One-woman show captures Taylor’s glamour

Thursday, February 2, 2023
By Bridgette M. Redman, Pasadena Weekly

One-Woman Show Captures Taylor’s Glamour

Pasadena, CA—From her days as a child star to her AIDS activism in later life, Elizabeth Taylor made an impact on the world. And those who knew her, knew not to call her Liz.

Kayla Boye admired Taylor and everything she stood for. It’s what led her to create the one-woman show “Call Me Elizabeth,” which she performs and is bringing to the Sierra Madre Playhouse from Friday, Feb. 10, to Sunday, Feb. 19.

“Elizabeth Taylor stands out because she wasn’t just a pretty face on screen,” Boye said. “Her life actually had several chapters of deep substance, and she had many acts. After her glory days of film, she was someone who used her fame as a platform to make change. She used her power of celebrity to bring awareness to the early days of HIV and AIDS and was really instrumental in making that epidemic known on a global scale. She had such a strong character and was always the first to come to the defense of her friends and the less fortunate.”

The play begins shortly after Taylor won a Best Actress Oscar and is recovering from a severe case of pneumonia, which almost ended her life. She is meeting with her biographer and talking about her early life, career and loves.

The show premiered at the Hollywood Fringe Festival last summer and Boye has since taken it to several places around the country. There is also a filmed version that she made during the pandemic.

Boye said that every time she shares the story, she gets more insight into the Taylor’s character and her sense of humor.

“She was quick to laugh at things but she was also very mercurial,” Boye said. “She had quite a range of emotion as a human being because her life off screen was even more dramatic than her life on screen. Each time I perform this show, there’s just that much more color to explore.”

At the time of the play, Taylor is 29 years old and just starting to find her own voice and what it means to make decisions for herself. She’s coming into her own personal power, which gives Boye a lot to work with.

“Doing that dramatically in a theatrical sense, giving her that voice and letting the audience see her finding that sense of assertiveness and self is really fun for me to dig into each time,” Boye said.

Boye enjoys bringing the pop culture icon to a new generation who knows her only through her later work such as her perfumes and jewelry and the movie star image she never shed. Her work introduces them to the human side of Taylor and her early career.

“My show details how she came up through the studio system, but it also really goes into depth about her personal relationships,” Boye said.

When the play takes place, Taylor has already been married four times. She eventually had seven husbands, one (Richard Burton) she would marry twice. Her first marriage took place when she was only 18 to Conrad Hilton Jr. and lasted only eight months.

In this show, she talks about her third husband, Mike Todd, the first great love of her life and the only marriage that ended in her spouse’s death and not divorce.

“Their love enabled her to truly chart her own course,” Boye said. “He was the main person that really gave her impetus to go out and do her own thing. When he died, that was such a shattering event in her life. She could have just retreated and retired into the shadows, but she took that tragedy and turned it into a triumph. She learned quite a lot from him, so I chose to focus on that relationship more so than some of the others.”

The show’s productions have been directed by Erin Kraft, with whom Boye frequently collaborated. Her original involvement in the show was as a dramaturg who helped to refine and shape the writing of the piece.

“She was extremely helpful in lending more gravitas and dramatic arc to the writing itself,” Boye said. “Then as the director, she was immensely helpful in bringing this story to life. We rehearsed through the pandemic with this initially over Zoom and then we met one-on-one in person distanced.”

The show was filmed and premiered virtually in 2021, and Kraft directed the camera operators and took on the role of a movie director.

When it was at the Hollywood Fringe Festival last summer, Sierra Madre’s interim artistic director, Gary Lamb, attended the first performance, which sparked him to invite Boye to present the show as part of their Solo Shows Festival.

“Call Me Elizabeth” is set in 1961 in the Beverly Hills. Boye said bringing the play so close to where it takes place makes it even more authentic and palpable. When she was performing it last year in Los Angeles, she went to visit Taylor’s gravesite and leave a lily. The next day, Taylor’s personal doctor came to the show.

“He said to me, ‘You know, the first thing she said to me was ‘My name is not Liz, it’s Elizabeth, so call me Elizabeth,’’” Boye related. “That was something she felt very strongly about. She hated Liz and loved Elizabeth. So, to be able to pay my respects to her and hope that I’m telling her story faithfully and truthfully and doing her tribute — my aim is to honor her legacy and make it come to life again for a new generation to remind people that we all have the power to make change. If you’re given that platform, if life is good to you, please give back because the world needs good people.”

Boye hopes to continue touring the show around the country and overseas. She’s hoping to bring it off Broadway later this year and to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for a live performance to follow up the virtual one she did during the pandemic.

Since the script’s initial reading in 2019, it has undergone many changes. It was quite long and Boye has since cut it down to 75 minutes. She continues to finesse and fine tune it every time she performs it. She’s added certain elements to fit the Sierra Madre Playhouse and the way it will be staged there. Boye also takes audience feedback into account and incorporates it where it makes sense. Someday, she thinks she will have to write a second act that covers Taylor’s later career since so many people ask about it.

While the set is built anew everywhere she performs it, Boye brings with her the costume, props and pre-show music.

“I pride myself on being very detail-oriented,” Boye said. “I use actual tabloids that were printed that year, just before 1961. All of the props I’m using are from the time period. There are photographs of individuals that actually occurred in her life. The pre-show music was from that era—her favorite songs and composers.”

All the details help her recreate the life of a Hollywood icon in a way that she hopes will appeal to people and spark new interest in Taylor’s life.

“Whether you’ve seen Elizabeth Taylor’s films or you’ve just bought her perfume or if you’re just familiar with her in a general sense, I think the show will give you a little further detail into what still makes her an icon and what we can still glean from individuals such as her and why they remain so relevant,’ Boye said. “I think this will have appeal whether you know things about her or not. I enjoy it every time I bring fresh life to it for live theater.”