By day, Anne Terze-Schwarz and Ben Griffin are full of giggles and quips, sitting in folding theatre chairs joking about the impact of pre-show caffeine’s effects on their stomachs and their accidentally matching shirts. 

But by night, the pair stars in Theatre SilCo’s new production of “Tenderly: The Rosemary Clooney Musical,” a two-person show dealing in the oftentimes-dark themes of the 1950s starlet’s life, from her battles with mental health and addiction to her tumultuous relationship with her mother. 

“Dealing with her mental health, how she dealt with it back then with stardom and with drugs and using that as self-medication and all the things she went through — this play picks up at her getting help and telling her story of what it takes to really work through your own demons and breakthroughs and traumas,” Terze-Schwarz explained. 

For the next month while the musical runs at the Silverthorne Performing Arts Center, she’ll portray Rosemary Clooney, in all her “complicated” glory. 

But in real life — in addition to being a performer, who’s starred in other Theatre SilCo productions like “The Book Club Play” — Terze-Schwarz spends most of her time caring for her mother, who has multiple sclerosis. 

It makes portraying Clooney extra meaningful, as her first introduction to the star’s work was through watching “White Christmas” every year with her mother. 

“I grew up listening to her,” she said. “I get to try and emulate her sound and all the things I learned from her performing-wise, as well as add these beautiful elements of telling her story in a human way that I would like my story to be told, which I think is something that I really appreciate and love about tackling this.” 

Motherhood — and the often-complex relationship between mothers and daughters — is a central theme of the show. 

“(Clooney and her siblings’) mother left when they were kids,” Terze-Schwarz explained. “Her mother didn’t really raise her the way a mother would and came back into her life later … but her mom ended up moving in and helping to take care of her kids when she’s on the road. Even Rosemary as she got older would say that her and her mother were close. I think it’s a very complicated relationship that they share.” 

Clooney’s mother is one of 12 total roles played by Griffin. 

“Something that’s going to stick with me is working on the relationship that the mother has with Rosie and how that is mirrored between the two of them,” he said. “Female friendships and relationships are so interesting, especially as a man who is on the outside of that, so to experience that in some way is always revealing and always very interesting.”

Griffin plays every role in the two-person show other than Rosemary Clooney herself, from Betty Clooney to Bing Crosby.

“For Bing Crosby, I have a pipe. For Frank Sinatra, I have a hat,” he said. “They’re just little suggestions, but a lot of what I do to make distinct differences between the characters is much more about the vocal quality and the physical qualities that I have. For instance, I play Father O’Reilly, who’s a Catholic priest. I imagine him as a little bit older, so my physical characteristics follow that — he’s a little more hunched, he moves a little more slowly.” 

One of his larger roles in the show is as Clooney’s psychiatrist, who helps shepherd the story along as Clooney tells him the story of her life. 

“It’s interesting to play the doctor, to try to find the neutral ground that allows for Anne as Rosemary to play in this space,” Griffin said. “I find that to be a really good connection between myself and the doctor as far as: how do we take up space and how do we allow others to be their best self?” 

For Terze-Schwarz, being her best self on stage looks like showing the real woman behind the celebrity figure best known for songs like “Tenderly” and “Come On-a My House.”

“It’s really a story being told about this really lovely woman that everyone knows a certain way, but I don’t think everyone really knew her,” she said. “I love to play a complicated woman.” 

For all of Clooney’s complexities, both Terze-Schwarz and Griffin said that — as performing artists themselves — they found ways to relate to the pressure she felt to appear a certain way to appeal to audiences. 

“When I step into an audition room, when I step into a callback room or any kind of theatre space that’s social, I do have a bit of being ‘on.’ It’s interesting to try to dissect that and see how we can bring more of our personal self into the room and not just the self that we want to present in order to get a job,” said Griffin.

To Chris Alleman, the show’s producing artistic director, the pressures of the spotlight — shown through the lens of Clooney’s “storied” career — is what he hopes audiences take away after watching the show. 

“The show is highly entertaining. It’s a lot of music that our patrons are going to know and recognize, but it shows the human side of someone that we typically may have lifted onto a pedestal,” he said. “It’s a great way to entertain our patrons but also bring forth a subject matter that is prevalent today, just as much as it was, if not more today, than it was during that time.” 

“Tenderly: The Rosemary Clooney Musical,” opened on Tuesday evening and will run through Sept. 13. To buy tickets to the show or learn more, visit TheSilCo.org.