Grace Love, the big-voiced front woman of her band Grace Love and the True Loves, has always been a verbal person. She’s loquacious, direct, most often up for a conversation on any topic — even with her computer. 

In fact, it was in conversation with her computer, so to speak, that the seeds for Love’s brand new, upcoming one-woman show — Sex, Drugs, Rock & Soul — on Saturday, February 27, at the Vera Project were planted. 

“The ideas for the show,” says Love, “started 10 years ago. I’ve always been a writer; I’ve always just loved talking to my computer, just sitting at the computer and typing. The show, at first, was just like a journal entry. Then it started turning into these characters and that started turning into a stage play.”

In the process of producing the play, Love looked for a lead actress, but nothing felt right. So, she cast herself despite only wanting originally to produce and direct the show. “I did another revamp and made it into a one-woman show,” she says of the 50-minute performance. 

Despite the fact that she’s the sole actor in the play, the show will include a backing choir and an aerialist. But what’s the story about?

“It’s a coming of age story,” says Love. “But it does deal with sex, addiction (like drinking), homelessness.”

Love says she was homeless for “a long, long time” in New York City. 

“I would sleep on subway trains,” Love admits, “spent time at a couple of shelters, when I could find a couch or floor to sleep on I would stay there. Mostly, I was just trying to find something that had a covering over it.”

It’s this understanding of not having anything that has largely shaped Love’s perspective. She is one of Seattle’s musical darlings, having played live on KEXP, been asked to perform at the region’s largest music festivals and graced (pun intended!) the cover of magazines in the city. 

“It’s that Bob Marley quote, ‘You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice.’ I think that’s why I don’t really cry as much now. It’s kind of a sad thing, but when I do cry it’s, sadly, forced.”

Love has also experienced her share of good fortune in her life. She was flown to Europe to record with a well-known DJ in the U.K. “Imagine going from the very, very bottom to being flown to Europe just based on your talent,” she says. “You see this world of how crappy people can be, then you see this light. It’s hard.”

The word ‘jaded’ comes up and Love says she was trying to teach it to a friend of hers from Israel what it means. “She didn’t understand it,” Love says, in a way implying that she herself got it, maybe too well. Does she still feel jaded? Love pauses, then says, “Yeah” with a big, beautiful, round laugh. “I think maybe less jaded now, but still…”

Love’s show isn’t the only one-person, music-backed show to come out of Seattle in recent years. Her friend, the talented and prolific Ahamefule J. Oluo, produced his one-man show, “Now I’m Fine,” to a great deal of critical acclaim. “I think me and him might sit down and discuss some stuff,” Love says coyly. “When I saw he was doing his show, I was like, ‘Ahhh.’ It made my heart feel good, that I’m not the only one being honest about the story that is my life. When I saw that, it was an even bigger push to try and get it done. It’s a means to an end for me.”

You’d think that with the show, her blossoming music career, and trying to stay sane, Love would have enough on her plate. But, she says, she has her sights on something else: opening her own restaurant; a place called Nadine’s, named after her mother who died nine years ago this month. The revenue generated from her show will go towards building the restaurant. 

“Over the last year and a half I’ve done a lot of pop-up kitchens,” she says. “Raising money is annoying and hard and all kinds of other things. I had a friend who gave me this idea — I didn’t want to use my music to raise money, but she said that’s where everyone supports me. So I decided to go for it. People don’t know I have a culinary background, but I do! So this thing is kind of like two birds with one stone. Raise money and do the show and be done with it.”

With all this swirling around, Love keeps perspective. 

“People love me now,” she says, “but will they love me forever? I don’t know. For me, as a person who hasn’t had a lot in her life and has had things fall through, I’ve always wanted a backup plan.” 

 

Sex, Drugs, Rock & Soul is slated for 6 & 8 p.m. Sat., Feb. 27 at the Vera Project, 305 Hamilton St., 206.956.8372, theveraproject.org. $20-$45. All ages.