Review Fix Exclusive: Jennifer Blake Talks McCready And More

May 18, 2016 Patrick Hickey Jr. Theatre 0

Review Fix chats with playwright and actress Jennifer Blake who discusses her Mindy McCready bio musical “McCready” to the Hollywood Fringe Festival in June. Breaking down her theatre influences and how her big screen roles (Zealander, Behaving Badly) have played a part in her career on stage, Blake gives us the inside scoop on her process and growth as a performer.

For more on the play, click here.

Review Fix: What inspired this musical?

Jennifer Blake: I was had just finished producing a comedy web series and was bummed out about the experience and really missed singing, and I had a few ideas floating around. I met with a friend of mine and that day, over coffee, MCCREADY was conceived.

Review Fix: How have your experiences on the big screen impacted your theatre work?

Blake: They’re both so different, but at the end they’re both about finding the truth, staying loose, and really going for it. If anything, it’s that on some films I’ve been lucky enough to watch some of my favorite actors right front and center and I just ate up the way some worked. Never half, always 1000 percent.

Review Fix: Who are your theatre influences?

Blake: I grew up being in love with West Side Story, Chorus Line, South Pacific, Guys and Dolls—the big ones. In my little hometown, Montgomery, Alabama, we had the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, so that opened me up to Tennessee Williams, Lanford Wilson, Harold Pinter, Chekov, and on and on.

Review Fix: What’s it like to be a part of the Hollywood Fringe Festival? 

Blake: I like the feeling that it’s going to be a community of artists, doing their own load ins and load outs, putting up shows in a small mile radius, for a short amount of time. 

Review Fix: What’s next? 

Blake: Nashville, the South East, anywhere that will take us and has the shared love of country music and a compelling story.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 13872 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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