Andrea Mezvinsky
Actress & Comedian
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Projects
Sawed in Half - Theatrical Play
Ever since my 6th-grade teacher wrote “Dear Andrea, don’t let the bastards grind you down!” on the back of my report card, I wanted to speak out and stand up for women’s rights. Look, I grew up in the 1970’s & 80’s so whaddya expect? And, as I got older, got married and gave birth, it became shockingly clear that in many unexpected ways, women were still stuck in the trappings of a patriarchal structure. Sexism, I realized, was still very much alive and living insidiously inside my life and the lives of all the women I knew – burning bras notwithstanding!
So, I set out to write about how far women had and hadn’t come by comparing the lives of my grandma, my mother and me. But every time I sat down to write I hit a wall and couldn’t complete my play. Then, my marriage started falling apart and I started writing confessional poems to an imaginary audience. And in these poems, I was asking my imaginary audience for advice and guidance, when a light-bulb when off!
What if these poems were to become the voice and the line of my play about women? And as I started incorporating these poems with my writings about my grandma, my mother and me, the foundation for “Sawed in Half” was born.
The play is my ode to overcoming all the things that have stopped me from having a voice in my own life. And throughout the play I keep asking: How can anyone find happiness if all their time is spent trying to conform to social standards and meet the needs of others? By inhabiting and interacting with the central female role models I looked up to - my spry but dead Jewish grandmother, my neurotic, feminist mother, Frida Kahlo, Isadora Duncan, Erma Bombeck, and Baby June – I try to answer this question.
Performing alone on stage with minimal sets, props and lighting, I bring these characters to life to tell my story of the impossible feat of being a wife, a mother, a lover and a performer all at the same time. And instead of telling my story lineraly, I travel
in time (playing myself at different ages) as it relates to what I am going through. Finally, I have chosen my time as a magician’s assistant and was sawed in half nightly, as the central metaphor for the play. This is represented center stage by a huge poster of me separated in two parts which I promise the audience I will put back together by night’s end. And by breaking the fourth wall and literally asking the audience what to do, I am providing them with a front row seat inside my mind which hopefully shines a light on the universal importance of leading an authentic life.
Andrea's Listings
When finding a home is tougher than finding your soulmate, it’s hard to move on . . .
Welcome to Andrea’s Listings, a scripted comedy series about the world of LA’s luxury real estate market, as seen through the eyes of Manhattan realtor Andrea Walls.
A single mom and former stand-up coming, Andrea rises to fame when she's suddenly forced to relocate with her teenage daughter to Los Angeles.
Butting heads with a series of crazed clients and their brokers -whose personal dramas unravel over the buying and selling of LA’s hottest properties.
Andrea goes to outrageous lengths to ensure her sales. If only she could leave her personal drama at home.
“Mezvinsky’s portrayal of Every- woman defies belief with her full throttle turn-on-a-dime performance. She flips into multiple characters with the ease some wish we had with out TV remote, Take that, Frieda Kahlo!”
- The Tolucan Times