Just Call Me Lady: The Musical has Mandy Goodhandy ready for another close-up

28 May 2019

"I will actually be performing a couple of scenes describing my sea cadet and male stripper experiences," says Mandy Goodhandy of her upcoming extravaganza Just Call Me Lady: The Musical. "I picked the parts of my life that were basically crossroads along the way. I wanted to share with everyone how I started, how I survived along the way and how I ended up in what I like to refer to as my completion. The music was relatively easy to decide. Most of my songs in my album Just Call Me Lady were chosen to represent different parts of my life, and how I felt as I experienced each part."

Anyone who has read Goodhandy's biography Just Call Me Lady (and you should if you haven't yet), knows that her life has been dramatic, humorous and compelling. The same descriptors, heightened, apply to her live performances. "I actually wrote my book with a bit of theatrics, because that is who I am and have always been," says Goodhandy. "And I had already decided there would be a theatre piece and a screenplay in the works eventually. So transferring the chosen chapters to make them scenes for the stage was not all that difficult. It is kind of like taking spoken word and adding a set, live music, and interesting but simple costumes to it. All in hopes of holding the attention of the audience."

Goodhandy has never had a problem holding an audience's attention, the lady has pipes and a deliciously ribald way with a one-liner. "Comedy comes naturally to me and sometimes it is difficult for me to reach down when describing parts of my life that are not even close to being funny," says Goodhandy. "That was even difficult when writing the book, so I kept trying to fall back on humour. But in a play, that would not be sincere. I have to put it all out there. I can't lie to the audience, it would not be fair. So it comes down to sharing the story in each scene with total honesty and real emotions, knowing I can't joke my way out of this one."

Honesty and soul-baring are at the core of Just Call Me Lady: The Musical. "I never have liked 'acting' so the show is set up in a such a way that I will be reciting the stories from different parts of my life," says Goodhandy. "The only 'acting' is when I dig deep to remember that male side of myself that always was an act, so that will involve 'acting.' Sliding in and out of my current true gender and the fake male persona that I had picked up along the way during my younger years. The thing that makes me nervous will be remembering everything I want to say. And the fact that I will be so exposed and vulnerable."

Exposed and vulnerable but also having, and delivering, a good time. "I love the scene that will describe my experience of, almost accidentally, falling into the adventures of sex work and the song that goes with that scene," says Goodhandy. "And I also liked re-visiting the music from my days as a male stripper. Those couple of songs will be lip-synced, just as they were during my stripper days.
And my description of the 2010 Pride Parade is important to me. Though the story of that year starts out controversial and sad, it ends with a bang."

Though part of the Just Call Me Lady juggernaut masterplan, the musical has its own unique attributes. "The musical will be like listening to snippets from the audiobook version of the book," says Goodhandy. "I narrated my own audiobook and was able to deliver what I was expressing in my own voice. A different take on the written version. The musical will bring some chapters, now scenes, to life. And a couple of small stories that did not make it into the book have been added, here and there. So it will be delivered as a script in a play mixed with spoken word, as opposed to me doing a book reading."

Goodhandy has previously mined her colourful life for theatrical material with Tranny! "Just Call Me Lady: The Musical is totally different from Tranny! the musical. Tranny! only had two songs done as a parody, done to soundtracks, with only a handful of stories that ended up in the book. This musical has eight songs, most of them are on my CD, plus there will be a live band. All the cover songs are done as they were written, except for one. I do a song that is from a musical called The Pajama Game and I have changed the pronouns being used in the original as a salute to trans, gender queer and non-binary people in our community. It is not being done as a comedic piece of course, but I will be making an important point by singing this particular song, in that way." 

Of course Goodhandy's politics are not quite as famous as her glamour. "There are a number of quick and simple costume changes," she admits, "that will take place to represent different times in my life. These will be done during taped narration as images are shown on a screen that relates to what I will be describing. In hopes that the whole musical will be visually entertaining." 

To achieve her vision, Goodhandy enlisted the help of Jennifer Walls the director of the eye-popping spectacle that was Heathers: The Musical. "When I saw what she did with that I wanted her to join me on this so badly," says Goodhandy. "But I did not ask her outright, because she is so talented so she is very busy. We were chatting one night at 120 Diner and I told her that I wanted to do a musical based on my book. I also told her that I would not do what I did with Tranny! the musical, that I wanted and needed a director. I had barely finished that and she blurted out, 'I will do it!' It was an incredible moment for me. We've only had one run through so far but she has already breathed new life into this piece. She knows so much about directing that she automatically can see what can be added or changed to make it pop. And she wears many hats and is able to visualize lighting, direct the music pieces, and knows how to make the best use of the stage. It is very rare to find someone who can see it all and therefore present a piece in its best theatrical form."

And Goodhandy knows theatrical form. One of the revelations in Just Call Me Lady is of Goodhandy's early career in musical theatre. "It is totally very much 'circle of life,'" says Goodhandy. "Every time I revisit my past it helps me heal more and more. I am lucky to have had the opportunity to write about it, speak about it, and now present it as a theatre piece so that I can almost relive the good and the bad. And to have the chance to share that with others is most certainly satisfying." 

And if she were to play someone other than her current zenith as Mandy Goodhandy? "There are not very many juicy older women roles in music theatre, unfortunately," she says. "But if given the opportunity, I would probably have fun playing Mama Rose in Gypsy, with her quick one-liners and belting songs. But hands down it would have to be Norma Desmond in the musical version of Sunset Boulevard. I would love the drama that comes with that role and the touching songs. And I do reference a line from the movie in my book 'I am ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille.'"