Tales of the . . . Cast! Meet Mary Birdsong

Meet Mary Birdsong, who plays Mona Ramsey. Click here to read her official bio.

Check back tomorrow to meet another member of the cast of Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City: A New Musical!

NAME Mary Birdsong.

CHARACTER Mona Ramsey.

HOMETOWN Long Beach Island, New Jersey.

FIRST THEATER EXPERIENCE Doing “the bump” while dressed as a turkey leg in a Thanksgiving recital in grade school because Mia Michenzi chickened out.

FAVORITE THEATER EXPERIENCE Accidentally peeing onstage during the tech for my last solo show. I’d love to say I was five years old at the time. I wasn’t.

FIRST EXPERIENCE WITH TALES Being asked to do a cold reading at 10 a.m. at [director] Jason Moore’s house two years ago on my one day off, and saying no because I thought it was for a musical version of A Tale of Two Cities. I hate Dickens. Okay, I don’t really hate Dickens. But still . . . the idea of doing anything involving bonnets just did not appeal to me at the time. Sleep appealed to me.

HOW ARE YOU LIKE MONA? I’m all bark and no bite—a real softie. But hell if I’ll let you see that just so you can use it against me later. ☺

FAVORITE MUSICAL This one. Godspell is a close second.

FAVORITE SONG TO SING In this show: “Seeds and Stems.” Other than that? Probably “Hallelujah,” by Leonard Cohen, or any gut-bucket gospel-type stuff.

EDUCATION It’s overrated. Okay, for reals? Ethel Jacobsen Elementary School. Long Beach Island Grade School. Southern Regional Middle School and Southern Regional High School. Then NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, where I got to study with the great Stella Adler. And Gotham City Improv for sketch comedy and improv.

PERFORMANCE RITUAL Pre-: big cup of hot tea with lots of skim milk and two Sweet’N Lows. One chocolate mint Zone protein bar. Lots of quiet time to get focused. I also try to walk a good distance or run before the show, to get everything moving. Post-: I use my long walk home to sort of act like a martini—to calm me down and help me go to sleep.

FAVORITE ’70s WARDROBE ITEM Bell-bottom pants are awesome, especially for chicks like me with big booties—they’re very flattering. Big platform heels are also awesome, because I’m short. Oh, and I love those handkerchief shirts. I think that’s what they were called.