How far would you go to find your soul?

In which our Diva will be heard but not seen, and is totally okay with that

Exciting news today! Voice of the Vespers, the independent sci-fi feature for which I did the opening narration and some other voice acting, will premiere in just four weeks' time!

I think I've posted the trailer before, but it's super shiny and I'm bursting with pride for writer/director Matthew Van Howe and the whole cast and crew, so here it is again:



The premiere will be held at 9:30 pm Friday, May 30, at the Classic Cinemas Ogden 6 in Naperville. Tickets are just $5. Check out the deets over on the Classic Cinemas website.

Please come on out and celebrate with us!

The wolf is waiting

In which our Diva sees a little action

Just after Christmas, I got a Facebook message from Nathyn Masters: "Are you available Friday or Saturday?" I've worked with Nate on a couple projects, including his epic supernatural action feature Epitaph: Bread and Salt (which, in cast you missed it, you can view in its entirety on YouTube), so I happily went pretty much straight from traveling to getting my Black Widow-esque assassin on to shoot some enigmatic scenes for him with gifted actress and good friend Anita Nicole Brown, as well as meeting some new-to-me faces among what I've come to think of as the TimeCode Mechanics Rep Company.

This was a bit of an experiment, cooked up in Nate's fertile brain during a break in production on his main current project, The Perfect Letter, with no script and minimal direction. I was given the gist of what I should communicate in improvised dialogue, as well as a nice little chuck of Nate's signature comic-book-style fight work.

A few days later, it had a title - Crisis Function - a Facebook page, and a trailer:

I still know only as much as this will tell you about what it's about (and yes, I felt a little bit like I was back in the Resonance-verse - definitely in a good way!), but I'm looking forward to seeing it all play out!

Crew members your indie film needs

In which our Diva has noticed some consistent oversights

When I encounter someone visiting a film set for the first time, I can almost guarantee they will say something like "I had no idea there would be so many people! And they're all working!" I've heard it on big studio productions, and I've heard it on little student films with skeleton crews, relatively speaking.

The latter end of the scale is a necessity of minimal budgets, of course, but sometimes filmmakers let those crews get a little too skeletal. And I'm not entirely convinced that is a necessity. People doing double or triple duty is one thing. Entire areas of responsibility left to more or less fend for themselves is quite another. This list is in no particular order (mostly because the impact of the lack of someone doing a given job will vary by production), and by no means guaranteed complete, but these are the gaps I've noticed time and again.

Costume Designer. Okay, I said "no particular order," but this is the one I would probably be doing if I weren't an actor, so I get soapboxiest about it. Clothes do not just happen. Your clothes, what you are wearing at this moment, did not just happen. You might or might not have thought about the reasons you bought those particular pieces (or why someone bought them for you), and why you pulled them out of the closet or drawer this morning, but there are reasons all the same. Making a film is creating a world and the people in it. In order to do that, someone needs to figure out what clothes those people would own and wear, and why.

In the microbudget world, you're probably not making a detailed period film (and if you are, you'd better have at least a year to set aside for pre-production -- Team Witchfinder, I salute you!), and you're almost certainly not looking for someone to build a bunch of clothes from scratch. What you need is someone who pays attention to clothes and what they say about people, knows how to shop (especially thrifting), and preferably has a good sense of color. If you have no budget for wardrobe, that same knowledge is what they need to guide the actors to plunder their own closets effectively. Because I'm sorry, directors, but the vague guidelines I get the vast majority of the time? Rarely result in anything resembling the image you have in your head. And I know this stuff. A lot of actors don't. Directors don't have time -- or, often, knowledge -- to work out all the details of how to make a look happen. That's why they need costume designers.

Separate Director and Producer. That thing I just said about "directors don't have time?" It's going to be a theme here. There are exceptions to every rule, and if you're super-detail-oriented and driven, you might be one of them. But chances are there's a whole swathe of business and organizational stuff you dread having to deal with. That's because it's supposed to be someone else's job. Especially if everyone involved also has a day job. Riding herd on all the artistic stuff and the business stuff AND a day job? Will send pretty much any director to the hospital. That's why they need producers.

Script Supervisor. Another one that tends to fall to actors. Which, aside from the energy drain of keeping track of our own continuity, is just supremely uncomfortable in the chain-of-command sense. When everything is ready to roll and everyone is looking at me, I feel super-extra-squirmy holding up my hand and saying "Um, wasn't his jacket zipped up before?" or whatever, because it's not my job. It is, in fact, perilously close to telling the director how to direct, which is the biggest actor no-no in the universe. But unless a director has a flawless eidetic memory, sooner or later some detail is going to fall through the cracks in the course of making the big picture happen. That's why they need script supervisors.

Grips and PAs. Lots and lots of grips and PAs. Unless you are physically tripping over people in every direction (and, depending on how close the quarters are at your location, sometimes even then), there is no such thing as too many hands. Some directors take pride in participating in the grunt work, and that's awesome. I applaud that. But they can't direct the actors and hold a reflector at just the right angle and fetch fresh batteries and hold coats for actors pretending it isn't 30 degrees and make coffee and keep the gawkers out of frame and turn the noisy heater on and off and fetch extras from holding. That's why they need grips and PAs.

Makeup and Hair. Insert a lot of the same stuff I said about costume designers. Just because you don't need special effects doesn't mean you don't need knowledgeable people in charge of what your actors look like. Sure, most actors go around every day looking reasonably presentable, but most of us know sod-all about how to translate that for the camera, or how to look a way we normally don't. And a smart director knows that -- as with costume design, and a whole lot of other things -- it takes skill to present something in a way that the audience doesn't notice or think about it. That's why they need makeup artists.

But where do I find these people? If you have next to no budget, it's a serious question. In which case, if you don't already have one, you really need to start with that producer. That's when it's important for that person to be good at finding answers to things. Like "What does the person doing this job need to know?" and "Where should I look for someone who knows those things who might be willing to pitch in?" If you know people, you probably know people who can do these jobs. Organized and detail-oriented? Ask them to be script supervisor. Makes the rounds of all the thrift stores in the area once a week? Sound them out about costume design. Somebody's cousin is a Mary Kay distributor? Talk to them about makeup.

And of course there are scads of indie filmmaking forums, Facebook groups, and so on. On many of them, any post actually looking for crew (as opposed to spamming self-promotion) will get noticed and get responses. Obviously it's better if you're paying (even if it's just a modest stipend), but if you genuinely absolutely can't pay anyone (most definitely including yourself), there's someone out there who'll be interested in doing it for fun.

In all seriousness, if you can't find people to fill all the jobs a film really needs filled, I urge you to seriously consider whether you should be making this film right now. If you wait and do it right, if everyone has a great experience on your set because it actually felt like a team working together to make an awesome thing, if it's not a desperate shorthanded effort to just get something, anything, in the can so we can all go home and put this nasty business behind us? Not only will you have a better film at the end of the day, but you'll have a bunch of people who would work with you again in a heartbeat, will refer their friends the next time you need crew, and will proudly support and publicize your baby.

Endings and Beginnings

In which our Diva has two of one and one of the other

Ending the First: Final weekend of Macbeth at GreenMan Theatre Troupe! I couldn't have asked for a more amazing experience playing That Scottish Lady, thanks to director David Soria, my marvelous Mackers Carl Zeitler, and too many more people to list even though each and every one of them is thirty-one flavors of awesome. If you're planning to come out this weekend (and I hope you are!), a little box-office birdie tells me Saturday night in particular is filling up, and reservations are recommended for any of the three remaining performances.

Ending the Second: Also in the category of Awesome People I'm Glad To Have Met is the ever-affable Andy, host of the Being Human Cast podcast. I met Andy when we were both on the Being Human discussion panel at Dragon*Con 2010, and have had the privilege of babbling nigh-endlessly about that remarkable example of TV storytelling as guest host on several episodes of the podcast. After some soul-searching, Andy made the tough decision to close the podcast's three-year run with Episode 38, and kindly invited me to join him in a wrap-up discussion of the end of Series 3 and an overview of Series 4. We examine the resolution of Mitchell's tragic arc; take a moment to bid farewell to Daisy, my favorite free-spirited vampire and occasional cosplay alter-ego; give Nina, George, and Annie some well-deserved love; and spend a bit of time pondering where things are going with the newest denizens of Honolulu Heights. If you're a Being Human fan, give it a listen, and let us know what you think!

And a beginning! The moment I get home from post-closing festivities for Macbeth, I'll be packing my set bag to start filming Witchfinder the very next day. After all the detailed prep work, it's finally time for the dark historical world the crew have been building to come alive. I'll bet even my stunt double over there is looking forward to it, and she can't even stand up without a little help from production designer Arianne Clarke and costume designer Alisha Tyler! What a dummy...

Voicing the Vespers

In which our Diva has the title role, in a manner of speaking

Check out the amazing-looking first trailer for this unique SF feature, independently produced entirely in Chicagoland with all local creative staff, talent, and crew.



I was initially brought on board to do just the opening narration, but the gig evolved into a little bit more. Can't say more until the movie is out, but I'm excited to see/hear how it all came together!

Be sure to check out the offical site, like Voice of the Vespers on Facebook, or follow the production on Twitter to learn more!

The stuff of fairy tales

Still a zillion things going on, and my brain is too busy to organize them into a post that makes sense, but I just had to share this bit of gorgeousness.

There's been a flurry of activity on the Rose White publicity front this week, leading up to the trailer expected to be released in the next few weeks.  I've seen a rough cut of the film, and couldn't be more excited to be part of it. I really think it stands out as unique in the current indie film landscape, and have high hopes that it will take the festival circuit by storm. Even better, it comes from a savvy team who know that it's not enough to just make a great film -- you have to get eye-catching suppport materials out there and spread the word too.

Enter Dennis Willman of Iron Dead Studios, who's created this amazing poster in the best fantasy-movie tradition. Just blown away.

It's January, but no molasses here!

In which our Diva has a few irons in the fire

Who says things slow down in winter? Not the Chicagoland indie film community! Just updated my website with deets on upcoming projects, including The Dragon's Alley, a sci-fi webseries slated to premiere on February 9. Details are under pretty close wraps until then, but I can tell you I play an alien weapons expert named Tchind Vifge (say that ten times fast!), and I'm having a blast with its old-school Flash Gordon sort of vibe. I'm only in one scene in the first batch of five webisodes, but don't worry, there's more to come!

After that, I have three horror shorts of varying flavors lined up all in a row: Words Like Knives, Trapped, and The Hazed.

Plus, of course, still determined to finish writing Unvarnished, as well as regrouping a bit on the Chicago Resonance storyline. No rest for the wicked!

Rose, rose, rose red

In which our Diva is heard but not yet seen

Take a gander at the lovely and spooky teaser for Rose White! As previously noted, my role is a small one, so I didn't expect to appear in the teaser at all. But my voice does (and thankfully doesn't sound as ragged as it felt that night)!

Even though I was only on set a few hours, the great group of people involved in this unique film (who continue to work hard) have welcomed me as part of the family, and I look forward to all their hard work and dedication being rewarded with a great reception for it. Fingers crossed!

Rose White Teaser from Dan Kuhlman on Vimeo.

Ready for my closeup

In which our Diva is back in front of the camera

So that film role I mentioned in my last post? Already shot! It's spring, and things are moving fast. As producer and star Deneen Melody has pointed out, the on-screen appearance of Mother in Rose White is brief but dramatically pivotal, and her presence is felt throughout the film. Those few moments were some of the most intense emotional work I've yet done on camera, and I'm excited to see the outcome! Wishing lots of love and energy to the rest of the cast and crew as they continue working. This one's going to be special, I can feel it in my bones.

Check out the fun behind-the-scenes photos from Sunday's shoot over on the film's Facebook page!

No rest for the wicked, as I start dipping my toes into the producer pool myself, with the first Chicago scene for Resonance scheduled to film this Saturday. It's a half-day shoot on a very small scale, just a conversation between two characters that will form the first puzzle pieces of the Resonance narrative events centered in Chicago. But there's lots to do to be ready for even that! To keep abreast of local developments as the story grows and we move ever closer to the launch of public content, check out Resonance Chicago on Facebook.

In the meantime, as an appetizer, the core team has launched wecreateresonance.com, a new home for sneak previews and tidbits. Spread the word! Something is happening...

Once upon a time

In which our Diva ventures into the deep, dark forest

As I've been hinting for a couple days over on Twitter and Facebook, I've been sitting on some good casting news. With the green light from production, I can tell you I'll be playing Mother in Rose White, a dark fantasy retelling of "Snow White and Rose Red."  I'm a sucker for that sort of thing anyway, so it's doubly delightful to be a part of it, and if the concept art and promo photos -- which you can see at the official site and also on the film's Facebook page -- are anything to go by, this thing's gonna be gorgeous. (Also scary and disturbing, but those are pluses in my book.)

It's also a kick to be reunited with the lovely, talented, and very hardworking Deneen Melody, whom I met on Holiday Carvings, and who is branching out into producing for this endeavor. There's a great team on board for filming next month, and I'm excited to meet them all!

I always have to be reminded that "Snow White and Rose Red" is a lesser-known fairy tale, as it's one of my childhood favorites. It's in the Fairy Tales and Rhymes volume of the four-book box set of Little Golden Book compilations I've had as long as I can remember, and the Gustaf Tenggren illustrations are clearly imprinted on my mind's eye.  I just pulled it out and reread it for the first time in ages, and was struck by the calm practicality of the two girls, in the face of tantrum-throwing dwarves and unexpected bears. When life throws them curve balls, they do what they need to do. I'm not giving anything away by saying Rose White won't have the bright illustrations or the standard happy ending, but that core idea is very much intact.

It's one of those funny cultural moments, that this project was already in development when Hollywood went back to the fairy-tale well with Red Riding Hood and Beastly, but of course it's not a well that's going to run dry any time soon. (I had to just sort of stare at someone who thought a horror take on Red Riding Hood was something weird and unheard-of. No judgment on the new movie -- I haven't seen it yet, and I'm not a big fan of the "if it reminds me of anything anyone else has ever done it's pointless" mentality anyway -- but, um, that impression would be incorrect.) The impulse to strip away the protective coating from fairy tales and expose their often-dark hearts is a compelling one, fueling films, novels, and notably the long-running Vertigo comic series Fables, in which Snow White (who is also the one with the dwarves) and Rose Red have a very complex sisterly relationship indeed.

Kid stuff, right? ;->

Song for today: "Rose Red," of course. The track that got me hooked on Emilie Autumn riffs on the folk song, which some people interpret as a veiled reference to the Wars of the Roses (for slightly more plausible reasons than the old saw about "Ring Around the Rosy" being about the Black Plague), and which in any case appears to be unrelated to the fairy tale. But I love it a lot, and it's a perfect auditory complement to the stunning Rose White promo art.

Holiday greetings of a... different kind

From writer/director Travis Legge and the whole Plastic Age Productions team. Not content with being up to his eyebrows in final post-production on Travis' debut feature Raymond Did It, we shot this short just last weekend, and the crack team had it completed and online for Christmas morning.



I love these people. And you're pretty darn cool too! Have a very merry Christmas, and/or a blessed (if belated) light-filled winter holiday of another tradition.

How I spent my Christmas vacation

Or rather, the weekend before it. To wit, shooting this heartwarming tale of holiday togetherness:



If I thought a camera could capture what I see looking out my window right now, I'd snap a photo. Snow and fog, just at the edge of twilight. Magical. But I think a photo would just end up looking dreary. So ephemeral, these things.

Blessed Solstice to all and to all a good night!

Horrors!

In which our Diva is all for a bit of blood on one's hands

Some of you lovely folks follow the horror blogosphere, but I think most don't, so you may not be aware of the buzz around this weekend's watershed release of Hatchet II.

What makes it watershed, as discussed in more detail in this article over at Dread Central, is that it marks the first theatrical release of an unrated horror movie in over 25 years. If the experiment proves financially viable for AMC Theatres, it could pave the way for commercial release of more envelope-pushing independents, with their content intact, on big screens.  The current discussion is centering on horror, obviously, but the ripples could be felt in other genres as well.

Now, maybe none of this is your bag. Maybe it makes no difference to you whether that edgy film with the niche audience turns up for a day or two at an art house if the filmmakers are lucky, or just goes straight to DVD... or maybe, just maybe, occupies a showing or two a day on one of the 20 or 30 screens in the typical suburban multiplex. And that's just it: If you don't want to see a movie, it makes no difference where you don't see it. But for those who do want to see it, and for those who made it, that single screen for a few hours a day makes all the difference in the world.

We're not talking about blockbusters here. We're not talking about tearing down Western civilization as we know it. (Though I'm sure it'll be about 45 seconds before someone takes that position, if they haven't already.) We're talking about one more little chink in the homogeneity of an industry dominated by international conglomerates whose corporate hive minds only comprehend numbers in the hundreds of millions.

Travis Legge, who directed me in Raymond Did It this past summer, is one of those filmmakers watching the developments with keen interest. He's lost a lot of sleep in the last few months, making apparently arbitrary edits, just to get the all-important MPAA green band for a trailer.



I had the opportunity to see Cyrus: Mind of a Serial Killer at last weekend's Chicago Horror Film Festival, but it didn't occur to me until later in the week that we're probably in the same boat with that one. No rating was mentioned at the screening, and I don't know whether it's been submitted for one, but to my eye it's on the edge of what makes the R grade. Our Mark Vadik took home the festival's award for Best Director, and mentioned during a brief Q&A that we're now an Anchor Bay property, with release expected early next year. It remains to be seen what form that release will take, but you can bet the company is keeping a very interested eye on what develops from this Hatchet II thing.

Which brings us to a bit of a kicker: Everybody goes for the R because everybody knows it's financial suicide to release NC-17. Thing is, I remember when NC-17 was the "respectable" relabeling of the X rating, which had been thoroughly appropriated by the porn industry. (If you've ever run across the fact that the MPAA has trademarked their ratings, and wondered why, that's the reason.)  All either rating ever meant was "No children under 17 will be allowed in to see this."  Every other bit of associated baggage has alchemized out of the collision of conservative culture and marketing.  (You could get another whole article about the advent of PG-13 in the 80s, and whole books have been written about the Hays Code, for which the MPAA was designed as the forward-thinking, filmmaker-freeing replacement!)

In the long run, in the best case scenario of what indie filmmakers are hoping for, "unrated" will eventually become the new NC-17, and we'll have to play this game all over again. But in the meantime, maybe some films that deserve a life beyond the video shelf will get one.

Shiny new reel

Eventually I'll hire someone to do this who's better at it than I am, but in the current economy, it's good to be a geek. :-)

Fairies and cannibals

In which our Diva has rather a wide range of projects

Ooops! I really didn't mean to go nearly a month between posts, but I got really busy with auditions and geekiness. The latter involved getting ready for and attending Wizard World Chicago Comic-Con and Dragon*Con, both of which were ridiculous amounts of fun.

Now they're done, and I've emerged from my sewing room to find that Cyrus: Mind of a Serial Killer will be screened at the Chicago Horror Film Festival, September 24-26. The movie will be shown on Sunday evening, and is up for several festival awards. After all the pouting I've been doing about not being able to make it to the other events where it's screened (okay, I'm still going to pout about London!), I'm seriously stoked to get to see it on a big screen locally! If you come out for it, I'd love to chat at the event.

With other projects taking precedence, I've only just now finally edited my video diary for Storefront Shakespeare's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream this past June/July. If you thought that bunch was crazy onstage...





Special thanks go to the lovely Emma Wallace for kind permission to use her song "Pet (Helena's Lament)." I discovered her through our director, Nora Manca, and just love her "modern ragtime" style. Be sure to check it out! And don't miss her blog, where she frequently offers free "song sketches" to fans.

Cyrus does Atlanta

In which our Diva wishes she could be there, and hopes you can

As I noted in passing recently, Cyrus: Mind of a Serial Killer is the closing feature at the Atlanta Horror Film Festival, tonight at 9:30. I'm a bit bummed that I can't make it, when I'll be in that very city three weeks from now for Dragon*Con!

But such is life, and I hope a bloody good time is had by all!

Sorry, wrong redhead

In which our Diva was planning to blog about something else entirely today, but...

First, the good news: As mentioned in this Fangoria interview with director Mark Vadik, Cyrus: Mind of a Serial Killer will be the closing feature at the Atlanta Horror Film Festival on August 15.  There's a bit of a kicker in the fact that it'll be in a city where I'm going to be (for Dragon*Con) just three weeks later, but it's still pretty cool.

Google Alerts are really handy for letting me know about things like that article. Then there are the... less useful links it turns up.  On today's interwebz, pretty much as soon as you have an IMDb page, you start turning up on all kinds of goofball "celebrity" sites. The one with my horoscope and biorhythms and stuff is particularly entertaining. Mostly, though, they're clutter.

In any case, most of these things are automatically generated, including the ones that pull bits of text from various places -- say, random celebrity names and assorted porny keywords -- and splice them together into bogus metadata to lure you to a page and infect your machine with malware.  At first, I thought the link that had my name and "show her left tit" in the same sentence was one of those. Then I realized that (a) the sentence made sense, and (b) it was describing a particularly intense scene in Cyrus.  There's just one... no, actually, there are a number of problems with that. But the first one that sprang to mind was that I'm not in that scene.

The link checked out according to my virus-protection software, so I let curiosity get the better of me. And yep, it was exactly what it sounded like, to wit, a site (I trust you'll excuse me for not linking it) collecting video clips of nudity or near-nudity from assorted sources. (It's apparently the updates from a particular day, which I assume explains why it randomly runs the gamut from an actual porn star's artificially enhanced full toplessness to a few frames of a Doctor Who companion's upper thighs under her fluttering nightshirt.)

Now, we all know The Internet Is For Porn. I think about that every time I hear or read a comment from an actress about how she chooses whether to do nudity in a role. The most common litmus test is whether it's integral to the story.  (Which is perfectly reasonable, if unavoidably subjective. I'm not saying there's no such thing as a story that can't be told effectively without it, but I personally think they're rarer than people tend to think.)

That reasoning is solid as far as it goes, but it only goes as far as you can rely on the story to remain intact. And these days, that's until about 24 hours after the pirated DVDs hit the streets of Bangkok or wherever. After that, congratulations! Your bits have almost certainly been yanked out of context and thrown up in sloppily-constructed virtual galleries for the convenience of any bored guy with an internet connection and a roll of toilet paper. Which is a very, very different transaction with the audience from the one you had in mind.

Thus it is that, in this particular instance, an actress who worked her ass off in an emotionally and physically exhausting role has one of its most disturbing moments amputated, its significance reduced to a glimpse of aureola. And, just to top it off, labeled with a caption identifying it as someone else entirely.

Funny thing -- Jill Sandmire was the one to note that there were four red-haired women among the principal cast: herself, Anne Marie Leighton, Patricia Belcher, and me.

Four quite distinct women, or so we concluded during that idle conversation between shot setups. But apparently we're interchangeable to some virtual voyeur who's only interested in our bits.

Stay classy, pal.

One night to get it right

In which our Diva is a snarky waitress named Sheila


The feature I worked in last summer, One Night, is now available on DVD! I've seen my scene, but not the whole film, and I'm excited to check it out. I really loved the script.

It's a sort of postmodern romantic comedy in the vein of Garden State or The Pompatus of Love, and was very much a labor of love for the writer/director, Sebastian Howley, who's a great guy with all kinds of big dreams. I hope he achieves them all.

If I had a million dollars

In which our Diva displays her preference for experiences over stuff, though stuff is nice too

If I had a spare few hundred bucks lying around:

When I designed costumes for Barnum a few years back, I got to participate in one of the circus workshops arranged for the cast at The Actor's Gymasium. A. Maze. Ing. I've wanted ever since to do a full session of their aerial class. I'm still determined to get the knack of wrapping my feet in the Spanish web so I can actually climb up to the loop and play. I did have a great time on the lyra, though, and also discovered that I do in fact still have my 180-degree split -- by being hoisted seven feet off the floor that way!  They're also affiliated with Lookingglass Theatre, one of the companies at the vanguard of physical theatre in Chicago.

If I had a spare grand or so lying around for airfare and lodging, I'd be headed to London in October for the UK premiere of Cyrus: Mind of a Serial Killer at the Gorezone Film Festival. (Despite the topless promo photo of one of the emcees at the top of their webpage.) I love a good horror weekend anyway, it'd be all kinds of fun to do the whole red carpet thing, and I could visit with friends in the UK. My role in that is, of course, too minor for them to send me anywhere, but I'm still holding out hope that there will be some kind of event Stateside that I could go to. Apparently it's already out on DVD in Australia (a couple blog reviews have popped up on my Google Alert), and I'm hoping to get a copy of it soon.

If I had a spare three or four grand, and the ability to take a month off besides, I'd finally go to Shakespeare & Company's full Intensive program. I learned so much just in the couple weekends of theirs I've done -- one in 1995 and another in 2001 -- that's still very much at the core of my actor's toolbox.

Of course, spare cash lying around is, as for pretty much everyone else these days, not so much something I have. I'll just have to make do with playing one of my dream roles in an exciting production with a brand-new theatre company. Darn. ;-)

Song for today: Been running through my head, and inspired this post. Which, considering I've been neglecting this blog for a couple weeks for lack of inspiration, is a darn good thing.

Gotta say, though, I have several real green dresses, and I don't think there's anything cruel about them. ;-)

Stages and stages

In which our Diva is all along the continuum

This weekend is like a microcosm of the various stages (in the first sense) of what I do. Yesterday during the day was all about shooting another student film, which was a lot of fun because this one was all improvised within a relatively loose structure. I thought it was going to be mostly nonverbal, which as you may have read before I'm kind of ambivalent about these days. On the one hand, I love that aspect of the work, whether doing it myself or watching it in others, and I'm actually kind of proud that I'm developing something of a reputation for specializing in it. On the other hand, though, there's a lot of it on my reel, and the industry and audiences at large still put a high premium on how you deliver dialogue. So I'd kind of like to do more of that, please! (With some cool nonverbal mixed in. That'd be awesome.)

So it was a nice surprise to get on set and find that the director actually wanted me and another actor to talk to one another much more than either of us had expected. The conversation evolved from one thing at the beginning of the day to something really quite different by the time we wrapped, with various takes and angles. I'm looking forward to seeing how it ends up cut together. So much of how your character comes off in a film is almost as much about the editing as about your acting -- just a completely different way to go about telling a story!

Speaking of editing, I went from that shoot to a low-key cast & crew screening of Tasting the End, which looks fantastic. It's a story that certainly could be told in a straight line, and still be effective. But that's not the way Ken chose, and the results are dynamic but still flow and make sense. It's a terrific example of what a filmmaker can do these days with next to no money, and I'm crossing my fingers that it'll get some festival play. It definitely deserves to be seen.

Today I'm delving into my theatre past on various stages (in the second sense), converting some old videos with an eye toward maybe uploading a clip or three to my YouTube account, just for fun. Stay tuned.

And looking toward my theatre future: I've been itching a bit to get back onstage, and have an audition today for one of my dream roles. Won't say any more until I know whether I get it -- not superstitious, that's my story and I'm sticking to it, but there are so many auditions I'd never get anything done if I posted in detail about the stuff I won't get to do! So again, stay tuned.

Song for Today: "The Mummers' Dance" by Loreena McKennitt, just because I was listening to it in the car last night and it's running through my head. It's associated in my head with all sorts of amazing images, mostly because it was used for the theatrical trailer for Ever After. I'll never forget being halfway up the aisle to see a movie that spring, hearing a few bars of the song, and turning around to stand and stare openmouthed at all the gorgeous on the screen. The movie did not disappoint, and is still one of my all-time faves.