Who tells the pigeon that he can’t drive the bus? None other than Meg Foley, a 2013 graduate of Livingston High School, who will play the bus driver in the Growing Stage’s production of “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus: The Musical.”
The show, based on the book by Mo Willems, award-winning creator of the Pigeon picture books, will be presented from May 5 through 21, with a sensory-friendly performance on May 14.
“It’s a pretty important role,” Foley deadpans. “I’m the one who gets to tell the pigeon that he can’t drive the bus. It’s hard, because he is so cute!”
She says that the hour-long show will help introduce children to the theater. “I hope that they will keep coming to the theater and fall in love with it, as I did when I was three years old.”
That was when she saw “Beauty and the Beast” on Broadway.
“My parents were very brave to take me,” she chuckled. “I was a very energetic child – as I am now. They didn’t think I was going to be able to sit still for it. But the moment the overture started, the show grabbed my attention and kept it for the entire time.”
Foley grew up in Livingston, as did each of her parents. “My paternal grandfather was in the police force and the emergency services; my father is a firefighter, and my mom is a hairdresser,” she said. “And I’m one of three girls, in the middle.”
Foley’s acting began in Hillside School’s first grade, in “Frog and Toad.” In sixth grade, she played Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz” at the YMCA summer camp. “That was a pretty intimidating first big role!” she said.
She took any classes offered at school, especially high school chorus with Joshua Salzman, as well as baton twirling through the recreation department. She acted in all the Livingston High School dramas and musicals, as well as several student-directed shows.
“Some really cool theatrical people came from this town,” Foley said. “Nicky James visited us after we did ‘Hello, Dolly,’ and I got to hold her Tony award… Years ago, my mom did ‘The Sound of Music’with Jason Alexander, when he was Jay Greenspan. Mom was the youngest of the boys; Jason was probably one of the older boys.”
Foley earned a theater studies degree at Montclair State University, where she worked with the MSU Players and studied abroad in London. She is skilled in various dialects, her strongest being the British accent, which she attributes not to her stay in London but to her love of Harry Potter.
Another of Foley’s skills is “stage combat,” which she learned while working with Janet Storti in a play at LHS.
“We learned that when you’re doing stage combat, you are the one in control,” said Foley. “If I’m the one falling I have control of everything. If I’m the one having my hair pulled, I’m the one who’s holding my hair to make it look like it’s being pulled.”
She is also skilled at sewing and wig styling, and likes “cosplay,” a combination of costume and play.
Getting roles is not easy, Foley said. “Sometimes the rejections hurt, but a lot of the time you submit and forget. When an audition comes along, then that is my job. If I book something, then I get to have fun.”
She just produced and starred in “Anna Marie,” a ten-minute short film, which she is editing for her reel, and takes on additional jobs involving social media and video games. “I enjoy things like that, and I get to be in that world, and it gives me the flexibility to audition as well.”
Playing to a Young Audience
Being in a show aimed at children, she said, “is very fast paced. You keep going because you have to keep the attention spans of children, release your inhibitions, and be wacky and have fun and know that they’re laughing with you – while you’re also teaching a message.
“We show that the pigeon can do anything he wants to do… within means,” she continued. “And one of the big songs is ‘Keep Flapping,’just keep going to find your thing that makes you happy. And the pigeon is very stubborn, we show kids that you can get past that stubbornness about the only thing they want to do, and find things they can do.”
Calling herself “the proper human,” Meg is the only one of the six-member cast who does not have a designated puppet.
“The kids will see an actor holding a puppet, and see his reactions, like two halves of the brain,” Foley said. The production is using puppets from the 2019 premiere of the show at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
Foley says the bus driver is “a very belty role. She’s big, she’s out there, outlandish. She has a big song, she is ready for her day, excited about her job… I get to do that at 10 a.m. for nine shows straight, so I have to rest my voice and take care of myself.”
“I love that I have to release all inhibitions. I can’t think about anyone judging me about singing these words, like ‘flap flap flappety flap,’ to a puppet. Just being able to release all that is really comforting.”
As a hard-of-hearing actress, Foley wears a tiny hearing aid in her left ear. When she was in “The Lightning Thief” at the Growing Stage, a little boy wearing a hearing aid came over to her. “I looked at him and reached into my ear and I pulled mine out and showed it to him. The look in his eye was very special, I almost cried!”
Livingston Library card holders may enter a raffle to receive two tickets, one adult and one child, to see “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus.” The raffle runs through Sunday, April 30, and the winner will be notified on Tuesday, May 2. Visit the youth desk to enter.
For more information about Foley, go to her Instagram @nutmeghope; or email her at [email protected].
For information about the show, including ticket prices, visit growingstage. com.
