‘Don’t say no to life’ seasoned advice from Lynn Ruth who started stand up at 71

"Don't say no to life, Marysia with Lynn Ruth Miller, an irrepressible 80 year old cabaret star." from Marysia Trembecka Love Your Creativity Podcast [ 33:11 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Marysia Trembecka with Lynn Ruth Miller podcast interview (press the arrow above to hear the audio or go to my iTunes channel.

UPDATE Lynn Ruth is doing her new show ’80’  at The Marlborough Theatre May 8,9,10 and 11 @ 6 p.m for the Brighton Fringe Festival 2014 details here

Here are some of the highlights (this is not a full transcript)

‘My mantra is that I am no  different than anyone else, I just don’t say no to life. I don’t have a special talent, Any talent that I have developed. it didn’t start off as a talent, it  started out as an interest, and I just kept doing it until it became an ability’

The reason she pursued this career in cabaret and stand up comedy at 71 is because she took a class in stand up and she was cheered by the audience, she had never seen love like that in her entire life, she thought that this is the most beautiful kind of love there is, (She was 71)

You don’t have to cook them dinner, you don’t have to change the sheets

Lynn Ruth started doing stand up at 71 and cabaret at 73. She is now 80 years of age and last year won the TOAST (Time Out And Soho Theatre) award at Edinburgh, the prize being that a two week stint at the gorgeous cabaret lounge downstairs at the Soho Theatre, March 11th to March 22nd 2014. Details here

I first met Lynn Ruth in 2007 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where I was doing my own cabaret/comedy show as well as hosting and producing the Midnight Carousel cabaret each night for C Venues. I would sing cabaret, chat and have six guests on a night and Lynn Ruth was my very favorite guest, she called her show then granny cabaret. I also saw her in Brighton Festival 2010 where Lynn Ruth was doing her show ‘Alzheimers, Alzheimers’ and I was with my great friend and colleague Elizabeth Mee as we were doing our show ‘Cooking And Cabaret’.
She is based in San Francisco and comes every summer for the last 7 years. She also did Britain’s Got Talent, an agent found her that way.

Simon Cowell’s criticism was absolutely spot on as her humour is about being old and you can predict where it is going. She picked the most predictable stuff and it is a big audience so she chose material that didnt make the audience think too much.

‘I am 80 and I am on my third car because I can’t remember where I parked the other two”

Lynn Ruth was a teacher and has several degrees in teaching, she believes you can spot very creative children as they don’t really get the rules, they are not so much naughty as they don’t understand the rules. Lynn  Ruth has always seen a different answer, creative people seem to have a different version of reality. Her parents were Jewish and their goal in life was to blend in to society when they came to America. She never blended very well. Her heritage has no interest for her, she is always interested where life can take her.

She has always written and when you write you redefine the world in your own terms. She started writing at six and had a poem published at nine years of age. She was always surprised when people thought her writing was special. Her creativity was always words, not science. Always through school she came up with a different conclusion, not the accepted one which was viewed as a bad thing for her family and her society. She never had a conformist mind and yet thought she was normal but then years later her sister, who was very good at confirming, called and asked her to come to a party if ‘you don’t do what you do’ Lynn Ruth didn’t know what that was. (I can relate to this!)

Lynn Ruth has such freedom in her, and I love seeing that as a creative. Lynn Ruth always questions the right or wrong of art for example the role of directing. She is terrible at collaborative work but her current show is written with her pianist Robert Pettigrew as they have the same goal. She is loving having a real live pianist who follows her and makes her a better performer.

Lynn Ruth believes in the importance of the arts, that that is where the truth lives, that the only political statement that means something is something you see on stage. She talks of ‘To You With Love’,  a play where two people are being imprisoned in Iran and they are chained to a wall. It is amazing how the human spirit cant be chained even if the body is. When you see something like The Glass Menagerie, most times she hates the mother but then she saw it acted by a woman who really understand the character, her fears etc that it was made exquisite. But if a director does not let you it can be a travesty, she saw a play version of ‘Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf’ with Christian Phillips, playing George that broke her heart, he is a great actor but he does not market himself..

The exquisite effort, it is more important to creatives to do the work, play the parts than to sell it so he does not sell himself. For years and years she did free gigs, as loved doing gigs but then it is the cost of travel otherwise she would happily love to do the gigs for free.

Lynn Ruth also paints and she has 500 canvases at least at home but they don’t mean anything to her, what matters is the work, doing the painting. What means everything to an actor is getting into the part and doing the work. You got to love Hitler if you have to play him in a play or a film. I mention that of course Hitler was a failed creative, he failed to get into art school at 18 in Vienna and then again he didnt get into Architectural College.

When she taught school she felt that a teacher has to prepare children for the life they have to lead. She felt it is important to touch each child’s creative spark.
Lynn Ruth is excited every day to create. On the day of our interview she sketched in the morning, walked a snoodle and then eaten and now about to do a show.  We talked about the joy of being creative, it does not get much better but yet tomorrow it will!

Lynn  Ruth loves comedy as she has much more to do, she is not there yet.  She is 80 and she is not sure how long her mind will keep up but she will keep trying to improve.
She asks herself why do I do this, she broke her foot 18 months ago, the doctor said she would never walk again and she told him that he was wrong, she is 78, she would walk. She did stand up gigs sitting down. She was on one foot and is not strong enough for crutches and had a little knee scooter. She knew that she had to keep doing comedy or go mad, she told herself ‘you don’t do comedy with your foot’ so she got people to literally ‘pick her up’ to go to gigs.
She did sit down comedy for 6 weeks 7 nights a week with her broken foot, she didnt ask for pay. She knew her road to getting better was to do the gigs and kept in the game.

This current show was  curated and put together by Bill Smith, Bob always has thought about  Lynn Ruth’s show; this is different and this is good. You need to be different and good, you need a craft and you need to work at it. When she started at 71 comedy she was different but not yet learnt about word juxtaposition, not getting the joke wrong, or she will cut the build up to it.

When you do comedy you are on three levels:

• The talk you hear,
• The mind that is thinking what comes next
• The mind that is saying’s that didn’t work and so I need to shift to another subject

Too many comedians don’t do the work of listening to the audience feedback.

Most of Lynn Ruth’s creativity is about doing the work, painting the picture, writing the story. In comedy you are being graded all the time by the audience. She talks of those comics who blame the audience. They paused in the wrong place, looked the wrong way, they did their job wrong.

Muriel Goldstein, an exquisite portrait painter  told Lynn Ruth

‘Every artist need their Ooh ooh’s, you do a work of art, you paint a picture, sing a song and you said oh, thats just the way I wanted it. but then you need someone else to say ‘ooh that was great as well’

Lynn  Ruth is getting a lot of those today and it is just wonderful.

She hopes for another 20 years on stage, she has so much to do, she hasn’t got there yet.

‘ I am better, every day I get better. I am hoping to die on my way to a gig, Hartley at C venues is hoping I die on stage on my hundredth birthday as I might then make the Scotsman or the London Times. They can cremate me and cast my ashes all over the West End.”

She is doing Edinburgh 2014 and Brighton 2014
her website is here

Catching up with Lynn Ruth was lovely for me and also made me question myself a little. I am currently acting or singing other people’s art and I am missing the writing and the touring of  my own cabaret shows. Next up for me though is singing 2 shows at the Royal Festival Hall, the first one is next Saturday 21st March and it will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 Details here, it is the world premiere of a fantastic piece by Neil Hannon from The Divine Comedy . I am singing soprano one in the small choir that has been put together for the work ‘To Our Fathers In Distress’ which will be sung about 9pm I think as it is the final piece of the evening.

If you liked this interview check out my other podcasts including the following

Earl Okin: how to charm your audience & to succeed in Edinburgh Pt1

Richard Thomas ‘Jerry Springer The Opera’ & Aletta Collins on creative success

Georgina Sowerby on acting, devising & being an inspirational theatre maker

If you, as a listener would like to ask myself a question on creativity just email me or call my Speak Pipe. The advantage of leaving a message on my Speak Pipe is that of you leave your blog details etc we can play the call live.
marysia@loveyourcreativity.com

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About Marysia and Love Your Creativity
I blog at least three times a week on creativity and techniques to get your art on.
Whether you are a musician, an actor or a choreographer I endeavour to make https://loveyourcreativity.com is a place to come for inspiration and motivation.