Festival of Singers - LAST CHANCE!

Chicagoland peeps! Come on out to Villa Verone (13 Douglas Avenue in downtown Elgin) from 6-8 TONIGHT, September 28, for the final installment of Elgin Opera's Festival of Singers! Beautiful singing, scrumptious Italian food, a casual atmosphere and no cover -- what more could you want?

LOLfangs!

In which our Diva is having entirely too much fun in her current show

Y'know how I mentioned the other day that this cast has an unusually high geek quotient? Well, we can add Jonathan Harker LOLcapping some of the promo photos to the list of evidence...

(click to embiggen)

Fun with the undead

I just booked a voiceover gig for animated zombies this Saturday. *beat* Err, animated as in cartoon, not as in REanimated. That would be redundant. As I understand it, the overall project is a computer game of some sort, but the scenes are hilarious on their own.

Meanwhile, over in The Land of Vampire Domestic Violence Transylvania, the Vixens are spending far too much time off to the side giggling amongst ourselves. No good can come of this. Mark my words, and watch this space...

Dracula promo photos and other fun

Ported the selection from GreenMan's Facebook group over to MySpace here. (My profile is set public, so you shouldn't have any trouble.) And the GreenMan website has been updated with some more.

We have a great cast, and are having a great time. Not least because of the unusually high geek quotient: Mina does SF and horror reviews and interviews for online video and radio, Lucy is a LARPer and costumer, Seward and Van Helsing are having an ongoing comic T-shirt duel, and pretty much everyone has participated in breaktime discussions on comics, Star Wars, and LotR topics.

Poor Drac got a quick-and-dirty fang fitting for the photo call -- not what will be worn for the show! -- which led to a forlorn and murky "How are you guys doing that?" when Lucy and I were chatting merrily away because we had each brought our own. I'm sure she's had as much practice as I have with articulating more on the tip of the tongue (not that the suggestion meshes well with the dialect he's still refining), but I also reassured him that he shouldn't have to deal with as much stuff behind his teeth as he had that day. One of those things you don't think about until you have to do it! You'll often run into people who say "Oh, this is how they do it for the movies." Which sounds fine and dandy, until you remember that pretty much all the dialogue you hear when someone is vamped out onscreen was done in ADR. We, er, don't have that option in live theatre. It's a bit more of a challenge! :-)

And another horror classic heard from...

In which our Diva continues to approve of Chicago theatre getting into the Halloween spirit nice and early

Just got an email on this one... Chicago peeps? If I can figure it out around Dracula and opera schedules, this one might have to be a group outing. What say you?

Will Act For Food is frighteningly pleased to announce our upcoming
fall production, Clive Barker's Frankenstein in Love.

Just in time for the Halloween season, Will Act For Food is thrilled and, yes, a little terrified to be bringing this play to Chicago.

Revolution and chaos.
Monsters and mutants.
Good and evil.
Life and death.
Blood and guts.

A heart-wrenching love story.
Literally.

Want the gory details?

Frankenstein in Love by Clive Barker
A Will Act For Food production
Directed by Gregory Gerhard
At Chemically Imbalanced Theater, 1420 W. Irving Park
September 25- November 1
Thursdays-Saturdays at 7:30PM
$18 general admission
$15 with nonperishable food donation (you won't have much of an appetite
anyway)
$10 Students/Seniors

For reservations, please call 773-327-9725 or visit http://www.willactforfood.com/
All food raised will benefit Lakeview Pantry, Will Act For Food's partner in community service.

Don't be scared. Come see us.

Dracula Does Chicagoland (now in at least four flavors!)

In which our Diva flies her fang-geek flag

Not that they don't spring up like mushrooms this time every year, but (a) the variety of adaptations on the local theatre scene this year seems unusual, though that may be simply because (b) I have connections to three out of the four I know about.

• The Building Stage (9/18 - 10/18) opens first, and is also the only one to which I have no connection. Original adaptation. I'm always skeptical of the Drac-as-misunderstood-hero angle, but the multimedia approach sounds promising. I've been curious about it since I saw the audition notice a couple months back -- this seems to be another group joining the burgeoning physicality-heavy theatre scene, which has been rapidly gaining traction with the success of companies like the House and Lookingglass. I've been watching the trend with no little interest, and it would not displease me in the least to see it become as identified with Chicago as improv is.
  
• Theatre-Hikes (9/27 - 10/26) is where I did Shrew this summer. It's TheGodawfulHamiltonDeanePlay, but I have faith in Frank's ability to make something watchable out of it, and actually suspect that the hike format will ameliorate some of my structural gripes with that script. Also, there is no such thing as a bad reason to spend a couple hours in the amazingly gorgeous Morton Arboretum.
  
• First Folio Shakespeare Festival (10/1 - 11/2) has opted for The Passion of Dracula, a tongue-in-cheek take that premiered in the late 70s. I've read it once, years ago, but never seen it produced. Tricky script -- either too much camp or too much seriousness will smash it flat. I haven't actually seen anything Alison Vesely has directed, but I've heard good things about how she handles Shakespeare comedy, which implies she knows how to trust the text. So it should be fun. Plus their Mina is a friend of mine from a couple past shows, and they're about ten minutes from Office of Doom (in the opposite direction from the next one on the list).
  
• Last but of course not least, GreenMan Theatre (10/17 - 11/2) takes on Steven Dietz's 1995 adaptation, which I like more every time I read it. And you'll all be sick of hearing about my Fun With Trying To Eat Jonathan Harker soon enough, so I'll leave it there. *g*

All systems go

In which our Diva loves theatre people who know what they're doing

If this show turns out half as awesome as what the director has in mind? We are gonna knock some serious socks off.

And from what I've seen/heard about their previous shows, and how solid the production staff seems to be, it's gonna be that awesome. I've been in my share of shows where the vision was fabulous but just couldn't be realized because the tech and admin support weren't there. All indications thus far are that these folks do not have that problem. Hallelujah.

Costume designer to Vixens at last night's rehearsal: "You guys are sex." *cackle* Doesn't get much more succinct than that...

Sometimes a girl just has to vamp it up

In which our Diva loves Halloween in theatre-land

Just accepted an offer from GreenMan Theatre Troupe to double as a bride (or, as this particular playwright has dubbed them, "vixen") and sanatorium staffer in their Dracula. Mina or Lucy would have been nice, of course (Mina remains on my short list of all-time favorite literary heroines), but all in all it looks like it's going to be a blast. First off, just from what he said at auditions, I really like how the director thinks. And it's the Steven Dietz adapation, which I've heard pretty much all positive things about -- definitely liked the bits I read, and approve wholeheartedly of how he handles the ending. Vastly superior to TheGodawfulHamiltonDeanePlay (yes, that's been all one word in my head for many years). Throw in fun movement stuff ('cause, y'know, bride) and I think I'm going to enjoy my fall.

Bonus: rehearsals and performances are conveniently about five minutes from Office of Doom. Of course, there's also two hours between the end of the business day and the start of rehearsal, which is just exactly the right amount of time to make it pointless to go home. But I can hang out at Panera or Barnes & Noble with my shiny new wee!baby!laptop and maybe actually get some writing done, so it's all good.

Crossing my fingers that the fall opera benefit on October 26 isn't too early in the evening, as I'll have a 3pm matinee that day. I hated having to miss last year's because of Horror Academy, and Solange wants me to do "This Place Is Mine" as a parody of her. Gotta love an artistic director with a sense of humor. :-D