animals, who were battling the baby Jesus' parents. Siobhan was at the altar belting out "Like a Virgin." That's when the priest came in. He was pretty mad when he saw that the offertory candles had all been lit and whipped out a calculator. Turns out you had to pay to light those candles! Of course, we were horrified that we now owed this priest money (I'm sure it was just a couple of bucks), but we were more afraid of the trouble we faced from our parents.
Siobhan, Xarifa and I devised a clever plan to seal the priest's lips: We'd all go to confession, so he would be bound to silence by the "sacrament seal."

Of course, none of us wanted to attend an extra mass that weekend (we couldn't very well go to confession at the service we attended with our parents - they'd know something was up). The priest, of course, did tell on us. However, he slipped up by going to our uncle first, not our fathers (who happened to be out) and certainly not our mothers, who were home. I think this guy was a bit sexist, or maybe he knew what the inevitable outcome would be - that our mothers would find the whole thing funny and think he was a jerk for not talking to them first. Siobhan, Xarifa and I got off scot free. I don't think we ever paid for those candles.

In my memory, I'd like to think the dog chased him home on this particular occasion, but I'm probably embellishing. My Grandparents had this border collie, Jill, a working farm dog, who was very smart and sweet with children. For some reason, though, she did not like the priest and had to be tied and locked up every time he came to the house. She'd frequently break loose and chase after him. It got to the point that she figured out where he lived and if she didn't get to him before he got in his car, she'd be waiting for the priest on his doorstep when he got home. Smart dog.

Thanks, Nannette.

"The Groovy Gang Adventures" has one final performance this Saturday, April 20, 8:00 pm at
Gotham City Improv!
48 West 21st St, 8th Fl.
New York City