EVENT: She's starring in Proof, about a math genius, which opens this week at Seattle Repertory Theatre.
How does math figure into your life? "I own a bar, so I have to be pretty good at keeping track of money--accounting, that sort of thing. Other than that, I try to do as little math as I possibly can."
Where's your bar? "In Brooklyn. There's actually a bar here with the same name, and I'm dying to go to it."
What's the name? "It's called Moe's."
It's closed. "It's closed?! That's such a bummer. I'm glad I didn't try to go--it's in my visiting-artist information book."
What else is in that book? "Crocodile Cafe, Doc Maynard's, Central, Backstage--"
The Backstage is also closed. "They have really got to renew this visiting-artist information."
What's your Moe's like? "It's a lounge more than a bar. All our furniture's from the '50s, '60s, '70s. It's basically a neighborhood bar, but it's funky, not a dive. It's cozy."
What's wrong with dives? "I like dives, but our space has 14-foot ceilings and brick columns, wood floors--it's just a nice space. With our furniture, it probably could be a dive bar if it was in a divey space."
How would you define a dive? "It smells like an ashtray, beer is cheap, you can't see more than two feet in any direction, which hides the fact that it's completely disgusting--it's a place you might go late at night when you're already so drunk that it doesn't matter where you're sitting, and when you don't have much money left. Now I sound like an alcoholic."
You sound like you know your way around a dive. "I'm really not a big drinker though. Growing up in New York, I started going out so young that I got it out of my system. Pretty much. Every once in a while. The last year in Seattle I couldn't go anywhere because I was 20--they have such strict drinking laws here."
You're 21 and you own a bar?! "No, no, the last time I was in Seattle--I'm 29."
