Julie Lake, best known for her scene-stealing role as Angie Rice in Orange is the New Black, is no stranger to complex, layered characters. Now, she’s turning the lens inward with Forget-Me-Not, a raw and unflinching musical collaboration with Scottish writer-performer Annie Macleod. Inspired by their real-life falling-out and reunion, the show explores female friendship, motherhood, and the messiness of artistic ambition. We caught up with Julie Lake to talk about the personal truths behind the performance and what it means to speak out.
Forget-Me-Not doesn’t shy away from messy truths about motherhood and art. What inspired you to tell this story now?
Messy truths are what’s missing from motherhood and art. Culturally, we have very small boxes in which we allow mothers to live. She’s either a good mother who is endlessly devoted to putting the needs of her family above herself. Or a bad mother, who fails to do this. Real life is so much messier, complex and more beautiful than those two stories. We have experienced firsthand what happens when we break the silence and speak our truth to friends about the loneliness, the ache, the boredom, the longing, and the overwhelm. We decided it was time these truths had a bigger spotlight.
You both draw from your own lives in the show. How did it feel turning personal experiences into public performance?
Terrifying and also the only possible option. We knew real life outpaced fiction in both of our lives over the last 3-5 years. So many times during the writing process, we looked at each other and said, ‘can we really put that in there?’ If it was true and essential to the central arc of the story, the answer was always, of course, yes, we must. There was no halfway with this script.
The show explores the tension between caregiving and creative freedom. How have you personally navigated that push and pull?
Julie’s kids are younger – 2 and 5 and she navigates it daily by feeling pulled in both directions, unable to sacrifice either for the other. She shows great courage by spending time away from her kids to pursue her dream. Annie’s kids are older – 7 and 11 and her path was like Julie’s until three years ago, the internal tension became unbearable. She left her marriage and mothering fulltime to pursue her creative dreams. This was both the right decision for her and very painful to everyone involved. No black and white or clear right or wrong here. Unlike most parents who leave, she returned and repaired. She now wears both hats again – artist and mother – but this time with a lot less guilt and shame and some more tools her in her toolbox.
Female friendships are often sidelined on stage. What did you want to say about these relationships that we don’t usually hear?
There is a well of power in female friendship that most of us don’t fully tap. When we show up authentically and dare to tell our truths while maintaining responsibility for our own feelings, magic happens. We don’t know if it’s mirror neurons, the breakdown of isolation or something else without a name, but the result of a friendship like this is courage, more than either friend could have imagined on her own.
Let’s talk music – how do the songs in Forget-Me-Not serve the story? Did any moments surprise you in rehearsal?
The songs are the emotional landscape of the show. They say what can’t be spoken. They carry the nuance and layers of the story. It surprised us to learn that even after 30+ revisions of the script, the songs were still the right songs. They were the pulsing fibrous cord that held all of the arcs and story lines together. They are the heart of the show.
Julie – you’ve performed on huge screens with Orange is the New Black. What does it feel like to strip it back to just two chairs and your voice?
Even though people know me from TV, I’ve actually done way more theater—that’s really where I started. So being onstage isn’t new. But what is new is singing my own music and playing piano live for the first time. That’s honestly terrifying. And then there’s the story—it’s true, it’s mine. I’m a pretty private person, so sharing it all like this feels really raw. Playing Angie on Orange was a character. This? This is just me.
The show explores guilt, envy, and the grief of unlived lives. How do you stay grounded in such emotionally raw material night after night?
We don’t. We have both learned that delivering the story as it is is enough to bring us to tears, nearly every night. The goal is to allow the emotion to be there while we keep our speaking and singing voices resonant and clear so that the story continues to ring out with the emotion. The result is holding the meaning of the pain at the same time we hold the pain.
Forget-Me-Not is about reclaiming your voice. What advice would you give women in creative fields trying to do the same – especially post-40?
Find a tribe of women who are doing it too. Borrow their courage when you need it. A creative life, especially when balanced with motherhood, is not for the faint of heart and none of us can do it alone. We are starting an online version of this community called Artist-Mother. For women who feel a community of Artist-Mothers is what they’ve needed all along, come see the show and if you can’t see the show, find us online. Show Website: https://wildflowersshow.com/
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Forget-Me-Not will be performed at 11:40 in Greenside @ George St (Fern Studio) from 1st – 9th August
For tickets and more information, visit: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/forget-me-not