By Michael Buckley
22 Oct 2007

A native of Toronto, she's been acting since the age of "10 or 11." For the young Alison, wonderland was finding herself on the other side of the looking glass — in TV and movies, where her wide variety of performances include an autistic girl ("The Last Don II"), a nubile ballerina ("Degas and the Dancer"), a rebellious teen ("What Katy Did"), a grief-stricken child ("Baby"), the young Lorna Luft ("Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows"), and an unpopular student ("Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen"). Pill also played Aidan Quinn's drug-dealing daughter in the short-lived 2006 NBC-TV drama "The Book of Daniel."

Her Off-Broadway debut occurred in 2003, as Jamie in Jenny Lyn Bader's two-character play, None of the Above. Next, she played Jenn in Neil LaBute's The Distance from Here and shared a 2004 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Ensemble Performance. She received a 2005 Lucille Lortel Award nomination as Jaime in On the Mountain.

As Mairead, in the 2006 Atlantic Theater Company production of Martin McDonagh's The Lieutenant of Inishmore, she was the reckless, scrappy Irish teen lover of the leading character, Padraic (David Wilmot), described as being "too violent for the IRA."

When the blood-drenched drama transferred to Broadway (marking her Main Stem debut), Pill received a Tony nomination. "I loved every minute of that play. It was so well-constructed. It was just a matter of getting on board with the ride that the audience takes."

Eight times a week, she got soaked in blood, which was actually "corn syrup, chocolate syrup, peanut butter, and red food dye. Our showers were covered in blood. Spring Awakening followed us into the Atlantic and Jonathan Groff [Melchior] told me that they were constantly dealing with the spilled blood onstage. We were there long after we were gone."

	Alison Pill and Marlene Lawston in "Dan in Real Life."
	photo by Touchstone Pictures

The Manhattan Theatre Club's April 2007 staging of David Harrower's Blackbird, directed by Joe Mantello, cast Pill as Una, still struggling with a forbidden sexual relationship from her childhood, who confronts her victimizer (Jeff Daniels), years after the crime. "It was an amazing opportunity, and I loved working with Jeff. But doing [the play] eight times a week, we were both exhausted." Her performance earned Pill a Best Actress Outer Critics Circle nomination.

Currently on Broadway in Theresa Rebeck's Mauritius, directed by Doug Hughes, Pill "loves playing Jackie. I love having a happy ending, which hasn't happened in a lot of the plays I've done. A friend saw it yesterday and she put it beautifully: 'Jackie is a person who is cornered, but she's determined to fight for the corner she's in.'" Co-starring with her are Bobby Cannavale, Katie Finneran, F. Murray Abraham and Dylan Baker.

Does she have a dream role? Responds Pill, "There are too many. In the next few years, I would love to play Nina in The Seagull. I have to be Juliet at some point, and some classical roles would be lovely. Whatever comes along. I've been pretty happy, thus far."

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Oct. 16 marked the DVD release of Dori Berinstein's documentary "Show Business: The Road to Broadway," a chronicle of four 2003-04 season Broadway musicals: Wicked, Avenue Q, Caroline, or Change, and Taboo. Extras include more than an hour of deleted scenes and comments from Berinstein, co-producer Alan Cumming, and Jeff Marx (Avenue Q).

Among those featured in the documentary itself are Boy George and Rosie O'Donnell, composer-lyricist Stephen Schwartz, critics Ben Brantley and John Lahr, songwriters Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx, Tonya Pinkins, and William Goldman. Also included (and ready for his close-up) is Michael Riedel. The New York Post columnist is one of five Broadway-scene commentators, along with Patrick Pacheco, and critics Linda Winer, Jacques LeSourd and Charles Isherwood, who gather on four occasions to discuss (and dissect) different shows.

At their first meeting, Riedel gleefully anticipates "more bombs, something to write about...that's what I'm looking forward to." Later, he comments on Wicked, prior to its Broadway opening: "I saw it in San Francisco. It has a lot of problems." (Other shows should have such problems. Still a hot ticket, Wicked starts its fifth year on Oct. 30).

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VARIOUS AND SUNDRY

Hugh Jackman, a Tony winner for The Boy from Oz, is executive producer and has a recurring role in CBS-TV's "Viva Laughlin!" It debuted Oct. 18, and will air regularly on Sundays at 8 PM ET. Described as "a mystery drama with music," using contemporary songs...Oct. 18 also marked the premiere of a new documentary "Grey Gardens: From East Hampton to Broadway" at the Hamptons International Film Festival. Albert Maysles, co-creator of the famed "Grey Gardens" documentary, on which the musical of the same name was based, took a behind-the-scenes look at the show, including comments from its Tony-winning stars, Christine Ebersole and Mary Louise Wilson.

Besides "Dan in Real Life," Amy Ryan has roles in two other new movies: Sidney Lumet's "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead," which reunites her with Philip Seymour Hoffman, an Oscar winner for "Capote" (in which Ryan was superb as Chris Cooper's celebrity-struck wife), and "Gone Baby Gone," Ben Affleck's directorial debut...Mark Ruffalo (a 2006 Tony nominee for his Broadway debut in Awake and Sing) gives an intense performance as a lawyer involved in a hit-and-run accident in the new release, "Reservation Road," which features fine work by Joaquin Phoenix, Jennifer Connolly and Mira Sorvino. Young Eddie Alderson, who's played Matthew Buchanan on TV's "One Life to Live" since age 7, is extremely good as Ruffalo's conflicted son.

In my August column, I quoted "Pushing Daisies" creator Bryan Fuller as saying that Paul Reubens would have a recurring role as Alfredo, a traveling salesman of anti-depressants. Last Wednesday, Alfredo appeared, but the role was played by Raul Esparza, who will be appearing in future episodes. However, Pee Wee Herman fans shouldn't reach for anti-depressants; Reubens will soon be seen as a different recurring character, one who detects odors.

(Michael Buckley, a longtime theatre journalist, can be reached at stagetoscreens@aol.com.)