HOME
RESUME
HEADSHOTS
REEL
TALL GIRL

JENNIFER ROSEN



Synopsis

Tall Girl is a semi-autobiographical solo show about a young girl named
Jennifer (how apropos) who grapples with her long legs,
as they thoroughly interfere with her
desire to fit in. Jennifer's feet stick out over the edge of her bed. Her knees are
perpetually bruised from banging against her school desk. Her clothes refuse to
fully cover her long arms and legs. And, most achingly, her peers taunt her with
such remarks as, "How's the air up there, Mommy Long legs?"
or "Hey, Stilts, do you play basketball?"

I'm 5'10 1/2" and much of the Tall Girl's humor stems from my own awkwardness
growing up and dating boys whom I towered over. I play a variety of characters
in addition to Jennifer including:

*A fictionalized version of my mother, who relentlessly pushes her daughter to embrace her stature.

*A height doctor who, upon predicting that Jennifer will grow up to seven feet tall, consoles her by saying "Height is nothing to be ashamed of. We all have a height."

*A French charm school instructor who teaches Jennifer the art of sashaying with a book on her head.

*A slinky Russian woman who worries that men only desire her because of her very long body.

Only when Jennifer discovers the existence of a tall club and actually wins the Tall Clubs International college scholarship does she begin to ponder the possibility that perhaps height is an asset. After all, she's the go-to person when it comes to reaching for things on high shelves. Plus, she can walk really fast and can clean the tops of refrigerators like nobody's business. When Jennifer attends her local chapter's Moonriver Tall Ball, she runs into the boy she had a crush on in junior high, except now he's a whopping 6'10". With her newfound tall pride, Jennifer musters up the courage to speak on behalf of tall-friendly products, envisioning a redesigned world in which tall people are no longer scalped by ceiling fans.

History

I was always the tallest kid in my class. By the time I turned thirteen, I was practically my current height of 5'10 1/2." I created my solo show to explore the pain, awkwardness, and underlying comedy of growing up tall. Because most people view height as a valued commodity, they seldom consider the challenges of being tall in an average-sized world.

During the writing process, I periodically performed in Works-in-Progress, an evening of theater (directed by Groundlings' creator, Gary Austin) in which actors test out original material in front of an audience. Based on the audience's response, I assessed in collaboration with Gary, who swiftly took on the role of Tall Girl's director, what worked and what needed more work, and then rewrote accordingly. Once I developed enough material for my own evening, I workshopped TALL GIRL (formerly known as Reaching New Heights: One Girl's Battle With Her Very Long Limbs) at various theaters in Los Angeles, including the Secret Rose, the Whitefire, and the Whitmore-Lindley. When I had a five-week workshop run at the National Comedy Theater (formerly the HBO Workspace) in October of 2003, Tall Clubs International (www.tall.org) came on board, providing financial support toward the debut production of the show. TALL GIRL premiered at THE GROUNDLINGS THEATER in March of 2004. It received LA Weekly's Comedy Pick of the Week as well as a great write-up in the Jewish Journal and LA.com