Dracula quote list

In which our Diva records the lighter backstage side of her last theatrical endeavor

Missing my Dracula peeps tonight. It really was one of those special casts. And how can you not miss people who say stuff like this...

Dracula Quote List
GreenMan Theatre Troupe, Fall 2008

You're like his pocket Vixens.
-- That's the only time I've ever been referred to as anyone's pocket anything.

The necks on her mark are gone!

Can I have both of them?

What'd you bring us from England, Daddy?

But you've mastered your fear. Jedi vampire.

You are for the ages.
-- He says that to all the girls.

I have experience stripping people that fast.
-- I heard that about you.

Be right with you, Sewie.
-- Soo-ee!

The complacent man!

I see. A gift from an ancient enemy.
-- *beat* Yes. It is.

Vampire domestic violence yay!

Don't worry. You're perfectly sane here.

So it is a cross in his pocket.
-- And he's not at all happy to see her.

Get used to that sofa, Jonathan.

I seen it with mine own toon eyes!

I am not... going to... keep talking.

You're probably gonna give him a creepy stare. And then you'll run away like a little bitch.

Stunt Lucy!

In the name of the Father.
-- *silence*
-- And of the Son.
-- *silence*
-- And of the Holy Ghost.
-- *beat* Oh, I'm sorry. *unholy shriek*

I just call it his bag of tricks. God knows what he's got in there. Van Helsing and his bong.

There's a clown loose in this room with a knife!
-- Disguised as a pen!

That is disturbing.
-- Jonathan "Hara-Kiri" Harker.

You ought to talk to Bluebeard about that locking-us-up thing. It never ends well.

Crash. Bang. Lighting effect.

Wow. You have read ALL of the Sparkle!Crack. I applaud you.

I don't do body fluids.
-- And yet you're in this show.

Every time I do this, I injure you.

I mean, he can just use his Jedi mind trick, and there goes the door.

NOOOOOOOO!! ... Sorry.

Maybe it's sort of crablike.
-- We're going to be everything in the animal kingdom by the time this show is done.

Have not his outbursts coincided with Miss Lucy's... whatever?

There we shall cut off her head and stuff her mouth with garlic.
-- How about driving a stake through her heart first?
-- THEN we will cut off her head and stuff her mouth with garlic.
-- There's no garlic.
-- Do you want some garlic bread?

The tools, Mr. Harker!
-- Power drill.

Now you can procure a ship, Seward.
-- I'll procure a ship and... be a sailor. Line.

I wear the pants in this relationship.
-- Which makes us the garter belt.

And you must be... Mmmmmmina. *squeak* I suck!

I have baby in my hair.

Let's take it from the Seward toss.

Go, Christina!
-- Now we know what this show is about.
-- Where's the riding crop?

So, Mina, we'll hook you up to nobody here. It's a magic transfusion.

He's just a wanton toddler with a violin.

I knew there would be a place for me in your kingdom, a holy *kak*.

It's like I'm catching you and throwing you, all with one hand.
-- Catch and release.

That can't be right. I haven't been to Budapest.

You've got a soup bowl there.
-- I do?
-- The big gold thing.
-- I thought it was a chamberpot.

With what power do you lure the living shit?

Is that what happens? You die, go to heaven, and become a Vixen?

Let's hope you're down in there, so I can go without going.
-- Go without going. Let's not pursue that thought too far.

I wanna bite you.
-- Please?

Can I have some crypt movers?

I'm having fang envy. Yours are bigger than mine.

No more projectile fang incidents!

You mean you don't have three hands?
-- I could do it with my foot. Then we'll see how coordinated I am.
-- It's like rubbing your tummy and patting your head.
-- And chewing gum.

Does she look naked to you?
-- Not naked enough.

There's going to be stuff in that rat. Try not to get it in your eyes.

It's as close to real blood as you can get and still be edible.
-- Real blood is edible.

What flavor are they?
-- Christ-flavored.
-- I can't believe it's not Christ.

And the Vixens give "baby wipes" a whole new meaning.

Can you try to stand steady while the cross is burning?

I feel like we're giving blood. Except I don't get a cookie, dammit!

I'm singing lullabies to the tortillas. That's really all I can do.

Welcome! I am pantsless! *evil laugh*

I give you full permission to do whatever you want. And I don't say that to many men.

I can store everything in here. It's the breast place for it.

There's a whole new meaning to "sucking chest wound."
-- It's more licking.
-- Slurping.

You let someone see your ass?
-- I let him touch it. I didn't let him see it.

You are weak now, but here is roofies.

She can slip me anything she wants.

Who am I kidding? I'm the most anti-deadpan guy I know.
-- Are you undeadpan?

Elgin Opera Festival of Singers is back!

In which our Diva is once again singing for her supper

Every Sunday in December, 6-8 pm, Villa Verone Ristorante Italiano 13 Douglas Avenue in downtown Elgin.

Come out and enjoy a great Italian meal and classics of opera, Broadway and the holiday season with artists of Elgin OPERA. No cover, but reservations are recommended - call (847) 742-0263.

I'll be missing next Sunday, the 14th, but will be performing at the rest, as well as emceeing on the 21st.

Great food, great music... What more could you want?

Random tidbits of Hollywood Midwest

In which our Diva's illustrious movie career moves a step up the ladder with Cyrus

In no particular order:

• Patricia Belcher is down-to-earth, professional, and an all-around class act. I am now officially a fan, and am privileged to have spent a day on set eating stone cold hamburgers with her.
  
• I know "interior" does not necessarily preclude "freezing frickin' cold." I KNOW this. Next time I neglect to pack longjohns? Shoot me.
  
• SAG "ultra low budget" (which has a specific definition that determines requirements for pay levels, how many non-union actors you can employ, etc.) is still "way more resources than almost anything else I've ever been in." Which is just...so much less stressful a way to work, I can't even begin to tell you. For a zillion little completely practical reasons. I could totally get used to working in that sort of environment, lemme tell ya. I don't need some big wasteful blockbuster loaded with superstars with a zillion frivolous riders on their contracts. Just a nice professional set with a good day's work to do.
  
• Favorite moment: Brian Krause (who was directing second unit while I was there; he plays the title character in the present day) bounding into the talent trailer announcing "I just made a hamburger on camera!" Which was immensely cool because "usually they hand you the stuff already done, but I don't think I ever actually put food together on camera before. This is so going on my reel!" (I, of course, was thinking "Well, maybe if Piper hadn't been quite so possessive of her kitchen..." Because I pride myself on my professionalism, but I will never not be a geek on the inside.)
  
• Runner-up favorite moment: While getting my makeup done, listening to a conversation between an assistant director and the SFX makeup guy that started with "We need to kill someone with a pitchfork," and wended its way through "All the extras want to get killed." -- "Wouldn't you?" to "One guy wants to be decapitated" and everyone in the trailer cracking up. Yes, there are limits to the magic, folks, at least on location on the spur of the moment. Sad but true.
  
• I missed Lance Henriksen by about three hours, which makes me sad. My current wishlist involves some sort of premiere party where I will get to shake his hand and think "Dude, I am IN A MOVIE WITH LANCE HENRIKSEN." Because that's just not going to stop being cool anytime soon.
  
• Though of course the people I actually worked with are no less cool, cast and crew alike, and I would work with any of them again in a heartbeat under pretty much any circumstances. I wish it had been for more than one shooting day!
  
• Joel Castleberg is, like, the complete opposite of the Hollywood producer stereotype. He was right out there with us in the cold, always upbeat and personable and just plain nice.
  
• When I took my leave of the wrap party (which, judging by the pictures, I'm really sorry to have missed most of on account of having to drive back early the next day), the director, Mark Vadik, thanked me for "making my job easy." Considering the company I was in, I can't think of anything better for him to have said. If there's anything I want to get a reputation for, that's it: I do my job, do it well, and don't create bumps in the road to getting the day in the can. That's the thing that will get me hired again, and just incidentally the way I actually enjoy working all day. And his saying that helps me believe this wasn't just a fluke, and motivates me to keep putting myself out there for more and better.

There's probably stuff I'm forgetting, but mostly I'm just happy to have felt so at home and felt like I did decent work. It just felt like the right place to be working. I learned so so much, but wasn't so green I didn't belong. It was perfect.

Dear Universe: More, please?

Requiem for a dreamer

In which our Diva remembers a friend gone too soon, and refuses to gnash her teeth

Penguins and Johnny Cash. La Femme Nikita and Britney Spears. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Facts of Life theme. Abby's eccentric body of fannish music videos certainly doesn't say everything about her by any means, but somehow it seems like the right place to start.

I'm not the first to say I don't remember for sure when I first met her in person, though I'm fairly sure it was before MediaWest*Con in '98, with her attitude-dripping Cordy impersonation in our Buffy skit for the masquerade, and the chorus of beep beep beeps warning bystanders every time she backed up her chair. If that was the first time, it didn't feel like it, as so often happened with Sunnydale Slayers or FORKNI-L folks. As Merlin Missy so eloquently reminds us in her newest column, the bonds in the fandom community are about far, far more than our shared love of a show or book series or movie.

I don't remember the name of the author or the book that introduced the notion of modern Western women forming "tribes," or which of the Horsechicks of the Apocalypse pointed it out as applying to us. My "tribe" is around the intersection of college friends, fandom, and acting, with the Horsechicks a solid chunk of it. When apocalyptic designations were being claimed (I'm still not sure how I got away with Madness all to myself!), Abby dubbed herself the Stable Girl. And for all that she was rightfully known for her wicked and wacky humor, occasionally leading to the nickname being altered to (Un)Stable Girl, she was about as stable as it got. That sense of perspective -- not that the "little things" never bothered her, or that she didn't gripe about them once in a while, but she knew how to keep them in their place. As an old Reader's Digest anecdote I dimly remember put it, she knew the difference between a problem and an inconvenience. (Check out the articles she and her mom wrote following the Apocalypse that descended upon Las Vegas to celebrate the 30th birthday everyone once assumed she'd never see.) And a problem had to be a real problem to qualify, and the inconveniences just weren't worth energy that was better spent elsewhere. We should all be so wise.

That double meaning of "Stable Girl" led to a ridiculous mental cartoon image I've had for years, of the whole giggling gaggle of us piled in an inverted human pyramid on her chair, careening through an unsuspecting crowd, possibly in the dealer's room at a con. (It's only the number of passengers that's ridiculous in that scenario. Just ask Perri.)

Like others, I see her now, standing tall, striding strong, dancing as she always dreamed. But I have to think she also has the fastest, most maneuverable, most badass hot-rod of a power chair EVER to play with sometimes. Just for fun. And an excuse to beep.

"And then Teal'c took off his shirt."