Godspeed Challenger

In which our Diva remembers

Thirty years ago today, about ten minutes into chemistry class, the phone rang.

Before that moment, I don't think any of us had really noticed that there was a phone in the science room. We all stared, bewildered, as our teacher walked over, picked it up, listened silently for a moment, and put it back down. Then, still without a word, he pulled out the TV cart and turned it on.

I don't remember hearing a word spoken for at least an hour that didn't come from that TV. There might have been an announcement over the PA at some point, but if so I didn't really register it.

It took several minutes to grasp what we were seeing, that somewhere in that enormous plume across the sky -- too big, all wrong -- were the atoms of what had been seven brave, excited people.

He never said, but I can't imagine Mr. Underwood didn't apply for the seat Christa McAuliffe sat in that day. The man who hosted the Science Club at his own house, playing an old 45 of "They're Coming to Take Me Away" at the beginning and end of each meeting, presiding over discussions of when we would next take the Van de Graaff generator over to the elementary school to raise little kids' hair or how one might build a working lightsaber. The one who nominated me for both my Society of Women Engineers awards, even as I was realizing my career path led through all the stories I had to tell.

But I knew that plume was all wrong, too big, because I had watched so many of them rise into the sky before. Most of us in that class were born the year Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. None of us remembered a time when the countdown and the ignition and the rising column of smoke weren't events to look forward to on TV, to hope they fell on teacher in-service days during the school year, to tape when VCRs became a thing. The "send a civilian to space" idea happened because the public was losing interest, a fact that was utterly baffling to me when I read about it.

When I was a little girl (big enough to know that "pirate" and "Jedi" weren't actual options, but before I figured out they came under the heading of "actor"), I wanted to be a ballerina or an astronaut. Preferably both. By 1986, three years into a twelve-inch growth spurt that threw my center of gravity so far off I didn't find it until I was about 25, "ballerina" was pretty firmly off the table. But "astronaut" was still very much in the mix, alongside a few other options that had cropped up over the years. I was even considering applying to the Air Force Academy the following summer, for the sole reason that it was how you got to be an astronaut. (Well, one way. But Annapolis was two time zones away while Colorado Springs was at the foot of a mountain I could see from atop the swingset in my back yard. Besides, I was an Air Force brat, and "Navy wings are made of lead." *g*)

When this anniversary comes around, there's a lot of talk about how the loss of Challenger and her crew changed NASA -- made it more cautious, made people start questioning even more whether we should be doing all this in the first place. It wasn't the first accident, but it was the first I remember seeing with my own eyes. The first to to happen when space travel had become so seemingly routine that we were sending a social-studies teacher up there.

That caution was, and is, all to the good. As much as we might yearn to stand on Mars tomorrow, we need to be careful.

These people should be celebrating this anniversary with their families. They should be telling their children, nieces and nephews, grandchildren what the Earth looked like from orbit on that January morning.

They are immortal, but they should be home. Our pioneers should not be martyrs, not if we can avoid it.

But we still need our pioneers.

Welcome (back) to Fright Night

In which our Diva gets to revisit an old friend on the big screen

Thirty years ago this summer, I got my dad and then my friend Kathy to drive me to Aurora from the booming metropolis of Bennett, Colorado (population ~1800) for three separate viewings of a movie with the dubious title of Fright Night. Once I got my hot little hands on a VHS copy, I systematically wore it out over the next couple years.

It's the tale of a teenage horror fan who happens on unusual nocturnal activities next door and quickly discovers that his new neighbor is a vampire.  It sounds like the setup for a joke, and there's no shortage of humor. But, as with so many stories that seize my little fangirl heart in their fangy jaws and run away with it ("A vampire, a werewolf, and a ghost share a house," anyone?), there's a whole lot more going on too.

All these years later, I'm gratified to know that I'm not the only one who thinks so, and that it has taken its rightful place as a horror classic. Its cast is in high demand at conventions, two limited-edition Blu-ray pressings have sold out in a snap, a forthcoming documentary blew its Kickstarter goal out of the water, and mere mention of the 2011 remake can elicit the kind of vitriol usually reserved for those who dare meddle with beloved childhood icons. (I'm secure enough in my fan cred to assert that said remake is perfectly serviceable, albeit nothing special.  But that's not a course I recommend undertaking lightly.)

Last night, at an anniversary screening as part of Bruce Campbell's Horror Film Festival at Wizard World, the Chin himself opened the festivities by asking who had seen it in the theatre. I raised my hand and confirmed that I'd done so three times, when I didn't yet have a driver's license and the nearest movie theatre was 25 miles away.

If you've ever seen Campbell in action at a fan event, you're probably not too surprised to hear that this resulted in a solid five-minute interrogation about just what was so special about this particular movie that I went to those lengths. Trying to be concise (yeah, I know, good luck with that!), I first mentioned what really was most important to 15-year-old me: "Teenagers who made more sense to me than the ones in the John Hughes movies." Pressed for further reasons, I mentioned the gorgeous production design, and how there always seem to be more details to notice in both the visuals and the characters. (Just last night I registered for the first time that the pendant worn as part of Peter's "Great Vampire Killer" outfit is a hamsa.) I didn't mention the balance of horror and humor -- so commonplace today that it's hard to remember just how groundbreaking it was in 1985 -- partly because it's so intrinsic to the film that I no longer consciously think about it, but mostly because I was thinking back to why it was so compelling to me then.

Fifteen-year-old me didn't really think much about the uniqueness of the horror/comedy thing, as much as it's gone on to become part of the DNA of so many of my favorites. She just knew she was in love with these characters and this story.

Thankfully the Groovy One finally moved on to quizzing another fan, though heaven knows I could babble for an hour about why I love this movie. About how it was a lightning strike, exactly the movie I didn't know I needed at exactly that moment in time, that might or might not have made the same impression on me if I hadn't been fifteen and smart and bouncy and weird and living in a small town that seemed hopelessly limited and limiting.

When writer/director Tom Holland did his introduction, I didn't even need to ask the one question I'd brought to the Q&A, about why he chose to make this particular story about teenagers. As he explained before the screening, his original brief for Cloak & Dagger was a sort of juvenile update of Rear Window, but the final form of the screenplay didn't go that way. Still, the idea persisted, and he reached the conclusion that the only way for it to make sense for a modern kid to see a murder through the neighbor's window and have nobody believe him or do anything about it would be if the murder he witnessed was supernatural. And the only adult he could turn to would be the horror host he watched on TV... and thus a classic was born.

They said "Be crazier than that!" I'm in the fourth row center, obliging.

Charley, Amy, and "Evil" Ed are ordinary kids living ordinary lives until they're forced to deal with something extraordinarily dangerous. We don't know what the social pecking order of their school looks like, except to infer that Ed has been bullied and that he and Charley have bonded over horror fandom. All three are just a little awkward, drawn not as stereotypical nerds, just regular kids navigating the bumpy transition to adulthood -- heightened emotions, stilted relationship talk, and all.

Amy is bouncy and optimistic and compassionate and enthusiastic and adorkable. She also bears the perpetual Hollywood onus of being "the girl" (and thus damned to represent all girls), and has taken a lot of flak over the years that -- as someone who strongly identified with her, flaws and all -- I sometimes have to remind myself not to take personally. Four years after the remake, I still bristle at dismissals of her as a flimsy damsel-in-distress in the process of praising the more assertive characterization in the update. Now, don't get me wrong -- I love Amy 2.0. Heck, when the promo stills were released, my first comment was a gleeful "Amy gets a gun. I could be on board with this." And the character we eventually saw lived up to those images and to the promise of a Marti Noxon script.

However. You don't get to say "only hung sweetly by Charley's side" about the girl who steps up save him before he ever needs to save her. (Well, it's a free country; you can say whatever you want. But I'll take umbrage.) When, according to all evidence available to her, he's having some kind of mental breakdown and is determined to do something that will get him locked up for the rest of his life.

Ed turns to her and says "What are we going to do?" It's Amy who immediately comes up with the tactic of asking Peter Vincent for help, thus buying time in which Charley promises not to take action and marshaling the resources of the only adult he's currently prepared to listen to. If they had been living in the world they thought they were, if Dandridge had not in fact been a vampire, then Charley's sanity and future would have been saved entirely on Amy's initiative.

I babbled something to that effect at Amanda Bearse during a Q&A at a convention a couple years back. It wasn't the most coherent thing in the world, but she seemed pleased, and I hope she's rightfully proud of the character she created, particularly having now raised a daughter herself.

On a related note, another aspect of that article linked above that irritates me: "until she was turned vampire by Jerry and became the typically sexed-up evil female. Evil because she is sexual, as has been the case in vampire narratives since Carmilla and Dracula. Contrastingly, in the remake Amy has far more sexual agency–and is not demonized for it."

Here's my problem with that line of reasoning: The original Amy had an agency that was immensely important for 15-year-old me to see, the agency to make her own choices and have them respected.

Charley, with his "we've been going together almost a year" outburst, very nearly disqualifies himself as a hero before even starting to become one, then saves it by apologizing in the next breath without prompting. He was clearly parroting the script he's been force-fed by popular culture about what he's supposed to want and how he's supposed to get it, and he's instantly ashamed, probably without fully understanding why he even said it. He admits to being scared too -- a cardinal no-no in the teen-movie guy code! -- and the ensuing earnest discussion of what level of physical intimacy they're ready for is funny without being played for laughs at their expense. They have all these feelings -- and yes, they both have them -- but not the experience to deal with them in any way that isn't all kinds of awkward. So they talk about it awkwardly, and healthily, and with the understanding that it's important to talk about what they are and aren't ready to do. In the teen-movie landscape of 1985, this was nothing short of a revelation.

So it's all fine until Dandridge comes along and uses Amy's sexuality against her, manipulates feelings she has explicitly stated she is not ready to act on, with the aim of overwriting her identity and turning her into someone else entirely. Not even the long-dead woman in the portrait, but merely his image of her. She's not "evil because she is sexual." She's dangerous because Dandridge is using her as an extension of himself.

At the end of the movie, when she's free of that influence, we're nominally back where we started, with Charley and Amy making out -- fully clothed -- in his room. But it's comfortable in a way that it wasn't at the beginning. They've survived shared trauma and come out stronger, but they're not adults, and they're refreshingly not in any hurry to be. They've decided what they're ready to do, and there's no tension about whether that should change. It will come in its own time, and we're left with the sense that they'll decide it together.

So... that's Amy. One character. That's not even getting into Charley and Ed and brilliant creepy-charming-predator Dandridge and the treasure that is Roddy McDowall as Peter Vincent. A blog post only has so much space.

Anyone still wondering why I love this movie so much? :-)

Unvarnished vlog: Why Lizzie?

In which our Diva gets some use out of that phone tripod she got for Christmas

I've been bitten by the vlogging bug. (Well, technically I can call myself an early adopter -- all of these predate my even hearing the term "vlog" -- but it's way easier now.)

For those of you who prefer the written word, don't worry -- I still plan to do proper blog posts too! But thoughts come out differently in writing than they do in speaking, and of course once the Unvarnished process is more visibly underway, this way of sharing it should be even more fun.

I started simple today, with a few thoughts on why I'm so fascinated by Elizabeth Siddal and what inspired me to create a solo theatre piece about her. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you've probably encountered most of these thoughts in one form or another, but I wouldn't mind your giving a listen even so. And, if you're so inclined, sharing with potentially interested friends? :-)

Nesting instinct

In which our Diva has been putting her winter restlessness to work

As you may have noticed, or at least heard (and heard, and heard, and heard -- the meteorologist on the local news sounds very tired of having to say this stuff!) it's been an awful lot of cold and snowy lately. Now, yours truly -- despite being made entirely of northern European barbarian DNA and having moved to Chicagoland on purpose -- is not a fan of this winter business. Not one little bit. Well, maybe a little bit. A couple weeks of pretty fluffy snow viewed from the nice warm indoors would be fine.

But what's going on this year is more than a little wearing, and I've been combating it by tackling some long-overdue rearranging and organizing and decorating. My house dates to 1908, an American Foursquare that the former owner (a contractor and carpenter himself) updated in all the right ways, keeping intact its beautiful Craftsman woodwork, including the dining room built-in with its original leaded glass.  I fell in love with it the moment I walked in the door just over nine years ago, and promptly dove into research, dreaming of how to bring out its historic character before even making an appointment with a home inspector.

Other pursuits always seem to take precedence, of course, and for the most part those dreams go unrealized. But in the last couple weeks, I've mostly finished overhauling the spare bedroom, a process that started several months ago with expanding the existing shelving to accommodate the lifelong collection known as Val's Personal Doll Army.

Along the way, I've done a lot of thrift shopping, a little painting of shelves thus acquired, some rejiggering of the closet configuration, and spent basically a whole day sitting on the floor devising a new filng system for sheet music that wll actually keep it neat this time, darnit! (That last resolution will be helped by the sad fact that Elgin Opera is no more, which means I'm not tossing another concert's worth of pages on the "I'll put that away later, really I will" pile every few months.)

Probably my favorite design inspiration is one that didn't cost a dime: A pair of vintage blue suitcases that belonged to my grandparents brought up from the basement and stacked into an instant nightstand that perfectly suits the height of the bed and the color scheme and quirky cottage feel of the room.

With only a few small details left there, I've turned my attention to the bigger challenge of organizing the basement, which includes my sewing room and new (and for the moment somewhat makeshift) recording studio for audiobooks. It's not as creative and fun as taking a room and making it pretty and welcoming, but it's the logical next step (at least in the way the house and the stuff in it all goes together in my head) necessary before making the rest of the rooms as pretty and welcoming as they deserve to be.

It'll be a while, for instance, before I can even consider anything involving paint in any way, let alone anything on the order of what latter-day Pre-Raphaelite muse, artist, and blogger Grace has created in her Catty-Corner Cottage. (Hubby and I have been saying from the beginning that this house deserves a name, but we've yet to come up with one. Maybe that'll finally arrive this year too!) Especially the Twelve Dancing Princesses (one of my favorite fairy tales too!) in procession around her dining room walls.

On both that blog and her wider-focused one Domythic Bliss, one of the things I love is how much of it involves making your home fairy-tale beautiful with everyday resources. The trade-off for not spending a lot of money is time, of course, but for many of us that's part of the fun.

When William Morris designed Red House, both money and time were involved, not to mention the talents of Morris' illustrious circle of artistic friends. Recent conservation work has uncovered ever more of the extensive decorative painting throughout the house, including some figures thought to have been painted by Elizabeth Siddal.

I'm not far from that phase of Lizzie's life in writing Unvarnished, and am just realizing how I've set up for it in some sections that talk about their paintings as a world of their own creation. Red House was a truly an entire little world of Morris' own creation, realized with the collaboration of his wife Jane and their friends. (A Twitter conversation last week with Dinah Roe reminded me that there's a great deal that needs to be said about Jane's artistry with an embroidery needle and how it gets largely ignored, but that's a tangent for another day.) What an amazing way to fill hours and walls! Sounds like a party to me.

Funny thing -- when I was fifteen, and all this Pre-Raphaelite and Arts and Crafts obsession was still several years in the future, I got it into my head that I wanted to paint a full-wall mural in my bedroom. By that time we lived in a house we owned, after most of my Air Force brat childhood spent living on base, so it was technically not out of the realm of possibility.

Of course, no sane parent is going to turn a fifteen-year-old loose on an innocent expanse of white interior latex, but someone (I don't remember whose idea it was now) came up with the brilliant compromise of tacking up an old white sheet with plastic sheeting behind it. I spent a good chunk of my summer filling it with a rainbow, pot of gold, and flowers, and loved every minute. Once it was finished, I could wake up every morning, put on my glasses, and look at the big window onto a world I had made with my own hands and imagination. Kitschy and derivative imagination, sure, but all mine.

It was an amazing feeling. Making something special always is. I'm hoping to have that feeling a lot more by the time I've finished realizing the dreams for my grownup Arts and Crafts haven.

Speaking of making special things, here's a footnote more related to the previous post: Last week, on a Wombat Friday whim, I put together a "Wombat's Lair" Etsy treasury for the enjoyment of the Earnest Damsels Collective and other wombatophiles. One of the featured crafters, Isobel Morrell of Coldham Cuddlies, messaged me a lovely thank-you for the inclusion, and shared her coinage of the phrase "a wonderment of wombats," (as well as some nifty insights into her crafting process) having decided that the standard group noun, a mob, just wouldn't do for the purposes of her adorable plush creations. I have to agree, and have resolved to refer to our Wombat Friday assemblage as a "wonderment" forever more.

The ghosts of Lizzies past

In which our Diva considers those who have walked a particular path ahead of her, on the occasion of meeting one of them

Okay, they're all alive, so "ghost" is rather a misnomer, but as Unvarnished continues to take shape (in longhand, making this Tumblr post a relevantly giggle-worthy observation), I can hardly help being a little haunted by them!

The one I saw first and know best is also the most recent: Amy Manson in Desperate Romantics. However fast and loose the series played with history, I loved its complicated and ambitious Lizzie, and Manson's performance made me an instant fan. I'm delighted to see her career growing, and wish I could have seen her well-reviewed turn as Nora in A Doll's House at the National Theatre of Scotland this past spring.

(Maybe someday we'll get something that gives the women of the Pre-Raphaelite circle the rounded portrayals they deserve without being quite so thoroughly ahistorical. A girl can dream.)

Mind you, the 2009 series' flights of fancy are nothing next to Ken Russell's take on the same events a generation earlier! His 1967 Dante's Inferno is unapologetically theatrical, veering at times into psychedelia (yes, you can do that in black & white, at least if you're Ken Russell) and at others into music-hall or panto (what even is going on with Annie Miller?). In that context, the paradoxical mix of strength and fragility in Judith Paris' ballerina presence serves Lizzie well, if the film's narrative doesn't always.

In a 2011 interview, Paris recalled that Russell cast her based entirely on her physical resemblance to Lizzie. "I saw Millais’s 'Ophelia' in the Tate and thought, 'That’s me!' It wasn’t about talent; Ken didn’t care if I could act or not. I did a screen test and I told him, 'I’ve never acted  apart from at school and a few lines in musicals and I don’t have any training.' He said, 'I don’t care. I’ll make your performance in the editing room!' I was thrown from being a dancer to playing opposite Oliver Reed on the BBC, which was one giant step for mankind!" I particularly cock my head at this apparent keenness to match Lizzie's physical appearance, when his Gabriel was Oliver Reed. (Actually, the fact that the same historical person has been played by Oliver Reed, Ben Kingsley, and Aidan Turner, all of whom work quite well for various reasons, makes me go full quizzical-puppy.)

Until recently, I had known her only from a favorite classic Doctor Who story (that's her under Eldrad's pretty blue scales in "The Hand of Fear"), but she's had a distinguished theatre career, and I've been particularly delighted to learn that she has written and performed several one-woman shows about historical figures over the years -- just as I'm trying to do with Lizzie!

Between these two, in 1975, came the most elusive dramatization (like the other two, from Auntie Beeb), the six-part The Love School. To this day, I (like the rest of the online Pre-Raphaelite community) have seen less than seven tantalizing minutes:



Yes, that Patricia Quinn, the one who created the role of Magenta in a certain "science fiction double feature" that was immortalized on film the same year.

Which is how I came to meet her this afternoon, at the Flashback Weekend horror convention. I couldn't make it to the Rocky Horror Picture Show screening she hosted last night, but I made it over there today, and found a surprisingly short line at her autograph table. I had no idea if this was a role she had any particular fond recollections of, but when I opened my Lizzie journal to a page for her to sign and explained what it was, she lit up and chatted about it for a good ten or twelve minutes!

"I have it," she told me with a conspiratorial grin. "I have the whole thing." Apparently a friend who worked in the production office managed to get hold of it for her some years ago, a minor miracle for anything made in the days when the BBC routinely aired shows once and then tucked them away to (as any Doctor Who fan who knows about the legendary "lost episodes" can tell you) vanish into the storage abyss or even be taped over.

But The Love School is safe and sound in its Lizzie's home -- something that impressed even its director, who had never been able to get his hands on it! -- and apparently she got around not too long ago to watching the full series, instead of stopping after Lizzie died. After all these years, she's downright gushing about how marvelous a production it is, with particular notice of its William Morris.

My favorite bit of the conversation was the anecdote about the day she, Richard O'Brien, and another RHPS castmate (she mentioned first names, but I don't remember the second one) did some sort of Q&A session at the Oxford Union. On the way over, she happened on Ben Kingsley -- her Rossetti -- in the street, and chatted briefly with him. Then, at the event, she looked up at the murals painted in that infamous adventure of the late 1850s (Dear Gabriel: When working in an unfamiliar technique, research is your friend!), "and I thought, 'That's me!'" Apparently there was a sequence in the series where "we were all in there painting away" that I, for one, would give minor body parts to see!

Mind you, that was the point where I made the dubious step of mentioning Desperate Romantics (in the context of my disappointment at its eliding that whole process -- which could probably easily make a feature film in itself -- into Gabriel painting a single church panel alone), of which she is... not fond. And not shy about saying so. Partly because of its inaccuracies, but also, I think, a bit because "I was asked in for it, you know. They had me read for Ruskin's mother. And I said, 'Ruskin's mother??'" I cannot capture the indignation of that in text, but I'm sure you can imagine!

All in all, she is a thoroughly delightful lady, and I heartily recommend meeting her if you have the opportunity.

And now I have someone else I need to finish writing Unvarnished for, because she said she'd like to hear about it when it's finished. Best get back to work, then...

You have no idea who you are

In which our Diva has a resonating good time in London


"Something is happening." Tantalizing words on the front page of the Resonance website, and the name of the event held in London last Friday to celebrate what we've been building for months (or longer, for a few of the core team).

Annie, Dorina, Phil Marriott, Barry Pilling and I enjoy the
party. Thanks to Dorina for the photo!

Various "cells" of the project came together at Paramount, 31 stories above Soho, to share glimpses of their work. The beta version of a smartphone game app that will draw real-world locations into the
Resonance world (and which involves the "bee" graphics that now include the one I customized to represent the Chicago story, with the four stars of the municipal flag). The first comic story (yeah, eventually I'll accept that everything's a "graphic novel" now, but in my old-school fangirl brain that term still has a more specific definition, and I'm not quite there yet). Language and history background pointing up the global reach of the narrative being built.  The first live-action scene featuring ancillary characters created and fleshed out through the process that, now that the framework is created and tested, will soon be expanded to new communities.

At my little table, my Yank accent and I gave a peek into the wiki set up for my team to facilitate collaboration on the story we're building, a mystery at the nexus of Chicago politics, business, and organized crime, which will stand on its own as well as linking into the central narrative of Resonance and the trail of the mysterious Object.

Funny thing about explaining things to other people: it's often a great way to clarify things for yourself. What began as simply the best tool for the job -- a centralized place to develop characters and story elements -- has become a microcosm of the "open source narrative" philosophy of the project. And not just because the MediaWiki engine it's built with is open source software.

With each person's contributions, and especially the links between them that are so easy to create in the wiki format, the framework of the story grows stronger, the picture more complete. At more than one point in the afternoon presentation, I watched someone's eyes light up in comprehension, as they realized why a concrete notion of what Resonance is has been so hard to come by, that the nature of the project is that it is becoming more concrete through the contributions of the community.  Up to now, there's been a relatively small team, creating and testing a framework that will allow for the right balance of creative freedom and coherent storytelling. The framework into which we'll soon be inviting the wider community to come and create with us.

But there was more than that to talk about, in a room that buzzed louder by the hour with the energy of people from disparate disciplines, with a myriad of skills and resources to bring to the table, if they choose to help. Some arrived confident in what they had to offer and needed only the right place for it, like the virtuoso of simulated documents whose artistry I hope we'll be able to make use of for online clues and filming props.  Others didn't realize their own potential, a little stuck in workaday notions of "what I can do" or "what's useful." ("You have no idea who you are." K might mean something else by it -- or does she? Give the trailer another look and you tell me -- but the line keeps running through my head in multiple contexts, both within the story and with the real people I meet.)

It's this latter category who particularly interest me, and who I'm convinced will ultimately form the backbone of the Resonance community.  I talked a bit about it a few days later with the project's creator, Tom Hill, over Starbucks before we each rushed off to our next appointment, about how easy it is for talented people to get lost in the shuffle in the conventional entertainment-industry way of doing things, and how this project represents another way.

I mentioned a while back that my particularly eccentric and eclectic background has turned out to be more tailor-made for what I'm doing than anyone knew when I sent that first email -- and I don't just mean the stuff I'm qualified to do for a living. Gaming and fandom and a DIY mindset are no less important ingredients in my perspective than acting and writing.

Our story centers on a force that has inspired human accomplishment for millennia. Accomplishment comes from the recognition and development of potential. Which is also a darn good way to go about telling a big collaborative story. Pretty cool, huh?

There have been a lot of people in my life who helped me (not all of whom are still with us), whom I was in no position to repay directly. But that's not how it works, is it? The people who give what we need aren't usually the ones who need anything we have. But someone else does.

Helping to build the Resonance community gives me the chance to put others in reach of opportunity. That's as exciting to me as the storytelling work itself. I hope they take that opportunity and run with it, as far as they can, to a place where they can offer opportunity to the next bundle of potential. It doesn't get any better than that in my book.

It was quite a long day and evening coming straight off an overnight flight. By the end of the party I was cracking that I hadn't been in a bed in long enough that I couldn't do the math, which wasn't entirely true, but across six time zones I certainly didn't want to do the math!  With the buzz in the air, though, and all the warm cheerful bodies right in front of me who'd previously only been names online or faces on Skype, I hardly even felt tired until close to midnight.

Hate to disappoint the railroad folks,
but I don't think he'll fit in there.

The rest of my week in Britain was a bit of a whirlwind, but not as intense as that! And of course the rest was vacation, all visiting with friends and exploring museums and sights. Though there was still room for a chuckle at spotting our hero's enigmatic moniker on an electrical junction box. More proof that Resonance is everywhere! ;-D

Do you believe?

Yeah, what he said

In which our Diva borrows another's perspective for a moment

I talk a lot here about the physical aspects of acting, of developing and being aware of my body and what it can do in the course of telling a story. I was a dancer first, so that thinking is second nature to me, which makes it difficult to articulate what's so important and valuable about those aspects of our craft.

Enter Ben Hopkin, of the consistently thoughtful and useful Acting Without the Drama blog, to spell it out from the more cerebral vantage point.  It was an eye-opening read from my very movement-oriented perspective too, illuminating the thought process behind some actors' dismissal of or resistance to what I've always considered to be a key portion of the toolbox.

That kind of woman

In which our Diva has a Song for Today and a challenge to meet

Brought to my attention by our Midsummer director, who also happens to be an Old Hollywood aficionado as well as the host of the "Sunday Standards" radio show. Quoth she, "Titania is very much that kind of woman."



Clearly I'm going to have to check out more of this Emma Wallace person. Love the song. And love how many times Cyd Charisse in that green flapper number from Singin' in the Rain  keeps popping up in the vid.

I hope my Titania achieves half the glam of these ladies!

Read this. Now.

In which our Diva is blown away on so many levels

Text of Theresa Rebeck Laura Pels Keynote Address (over at Melissa Silverstein's consistently must-read Women and Hollywood blog):

As an aside let me add, I would rather be called a witch than a man hater. Honestly ‘man hater’ really does need to be simply off the table... Someone actually called me that at a party a couple of weeks ago and I wanted to hit him. BUT I DIDN’T. Anyway, if you need to call me a name, the preferred insult would be “witch,” or “madwoman in the attic” is also acceptable.

For the record, I will also happily answer to either of those. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go get my hands on every play this woman has ever written.

Around the next corner

In which our Diva did not see that one coming

Was supposed to do a fun vintage-style photoshoot today. Unfortunately, my body had other ideas, as I woke up with a hacking cough, pounding headache, and 101.3-degree fever. Didn't I just do this a month ago?? Photoshoot duly rescheduled, fingers crossed that I'll be better in the morning to start shooting My Cousin Radu.

This post, however, is not to complain about my health. It's to remark upon The Audition, the absolutely captivating documentary about the finalists in the 2007 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions that ran on PBS the other night.

All the singers are amazing, of course, and you absolutely root for all of them. But one tenor, Ryan Smith, stood out as a bit of an underdog. At 30, he was several years older than most of the others, and had given up on an opera career for a while before returning to give it one more shot. Early in the film, he explains that he told his mother he was going to give it two years full-out, and if it didn't happen by then, he'd go back to finish his doctorate and teach or whatever.

It happened. He knocked the judges' collective socks off, brought tears to the eyes of the Met vocal coach watching from the booth, and went home with one of the six $15,000.00 prizes and a huge heartwarming grin.

As so often happens with this sort of documentary, there's a "one year later" montage at the end, outlining how each finalist's career is taking off. In the midst of this parade, the text notes that Ryan Smith made his Met debut in a featured role, and "is now fully committed to an opera career."

Then comes the sucker punch. At the very end, there's one more screen, with a still of him with that wonderful grin, and text dedicating the film "in loving memory of Ryan Smith, who died in November 2008 after a year-long battle with cancer."

I already can't breathe very well today. Bursting into tears did not help. Nor, particularly, did wailing "Not fair!" for the next three minutes.

And it's not. He will never have the career and life that every instinct says he should have.

But this is also true: He sang on the Met stage, with the Met orchestra, and a happier human being was never captured on film.

Seize your dream. It may not happen quite the way you envision, but you will make something magic happen. Recognize and cherish it when it comes, and then reach for the next.

Do it now.

The power of the story

In which our Diva finds new reasons to believe in people

You hear a lot about the "dark side of fandom," about unstable people who go beyond love of a shared story, sometimes to the extreme of threatening or even harming the storytellers.

If you're even casually around the virtual water coolers centered on TV shows or movies, you're also aware of the harmless bulk of fannish activity, the discussion and sharing of delight, and of creativity in the form of fan fiction or visual art or music videos.

What you probably don't hear enough about is the brightest side of all, the fans who harness that energy to make the real world a better place.

I was a smart kid. I'm a pretty smart adult, for that matter, and there are still people who think I'm wasting that gift in a frivolous profession. (They're just usually subtler about telling me so than they were in college.) Smart kids are supposed to cure cancer. Solve our energy problems. End hunger.

Save the world.

Here's the thing: I can't imagine spending my life doing any of those things. I'm not cut out for saving the world. What does hold my passion, what I wake up every day itching to do, is telling stories about people who do.

I'm the audience for a lot of those stories. Most of them tend to take place in worlds not our own - in the far-flung future, or across galaxies, or in secret underworlds of primal magic. But the challenges faced in those worlds are not as different from our own as you might think.

And some people, maybe even some of those who are cut out to save the world, look at those stories and decide they want to be like those characters. They want to face down that evil and defeat it -- not in the created world beyond the glass of the TV screen, but here and now. Sometimes it's a one-off -- fans of Blood Ties drumming up eyeglass donations to the Lions Club in honor of its vision-impaired heroine, blood drives by fans of every vampire show ever, and so on. Sometimes it's a little more ambitious.

Not a Doll is the newest such effort to come to my attention. Whatever you might think of Dollhouse -- and much as I love it, it's controversial for good reason -- for these fans it's an opportunity to educate about "the very real issues of human trafficking, poverty, oppression against women and children, the loss of self, and the negation of human rights." Sure, they're starting small. Writing a few articles and designing a handful of T-shirts might not seem like much. But the people who read those articles and find their eyes opened, the established organizations that receive the proceeds from those T-shirts? I don't think they're going to argue. And the site has just begun.

You might think this sort of thing would be a short-lived diversion, fading when the show that inspired it is no longer the flavor of the month. You'd be wrong. Just ask the folks at the Stuffy Guard Project Association, who've coordinated donations of thousands of stuffed toys and thousands of dollars for children in need since 2000. Inspired by Stargate SG-1 star Teryl Rothery, and embraced by her and her colleagues -- the show and its stars are associated with several children's charities, including Make-A-Wish and the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and various episodes focused on the effect of injustice on children -- they're going strong and continuing to grow.

This is just a tiny sampling. There are plenty more examples out there -- some were featured in an article on Firefox News a while back -- and more power to them all. I'll support them as I can, and keep dreaming of being involved in a project that inspires a save-the-world drive of its own.

Song for today: "Stranger" by Lili Haydn. I know I mentioned it just a couple weeks ago, but I can't think of anything more perfect today. "Goodness brings a chain reaction."

Suzuki Shakespeare

In which our Diva figures this is one kid who won't be afraid of Shakespeare in high school

This is brilliant and utterly adorable. I've always respected Brian Cox, but I think I just became a big fan.

On Beyond 40

In which our Diva settles into her seat at the grownup table

Lately I've been hearing a lot that "40 is the new 30." Just in time for me -- casting-wise, at least, I haven't had much in the way of 30s. I was still playing 19 at 32, and it's only in the last year or so that I've been getting tapped for moms. It's kind of ridiculous how much fun I had at an audition the other day, watching half a dozen preteen girls chatter in the waiting area, considering which of them might be plausible as my daughter.

I come by it honestly -- when my parents were my age, I was a junior in college! But when I look at a family photo from that year, my mom doesn't look any older to me than I do now. Which one friend recently summed up succinctly as "No WAY you're 40!"

But I am, for a whole month now. As an actress, conventional wisdom says I should be depressed, if not outright terrified. Conventional wisdom says my career might as well be over.

Except for the part where it's just really getting into gear.

I love that they look at me now for a mom, or a professional. Or even a wacky neighbor. Wacky neighbors are never in their 20s for some reason. In your 20s, the roles out there are at least five hot babes (not me!) for every quirky best friend. With my castable range finally firmly in the 30s (just as I'm leaving them behind in real life!), there's actually a lot more open to me, and there still will be when I'm actually getting cast as 40. (All while not giving up on my ambition to play a woman who died at 32. But that's for stage, where the illusion is that much more elastic.)

Oh, I know it's not all roses. Leading ladies are still expected to be hot first and everything else second. The industry's idea of women's stories still tends to be frustratingly limited, and older actresses still routinely hit stupid walls. But for now, for me, things are looking pretty bright.

And maybe I'm just noticing them more, but it seems like in recent years there have been more 40-and-beyond actress footsteps to follow, on more and varied paths. A few of my favorites...

During her time leading the CBC series Snakes & Ladders, Catherine Disher said in an interview that she welcomed the kind of characters opening up to her now, having "always been a character actress with ingenue eyes and hair." (I totally relate to those first two, but have coveted her hair since 1992.) Audrey Flankman on that series, and her current role as senior-agent-cum-den-mother Maggie Norton on The Border, are unapologetically the age they are and undilutedly awesome.

Have I mentioned that I got to play sidekick to Patricia Belcher in Cyrus? Oh, right, umpteen times. But it doesn't get any less cool, so please forgive me. Her recurring role as no-bullshit prosecutor Caroline Julian is one of the best reasons to watch Bones, and her resume includes drama, comedy, commercials and standup. There is no mistaking this lady for anyone else.

Emma Thompson is, well, Emma Thompson. I've been hooked since what she refers to as her "good women in corsets phase," and the work just keeps getting better.








Cate Blanchett is shaking her head at the people who think she seems too young and glam for Blanche DuBois, whom Tennessee Williams' stage directions describe as "about 30." Which either substantiates that "new 30" thing, or supports my hunch that "that old" is often not as old as we think it is, and that maybe what we're confusing for seeming/looking younger is really just being comfortable in one's skin. Oh, and did you notice her on the cover of this month's Vogue? 40 belongs anywhere!

Back to TV (and Canada), Amanda Tapping was my favorite thing about two different Stargate series. Now I get to see her front and center of Sanctuary. Helen Magnus is, of course, well over 40 (over 150, in fact), but there are paranormal reasons for that. This is what 40ish looks like too.

There are plenty more I could mention - Mary McCormack, Sigourney Weaver, Jamie Lee Curtis, Naomi Watts, Lindsay Duncan, Helen Mirren - but you get the idea. Bring it on, life!

Song for today: "Hold On" by KT Tunstall. Because I woke up with it in my head this morning, and the world will indeed turn if you're ready or not!

"No" list update

In which our Diva wasn't going to post any further on this topic, but must express her relief

When I posted the "No" list, naming industry professionals who had made public statements indicating that the petition to release Roman Polanski did not speak for them, I deliberately did not comment upon any particular individual who had chosen to sign it. While I remain dismayed that it exists, and that its position is seen to represent the film industry as a whole, the simple truth is that I do not know these people, and I cannot know their individual reasons for signing.

I personally cannot imagine putting my name on a statement unless I agree with everything it says, but that's a choice. Another perfectly valid choice is, for example, to support a statement because you want the outcome it is intended to achieve, even if you don't necessarily agree with the entirety of the position as stated. And there could be a hundred other reasons I know nothing about. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, for their own reasons; it's only when they're in a position to force that opinion on others that we run into trouble.

None of which kept me from feeling like I'd been kicked in the gut the day I read that Emma Thompson's name had appeared on the petition. If I had to name a single favorite who inspires me as an actress, she's it. I took a deep breath, reminded myself of everything above, and moved through my day with that ache in my stomach.

Caitlin Hayward-Tapp didn't stop there. She's a regular at the consistently inspiring feminist blog Shakesville, and she decided to make full use of that resource, and of an upcoming opportunity to meet Ms. Thompson at a conference, to ask that she reconsider.

Long story short, she succeeded. And it is with a frankly embarrassing amount of relief and encouragement that I have updated the list this morning with Emma Thompson's name.

I'm not in love with the celebrity culture we live in, but we're pretty stuck with it. Various sociological studies have indicated that it seems to be human nature. And even those of us who roll our eyes at it -- at breathless, mindless adoration and TMZ scandal-mongering alike -- aren't always immune to feeling things personally when we have no rational business doing so.

And so, to Emma Thompson, who does not know me from Eve and has no obligation to care, I send out my thanks. For remembering that what we do in the public eye has effects we can't predict or even always see, and taking responsibility for them.

Only make-believe

In which our Diva is resigned to a certain reality, but it still gets under her skin once in a while

In a conversation I had yesterday, I mentioned that the reason I was making up Office of Doom hours after 11 Sunday night was that I spent Saturday at Chicago Comic-Con and Sunday filming a short.

The response? "Oh, but that's fun stuff."

Um.

Walking around in a superhero costume, posing for pictures and meeting people whose work I like (including childhood heroines Nichelle Nichols and Margot Kidder)? Absolutely "fun stuff," albeit exhausting.

Filmmaking? It has its fun too. It also has spending a very long, very hot day outdoors. In makeup. Waiting, waiting, waiting, being ON!, waiting some more, being ON! Changing into a long-sleeved heavy satin wedding gown in my car (did I mention very hot day?).

I love acting. Love it beyond all reason. You have to in order to do it. Because you don't get to do just the fun parts. Gina Holden estimated in an interview I read recently that 2% of your working time as an actor is actually being in front of the camera acting. It sounds like an exaggeration. It's not. You spend the rest of your time waiting, studying, researching, marketing, handling business. All so you can get that little fraction of time -- the time that is seen by everyone else -- to inhabit the skin of the character whose story you're telling.

Because it's all they see, most people think it's all there is. Which is how they can say things like the comment above.

Like "Well, I want to stay home and read, but nobody's going to pay me for that."

Like "So you have a real job too?"

I commented not long ago, on a blog post by (sometimes curmudgeonly, always brilliant) TV writer Denis McGrath, that the problem for artists is that most people just can't wrap their heads around something they consume at their leisure not being produced at ours.

And the truth is, they're mostly never going to. I have yet to see a single solitary person on a film set for the first time, no matter how well-informed, not be abjectly shocked by the sheer amount of time and work, by the sheer number of people, it takes to produce just a few minutes of what will be seen on screen. It's nearly impossible to explain, unless you understand how the process works, that it's not because of disorganization or laziness or inefficiency or whatever. It's because that is the only way it can be made. You can't just have an idea and point a camera at it, and hey-presto, you have a film. Imagination is only the starting point.

I joke that my life's work is playing make-believe. At its purest, this-is-what-we're-here-for heart, that's true. That's how stories get told.

That, and a whole lot of people doing a whole lot of work.

And I feel the calling of adventure, and I hear the ringing in my ears

In which our Diva learns to sing "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" with a lump in her throat

Broadway Night concerts were a blast, and I love that the less-well-known numbers went over every bit as well as the classic favorites. Our middle-American suburban audiences aren't afraid of opera, and they're not afraid of Sondheim or Jason Robert Brown or Adam Guettel either. Put that in your "lowest common denominator" pipe and smoke it!

Of course, our real secret weapon was the five talented kids in the cast, aged 10 to 17, who couldn't have avoided charming everything in their path if they tried. And I know for a fact I wasn't the only one crying by the time they finished "So Long, Farewell," though the audience didn't then have to get up and sing with them!

The old "never work with kids or animals" cliche notwithstanding, it's amazing to work with kids eager to take full advantage of the kind of opportunity that wasn't around (or if it was we didn't know about it) when I was their age. Especially the ones who've just discovered that it's there. Watching a jawdroppingly gifted and mostly-self-taught 17-year-old baritone soak up everything around him, in an environment that some would take for granted... just awesome.

Yeah, I have a soft spot for the scrappy ones. Can't imagine why that would be. ;-) I suspect that lump in the throat has as much to do with that as with a Pavlovian response to a certain holiday TV tradition.

Song for today: "I'm Not Afraid of Anything" from Songs For a New World. Kendra knocked it out of the park this weekend (hooray for grownup new recruits too!) and I'm a little bit obsessed right now. Can't learn it just yet, though -- another crazybusy week underway!

Serial box

In which our Diva steps into a new medium

For six weeks this summer, from the end of July to the beginning of September, I will be a regular cast member on a TV series. It's a sitcom (title TBA), created by a grad student for Frequency TV, the on-campus and online station run by the TV department at Columbia College. And even though it's only six episodes, and isn't a multi-million-dollar production with a network pickup, I'm ridiculously excited.

There's a very simple reason for that: I love TV. It seems like a weird thing for an actor to say, but it's true. As an audience member, I love television more than I love movies, and... well, differently from the way I love theatre. Inside -- and not too far from the surface -- I'm still the little kid who lived through every week in delicious anticipation of what would happen next to Jaime Sommers or Wonder Woman or the Doctor and his companion. Heck, when the BBC revived Doctor Who in 2005, that little kid was right there on the surface.

A handful of times in my life, I've been so impressed/energized/inspired by an actor's performance that I had to tell them so in an actual ink-on-paper fan letter. Almost all of those actors were on TV series, adding new pieces every week to characters who grabbed me for one reason or another. At any given time, there are three or four series running that I will not miss. At the top of that list right now is In Plain Sight. It's an exception for me -- the number-one slot is almost always occupied by a sci-fi or fantasy show -- but Mary Shannon is a heroine tailor-made to hook me in, with a heart of gold, will of iron, tongue of snark, and a full subscription of thorny personal issues. If someone asked me the old-standby interview question about my dream role, that would be it: A character like Mary, or Vicki Nelson, or Sam Carter, or Sara Pezzini.

And while the quirky office manager on a six-week sitcom might not seem to have much in common with those world-saving ladies, it's my chance to taste the creative side of a mode of storytelling dear to my heart. To live with a character over time, in a story that keeps going.

All of which is my very wordy way of saying "Wheeeeeee!"

Mozart and Yeston and Strauss, oh my!

In which our Diva had a marvelously operatic weekend

Die Flederflöte... okay, "Love & Fairy Tales" had three smashingly successful performances, plus one delightful school matinee of our abridged version of The Magic Flute, all capped off with singing for a wonderful crowd at Villa Verone, most of them fresh from either our Sunday matinee or the Elgin Symphony's Bernstein concert.

Even the surprise insertion of "This Place Is Mine" into the zany midst of our standalone adaption of Act 2 of Die Fledermaus went over well. I can say now that I was a little worried about it -- what were they going to think of me randomly busting out this crazy opera-parody number from the Maury Yeston version of Phantom? Sure, it was a big hit at the Halloween benefit, but that's one thing and shoehorning it into a full-fledged stage production quite another. Luckily, Lady Diva (sort of Solange's alter ego, dating back to one of the company's early semi-dramatized concerts -- that's the persona I'm sending up with this number) knows our audience, and I got enough compliments on it that my head might have swelled to fill up my big pile o' hair if I didn't watch it! (And it was a big pile o' hair, especially Sunday. Nothing beats good old-fashioned foam rollers.) As it turned out, it fit into the craziness just fine. Which I guess makes sense, because that Phantom is a very champagne-operetta score anyway.

Soooooo tired yesterday, pretty much back to normal today. Just in time to restart voice lessons (on hold for a few weeks due to both Solange's and my rehearsal schedule) and swing right back into honing the rep I'm hoping to have ready in time for the vocal competition in June. (Not to mention switching mental gears from German and English to Italian and French. Which isn't just about diction -- there are subtle but important differences in technique too.) Musical theatre? Not a problem. Aria and art song? I have some serious work cut out for me. The art song -- I'm probably going to do a Fauré one called "Adieu" -- is way harder on Planet Val, which makes most classical singers I know look at me funny. I guess opera just makes more sense to my brain because it has a clearer acting component.

My aria will most likely be "Senza mamma" from Suor Angelica. I'm so happy that my voice has shaped up in the last couple years to be suited to Puccini, because he just makes sense to me, musically and dramatically. Sometimes I wonder if it has anything to do with growing up on Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals. I've lost count of the number of times I've heard/read someone comparing him to Puccini (or just flat-out accusing him of ripping Puccini off), and I can hear where they're coming from. They appeal to me as a singer for a lot of the same reasons. One of those is one of my primary challenges with "Senza mamma" -- tempi and dynamics and such are constantly in flux, but you can't just randomly speed up and slow down or get louder and softer or whatever. To some extent it's marked on the score, but there's a lot of it that just has to feel right. (Try that after weeks of Mozart!) I have that sense internalized almost to the point of instinct for musical theatre, and especially for certain composers (ALW, Frank Wildhorn, Stephen Schwartz), but I'm still developing it for opera.

Also, floating that pianissimo high A at the end is kicking my ass.

Check out the queen of pianissimo, Montserrat Caballé, showing how it's done:

By the company I keep

In which our Diva did say she probably wouldn't blog again before opening night

There's at least one moment at every rehearsal where I'm just struck by the fantastic performers I get to work with in this show. A few of them have material online to show you what I mean...

Teppei Kono was our Belcore last year in L'Elisir d'Amore, and he's back with us as Papageno in The Magic Flute and Dr. Falke in Die Fledermaus. If I had to name only one person I know who should be a star, this guy is it. Gorgeous voice and superb actor, all in one easygoing and totally professional package. He has some audio and video clips on his website, and for a change of pace, I ran across this clip on YouTube of a classic song from the Philippines:



Solange Sior, our beloved Artistic-Director-of-Many-Hats (and my voice teacher) loves to tell how, when Paula Mrazek joined the Opera Training Ensemble, she was bowled over by this gorgeous mezzo voice coming out of the group, and had to all but force its uncertain owner to take on solos. That was then, this is now, as I'm sure you'll agree when you see her Prince Orlofsky. She's no slouch with musical theatre either, as she demonstrated at our fundraising dinner last Halloween (the song starts just before the two-minute mark):



If you come by Villa Verone for our Sunday evening cabaret performances, you might be treated to a tableside serenade by Jeorge Holmes, who likes to take arias like "La donna e mobile" and "Che gelida manina" on walkabout through the dining room. On other occasions, you might catch one of his solo programs, featuring his best selections from Elvis and Sinatra alongside all that Italian. And while most of us have day jobs to work around, he has just a bit more than that as pastor of Highland Fellowship Church. I couldn't ask for a better waltz partner.



And that's just the tip of the talent iceberg. Solange is never anything but amazing, and her Rosalinda is no exception. Paul Scavone has comedy chops to spare as Eisenstein. Susan Dennis' Adele is adorable. Matthew and Heather Giebel are the loveliest of young lovers in Flute, and Kristin Johnson is an exquisitely scary (scarily exquisite?) Queen of the Night. And Katherine Dalin is wearing more than a few hats herself, keeping the office running, stage-directing Flute, and turning in a darling Papagena.

Love & Fairy Tales runs this weekend only, May 1-3, bringing you close to the story on three sides in the black-box space at the Rider Center, on the campus of Elgin Academy. Don't miss it!

Objects on calendar may be closer than they appear

Whew!  I can't believe it's only a few days to tech week!  Rehearsals are a blast, but busybusybusy, so this will probably be the last moment I grab to blog before Die Zaubermaus... er, Love & Fairy Tales opens May 1.  We're doing a school matinee of just the Magic Flute half that day too, which I'm equally excited about.  Almost like doing children's theatre again!  Which most people seem to think of as one of those things you have to live through on the way to being a Real Actor, but I've always loved it as its own thing.

At this point, I have the show music running through my head constantly -- good thing I like it!  Oh, and the "champagne toast" from the Fledermaus finale keeps segueing somehow into "The Night They Invented Champagne" from Gigi. Which, y'know, how can you go wrong with Leslie Caron?  She was my number one idol for a while there when I was about eleven, and I still love her to bits.  So elegant and whimsical all at the same time.

But I think I'm gonna want some rock 'n' roll when this thing is done.  *g*