Bobbitt's Fotothing

Big Nights at Rocco's

August 22, 2003
Foye Dashiell was one of 100 people chosen from 2,000 interviewed to work in NBC’s summer reality show, Rocco’s The Restaurant. She’s an actress, so of course she has restaurant experience—in fact at Union Pacific, a three-star restaurant owned by Chef Rocco DiSpirito. He opened this one with his mother Nicolina as inspiration and Chef de Cuisine. “Mama DiSprito” cooked meals for 20 years for the students of PS95 in Queens. In the photo by Rosser Bobbitt, she takes a break with the Rev. Kate Bobbitt (mama di Foye), and Foye.

The Restaurant as TV would seem a contradiction. A smoothly running, successful restaurant would be a very dull television show. Foye insists this is a brilliant concept. “What better place than a restaurant to find a perfectly stocked theatre company?” (Including staff who aren’t actors.) The experience of working there, she says, is “very bizarre but very cool, at the same time.”

Because of the TV contract, Rocco had to find a building, install kitchen and dining rooms, and hire and train staff in a mere seven weeks. Now that’s fast food.

Staff training was “intense,” says Foye, a cram course, even for people with restaurant experience. “It’s more of an integration process for this particular place—learning the computer system, deciding who does what.” Foye had already trained in French restaurants in New York, so “for two weeks before the opening, I was the only one taking reservations.”

Opening night was a maître d’s nightmare. “The first two nights were friends and family. So you’re facing 300 people who need tables—and everyone’s a VIP.” Because of the shooting, all the diners had to sign a model release form. And then, “you would turn around to seat someone and literally bump into a camera.”

Foye’s first line was in the third episode, as the staff out front hashed out a minor crisis sotto voce, one of them shushing the others. “I finally said, “Stop saying ssshhh!!’ I hate that word,” adds the actress.

Foye has been in New York since 1996, working steadily in both her careers. Recently, she has been performing and designing costumes with Cobblestone Productions, Inc., where she has played H.P. Lovecraft’s Gothic heroine in "The Cats of Ulthar" from "Nightmare Suite" and a hilarious and deft personification of marijuana in "Ally, MaryJane & Me," Jorjeana Marie’s play about addiction.

Although she majored in fashion merchandising, Dashiell took some required design courses at VCU. “Things I thought I would never use came flooding back to me. We needed period costumes and I could improvise them very cheaply. It is very helpful.”

Foye is, of course, a dedicated viewer of The Restaurant, one of many. (Callers have even seen it in Kuwait.) “I watch anxiously. It’s amazing to see myself on national television every week. It proves to me more and more that I’m on the right track.” Perhaps she’ll still be watching this fall. Rumors are flying that Bravo (owned by NBC)is going to pick up the series for 16 weeks.

(In case you wondered, yes, Foye’s mother is related to classic mystery writer Dashiell Hammett.)
For more about Foye’s work:

Lovecraft: Nightmare Suite
http://www.oobr.com/top/volNine/twentyeight/0330Lovecraft.htm

Ally, MaryJane & Me
http://www.oobr.com/top/volEight/ten/AllyMaryJaneMe.htm

For a taste of The Restaurant:
http://www.nbc.com/The_Restaurant/

Foye Dashiell Debuts on "The Restaurant" on NBC
http://www.keithbobbitt.com/Rosser%20Bobbitt/foye.htm