Nikole Beckwith received a NY IT Awards nomination for her role as ‘Lady in a Leotard’ in the original 2009 production of MilkMilkLemonade.

Here she discusses her love of the script and what it’s like to get another chance to work with everyone again.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE THING ABOUT THE MILKMILKLEMONADE SCRIPT?

My favorite thing about the script…[breaths deep] I don’t know. The whole script! As an entire entity I love how succinct the play is while also allowing for so many different moods to happen. Which is amazing. It’s really packed in there even though it’s just a 75 minute show. You get so much. So much is covered.

As a playwright myself, I have a big admiration for being able to do that. I also like how heartbreaking the play is while still being hilarious. And it’s not that it’s a really funny play that takes a really dark turn or a really sad play that has a really funny ending, It’s a play that in every scene and every step of the way is simultaneously heartbreaking and hilarious. That’s really hard to do. So I love it. I think the funniest things in life are true and more often than that they’re also the saddest things. If you’re able to make something sad, hilarious without watering down or rolling over how sad it is, I think that’s really the best way to communicate.

WHAT’S THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE FOR YOU COMING INTO MILKMILKLEMONADE THIS TIME AROUND?

Well the stage is so much bigger. For me as ‘Lady” I have a lot of places to be and a lot more ground to cover. At St. Mark’s the stage was very intimate. I felt like I could reach out and touch everybody from where I was sitting. Everything was kind of happening in my pocket and I was kind of in the pocket of the play and just like bounce out. For me, because I’m different people or entities at different times, there are a few times I have to sprint for it. That’s both fun and challenging.

WHAT HAS IMPRESSED YOU THE MOST ABOUT WORKING ON APAC’S PRODUCTION OF MILKMILKLEMONADE?

I’m constantly impressed by the cast members. I had met Jenny [Harder] and I knew Josh [Conkel] and Isaac [Butler, original director] the first time around. But I didn’t know Andy or Michael or Jess. And we all just fell in love with each other. As a character that watches the entire play I don’t ever leave. There’s no such thing as, me checking my email or having a sandwich while other things are going on onstage. I’m watching the play every second it’s happening. So I’m filled with admiration for the people I’m in this play with. It’s so hard for me not to laugh sometimes. And sometimes so hard not to cry. They’re amazing.

HOW DOES IT FEEL STEPPING BACK INTO MILKMILKLEMONADE WITH THE REST OF THE CAST?

It feels amazing. It’s like we spent the last year on the moon or something and now we get to step back and be like, “Hey check out this gravity.” It’s a really interesting mix of everything feeling really familiar and wonderful but at the same time completely new because it’s been so long and everything in it is a different production. It’s very interesting.

It’s really exciting to get to come back. We were really heartbroken to have to close the show last year. We had line hitting 1st Ave and couldn’t extend the show. I was getting recognized on the street in the East Village. I got followed into a bodega and grabbed and they were like, “You’re so good. We loved the show so much.” And I was like [jokes] “What are you talking about.” I’ve been recognized on the subway. Some people don’t recognize my face from the show because it looks terrified the whole time but at a coffee shop someone was like, “I’ve heard your voice before.” And I was like, “Oh, I don’t know where you would’ve heard it.”

It’s phenomenal to get that chance again for a play that I think is really important especially in the wake of all the young gay teen tragedies. There really couldn’t be a better time. This is such an important play at the same time being fun. Usually important plays don’t feel as fun. Not to say anything bad about important plays. But fun seems like a cheap or easy word, but it’s not. Fun is actually hard. It’s really difficult to achieve fun. And it’s wonderful that APAC is bringing this on as it’s first original script that it’s producing. There’s not a better time for it. And I think that as many people as possible should see this play not just because it’s hilarious but because it is important.

READER QUESTION: ARE YOU GOING TO DO ANYTHING NEW IN YOUR ACTING PROCESS TO KEEP THE ILLUSION OF THE FIRST TIME?

The interesting thing about ‘Lady in a Leotard’ is that she has severe performance anxiety. So every time I’ve ever done the show it has be as if I’ve never done the show before. So I would have to and I still separate myself from the rest of the group. We like to be together as long as possible but then I have to separate myself because I have to go and wipe the slate clean. So I can get into the mindset where I’m going to do something I’ve never done before and that I’m never going to do again. It’s just this mode of “I’m going to get through this.” In a way for my particular character that’s part of my process for every single show.

I have an alternate identity for ‘Lady in a Leotard’, who she is when she’s not ‘Lady in a Leotard’, I think about that a lot. One of the things I tell myself over and over is, “If they laugh you’re doing it wrong. If they laugh you’re doing it wrong.” So that keeps me from ever feeling comfortable because people are laughing the entire show. So I really focus on laughter being an indication that I’m really messing it up which fuels my discomfort.

THIS SEASON AT APAC WE’RE EXPLORING THE IDEA OF HOME FROM AN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE. THE SPRING MUSICAL, THE HUMAN COMEDY LOOKS AT CHARACTERS WHO YEARN TO RETURN HOME. IN MILKMILKLEMONADE THE CHARACTERS WANT TO GET AWAY FROM HOME. WHAT WAS YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH HOME?

I’m from Newburyport, Massachusetts and I have an unbelievable relationship with that place. I feel like it is a part of me and I carry it around always. It’s the type of town that even when I go back now someone will yell out their car, “Hi Nikole.” That’s very important.

There was a time of course when I was a teenager that I was like “Get me out of here.” Public school? I mean I was kicked out of public school. I was just barely a sophomore, I was booted for serious. And that’s starting as early as first grade. I just really had a difficult time in the public school system. It instilled in me this sense that I was doing things wrong and that I didn’t think the way I was supposed to be thinking. I didn’t interpret the world the way it was supposed to be interpreted. I couldn’t communicate my feelings or my relationship with that world in a way that was acceptable.

You know, everyone’s brains work differently and you express yourself differently. It was just a really hard road. I dealt with it by being extremely quiet and I shut down until I hit high school. Then I went the exact opposite and became very vocal and really in everybody’s face. I like defaced things, broke things and skipped class. I was very, very vocal about a lot of things. I got suspended for a month and a half and eventually just got booted forever.

Then I found this private school called Sudbury Valley School. I went there and totally flourished and was completely not a bad kid. But from first grade through 9th grade is a long period of your life. And it was a difficult, difficult time. So I would have to say I didn’t feel at home there. I felt like I was living wrong in life. So I went and found this school which happened to be perfect for me. Who I still have a really phenomenal relationship with, I’m still in touch with them now. I went there until I graduated high school. And much like Newburyport it’s something I feel I carry around with me and my experience is very positive but it took me a long time to find it.

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Join Nikole and the rest of the cast for your own very positive experience at the final weekend of MilkMilkLemonade Nov. 11th through Nov. 13th, 2010. Buy your tickets here.