Miriam Silverman on Her Tony-Nominated Role in ‘The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window’

Actress Miriam Silberman emerged from the womb and appeared in front of the audience.

In the late 1970s, at the age of 35, Silberman’s mother, who was pregnant with her first child, was asked to appear on a television special about pregnant women of advanced age. Her birth was broadcast live on Good Morning America, and little Miriam arrived during the broadcast.

“I think there’s a bit too obvious about this,” Silberman said in a recent interview at a light-filled café in Brooklyn’s Ditmus Park. “I never thought, ‘Yeah, I was born for this!’ But now I’m grateful for Coming Out Party.”

Silberman, 45, was one of the main stars in Sidney Bulstein’s Window Sign, a Broadway revival of Lorraine Hansbury’s 1964 play about navel-gazing liberalism, with Oscar Isaac. Rachel Brosnahan stars as the lead couple, Sidney and Iris. . Despite a cast with a Hollywood flair, Silberman’s Mavis, the austere, bigoted mistress of Upper Manhattan and sister to Iris, shines in her brilliance, earning her a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress. Nominated.

Directed by Ann Kaufman and nominated for Best Picture Revival, the show is a battle between puffy-breasted, left-handed bohemians (mostly men) and their intellectually sublime delusions. Hansbury’s Mavis, a racist snob and anti-Semite with curly hair and a pious hat, stands out in stark contrast. Her sharp tongue spares no one, but without the hypocrisy that swirls around her other characters, her lack of self-awareness in Mavis becomes more like self-awareness.

“The great thing about this character is that she’s happy for the most part, or finds happiness in the life she chooses, creates, and sticks to,” Silverman said. . “Yet, she also realizes there might have been another way.”

Silberman garnered accolades for his performance in a near-sold show at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in February before it moved to Broadway. New York Times theater critic Jesse Greene wrote in her review of her work in BAM that she “steals every scene she’s in.” And critic Laura Collins-Hughes, in her review of the show on Broadway, declared Mavis “the best part of the show, the best part.”

Oscar Isaac, with whom Sidney often sparred with Mavis, called Silverman’s performance “an undisputed masterpiece”. As his character is forced to reassess his self-righteous nature, their power relationship begins to level and the two emerge as peers.

“Every time she’s on stage, I feel like I can breathe,” he said. “She let her cast a spell on the whole audience so I can just sit back and watch.”

Isaac recalled sitting next to Silberman on stage one night and feeling “total alienation”. He felt dragged from his seat in the orchestra as an observer, and for a moment wondered if he could remember his lines.

“I feel like a lucky member in the audience,” he said. “She’s such a good person that it breaks her character.”

Growing up on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, Silberman was a studious kid, “annoyingly precocious,” as she put it, with a passion for hobbies and extracurricular activities. In addition to her acting and singing (she played Lizzo in “Grease” in middle school), she took ballet lessons, played the piano, and became a full-fledged soccer player.

She began studying acting after attending Brown University, where she starred in Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, and took every class available. After her graduation, she stayed in Providence, Rhode Island, where she earned a master’s degree in fine arts, and she appeared in regional theater productions. During the day she would rehearse “Annie” and at night she would perform “Elektra”. (Aside from being a stage actor, Silberman also appeared in minor roles in TV shows such as “Blue Bloods,” “The Black List,” “Fleischman Is In Trouble,” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.”) ing.)

“I always felt that there were so many different paths I could have taken or could still take,” Silverman said. “But for me, it has to do with my love of acting, my endless curiosity about different things.”

In 2006, Silberman wrote Clifford Odets’Wake up and sing!on the arena stage in Washington, which she called “a top 10 role” and credited for setting her career on fire. During production, she began dating castmate Adam Green, who is now her husband.

Since then, she’s taken her own risk to play a stubborn woman that men don’t take seriously. Wife cheated on Broadway director Ayyad Akhtar’s ‘Junk’. She is a skilled boneless artist in Will Arbery’s Plano.

Embodying that complexity is part of what drew Silberman to Bluestein. She called her first performance of Mavis “the perfect role” in her production (also directed by Kaufman) at Chicago’s Goodman Theater in 2016.

“For me, it’s a lot more interesting than just playing a likable actress that everybody can jump right into,” she said. “I’ve always been drawn to characters who are complex, tricky, flawed, and per se, not trying to make them likeable, but just being in them in all of their humanity.” there is.”

Kaufman knew he had to bring Silberman back for the New York show of “Bluestein.”

“She keeps her head down and gets the job done and is incredibly consistent,” Kaufman said. “She’ll read your mind and she’ll give you what you need and more. She’s a mainstay who finally got what she deserved.”

In addition to performing eight shows a week on Broadway and raising two children, Ms. Silverman teaches undergraduate and master’s degree acting students at New York University. She heard her name announced as she was watching a livestream of the Tony Award nominations with her husband on her laptop before class.

“It felt like I was on another planet for a while,” she said, calling her first nomination “the most thrilling and delicious little award.” It was really inspiring in a good way. ”

Kaufman called the layers of Silberman’s performance “the foundation of his vision”.

“She’s not afraid to embrace the darkness of this character,” Kaufman said. “Rather than just feeling like she’s an afterthought, she’s thinking about how she’s grown to take an angle of her character and embrace it, live it, and deepen it.”

Part of that darkness comes from the weight of new grief. In February, after the first preview performance at BAM, Silberman’s mother died of complications from pneumonia.

Her grief was overwhelming, but the show helped keep her afloat.

“It was a signpost,” she said. “When five o’clock hits, I feel a little lighter, like I know what I’m going to do. I know I love doing it.”

“I needed more time on this anchor,” she added.

Now, she doesn’t know how the nomination will change her future, but she remains grateful for the work.

“I just want to be on stage and put on a rich, gorgeous play,” she said. “This role feels like a tribute.”