Miller answers the call

by Sandra Miller
Back Bay Sun
A local woman starring in the Nora Theatre Company’s production of “Martha Mitchell Calling” gets to do all the fun things an actress loves doing: talking in a fun Southern accent, wearing a blonde Beehive styled by Gary Croteau of Mario Russo Salon, and being the center of the stage.
But more importantly, the role of Martha Mitchell brings out the energetic side of award-winning actress Annette Miller.
“What I love most about Martha is her energy, her passion, her commitment to her country, and to her husband,” says Miller, a resident of Commonwealth Avenue. “When I’m in the process of playing her, all the parts of me that are like her are brought to the surface. I am working on those parts of me that have to seek truth. Martha can hold her own in any political situation. She was a great campaigner. President Nixon called her the secret weapon. It’s been a joy to not put her on, step into her, but to bring her out of me, every night.”
“Martha Mitchell Calling” is an original play written by Jodi Rothe, and making its Boston premiere through Nov. 9 at the Central Square Theater. Miller plays the feisty southern belle, Martha Mitchell, who clamors to be heard during the tumultuous times of the Watergate scandal. The wife of President Nixon’s Attorney General John Mitchell, Martha was a passionate and influential Southern socialite dubbed “the Mouth of the South” who became famous for her outspokenness and famous phone calls to the press about matters the Nixon-era conspirators wanted kept quiet. Said President Nixon in a 1977 interview with David Frost, “If it hadn’t been for Martha, there’d have been no Watergate.”
“She introduced her husband to Nixon because she thought at the time he was the best one for her country. She learned all the bad stuff they were doing, and she wanted her husband to tell the truth, and he wouldn’t. He began to cover up, and she told the truth, and for the good of the country, said Nixon should resign,” explains Miller.
“What I like about the piece is that it very much speaks to the present time. There are lots of lines that resonate in today’s world, and it seems what Nixon covered up and Nixon did pales in comparison to what things are happening today, in terms of deceit and lying. We’re paying a heavy price for it, and Martha paid a price for it. They made her out to be a looney and she wasn’t. I love being given the opportunity to speak about something very passionately about what I believe in. Martha gives me the means to do all that,” says Miller.
The play has been in production since 2006, when Miller originated the role at Shakespeare & Company, and in New York state and Florida.
Miller and her husband moved to Commonwealth Avenue three years ago, when the empty nesters moved from Newton. “The kids had grown up, and it was time to go back to the city,” says Miller, who is a native of New York City. “I love the Back Bay, being able to walk to everything.” Their daughter, Deborah, lives in Washington D.C., and son Bruce runs the Barbershop Lounge on Fairfield and Newbury streets.
Miller’s been acting ever since junior high, and attended the High School of the Performing Arts in New York City (of “Fame” fame.) At 18, she launched her professional career at the Cape Cod Melody Tent in a series of summer musicals, starting with “The Desert Song”.
She received a scholarship to Brandeis University, where she received her bachelor’s degree and later her MFA, and also studied at the Stella Adler Conservatory in New York.
Since then, she’s been in many productions. Miller has been a member of Shakespeare & Company for a decade, performing in such productions as “King John,” “Twelfth Night,” “Collected Stories,” and “Love Letters”. She has performed both on and off Broadway, including the role of Sylvie in the female version of “The Odd Couple,” with Rita Moreno and Sally Struthers. Locally, she has also performed with the American Repertory Theatre and Merrimack Repertory Theatre, and has worked in TV and film.
Of course, her favorite role is the one she’s doing now. “You always love the one you’re near,” she drawls in the Martha Mitchell accent she slips in and out of during our conversation. She’s also fond of her role as Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir in “Golda’s Balcony,” for which she received the Elliot Norton Award for Best Solo Performance.
“I created that role,” she says. “That’s what a lot of people in Boston remember me doing.”
Miller loves working with the Central Square Theater, which she says is only a short walk across the Mass. Avenue Bridge. “It’s a new theater. It’s a very exciting space to be in. I think in this time and age, we really have to hear more from artists who connect in a very truthful way to the world they live in. The playwright has written a very funny and at the same time serious piece, and people find themselves laughing and crying.”
Miller isn’t sure where the production is headed next after it finishes its Boston run, but she’s preparing for her next role, as Madam Ranevsky in Dostoyevsky’s “The Cherry Orchard,” at the Central Square Theater in January. “I’m really excited about playing her,” she says.
“At this point in my professional career, I’m fortunate I have an opportunity to practice in a profession that is a passion,” she says. “What I love the most is being able to, I guess, make a career of my passion.”