When Janis Joplin sang "take it, take another little piece of my heart now, baby," it was just a metaphor.
But the rasping, screaming contortions she put her larynx through to unleash her raw intensity made one wonder: How could she sing like that without tearing another little piece of her throat?
So it was that Randy Johnson, writer and director of "A Night With Janis Joplin," the stage musical that centers on Joplin as an artist rather than a victim of self-destruction, showed up at a recent rehearsal at the Pasadena Playhouse with twin silvery packets of a special Canadian tea that's advertised as a "secret of the opera," capable of soothing throats and restoring taxed singing voices.