The Belonging You Seek Is Ahead

In which our Diva plays a small part in the creation of something beautiful

One of the very coolest things to happen to me since I started cosplaying Rey was being asked by Lucas Durham to pose for the figure reference for what became this extraordinary painting.

I have one (well, one extra) 11 x 17 print to give away. Watch the video to learn how! The winner will be drawn and announced on September 30.



If you like Lucas' work and you live in Chicagoland, you might want to attend his "Meet The Artist" event at the Fair Game store in Downer's Grove this Saturday. He'll be signing cards, talking about his work, and conducting a kids' Star Wars art workshop. Click here to learn more.

The Light at the End of the World

In which our Diva is officially an audiobook narrator

I am over the moon about being able to announce that my very first foray into audiobook narration, The Light at the End of the World by J.A. Cummings, is now available on audible.com.

I learned an enormous amount in this process, not least of which was that while I would love to narrate again, I think I'll leave the producing to the audio specialists. It took much, much longer than I hoped or expected to get this baby up to Audible's strict quality standards, and I'm eternally grateful to the very, very patient author who also happens to be one of my oldest and dearest friends.

I love this book and these characters, and the challenge of finding the right voice for each of them is one I won't soon forget. I'm pretty proud of the work I did, and I hope you like it too.

If you're not already an Audible member, you can download The Light at the End of the World for FREE with a 30-day trial membership.

The Apocalypse was not supposed to rest on Jessica Norgren's shoulders. When the struggling law clerk finds herself pregnant with no possible human father, she learns more than she ever wanted to know about angels and demons. With her best friend, Tsung Li, to help her navigate this tough new terrain, she finds herself mixed up with Watchers, archangels, succubi, athletes and Buddhist monks in a confusing melange of hope and fear.

A visit from the Archangel Michael reveals that the Apocalypse involves more than just the Anti-Christ and the coming of the End Times. It also involves the Demons' Messiah, sent to bring demons back to a state of grace; a pretender to the throne of Hell, destined to replace the Devil; and a squad of shadow demons, assassins sent by Lucifer himself.

Is well-known hockey player Rick Buchanan the Anti-Christ? Is it his son, Alexander? Could one of them be the Demons' Messiah? And what about "the One" that Alexander's mother, the succubus Rachel, has been talking about?

Everybody has a part to play in the drama of the end of the world, but not everybody wants to fill the roles they've been assigned. How far will Jessica go to avoid her destiny? What is her destiny, anyway?

She doesn't have long to learn. Lucifer is coming, and she's running out of time.

Go! Download! Listen! :-)

To the Safe Zone!

In which our Diva faces off against some gnarly zombies

It's time for Nightmare on Chicago Street again, and that means more webseries goodness from the fertile mind of Jeff Kelley!  I had a great time working with Jeff, the ever-hilarious Jason Pawlowski, and some skeeeery zombies in this year's videos. Here's the first episode:



Be sure to subscribe to the NoCS YouTube channel to keep up with Ed and Rebecca's adventures leading up to Saturday's big bash. If you're in the area, check out the official website for info. I'll be on hand in my Rebecca duds, so if you see me there, come up and say hi!

Nightmare on Chicago Street takes place in downtown Elgin, Illinois, on Saturday night, October 24.

Remember the ladies

In which our Diva impersonates the Founding Mother of smarts and sass

A couple weeks ago, a friend alerted me to Drunk History's "Stumble Into History" contest, which called for videos of fans posing as historical figures to react to their portrayal on the show. It sounded like fun (and getting flown out to warm, sunny LA to do a walk-on in Season 3 sounds particularly good right about now!), but I've had other priorities, so it wasn't until this past weekend that I did anything about it.

At which point, I pulled it together in less than a day, with resources I had around the house, and uploaded my entry a comfortable three hours before deadline. I'm pretty pleased with myself for that. :-)

I spent a fair amount of time waffling among the awesome ladies on the list -- Mary Dyer? Dolley Madison? Nellie Bly? -- but ultimately Abigail Adams and her legendary letter-writing were always going to prevail. (I am rather sad nobody represented for Nellie, the original intrepid girl reporter.)

So, interspersing some of Mrs. Adams' famous words with a few of my own invention, I took pretend quill pen in hand and threw my mob cap in the ring.

You can check out the results here and (if you feel so inclined and if you have a Facebook account, on which the voting mechanism unfortunately depends) vote for me once a day until next Monday, March 2. Comments and sharing are also most definitely welcome, and thank you!!

Unvarnished sneak peek

In which our Diva sends season's greetings from Lizzie Siddal in Nice, 1855

The first staged reading of Unvarnished has come and gone, followed immediately by a lower back strain that limited my time in front of the computer, and immediately after that by, y'know, Christmas.

The turnout was small but enthusiastic, I learned that it's still too long and I must kill more darlings (seriously, folks, even I don't want to talk for two hours straight on purpose!), and our hosts at Side Street Studio Arts were super helpful and supportive. Onward and upward!

One of my Christmas gifts was a nifty little flexible tripod for my smartphone, which leaves me with no more excuses for putting off that vlogging I keep saying I'm going to try. (Not sure the handful of video diaries I did with my old flip camera really count, though I suppose I could lay claim to being an early adopter, since I'm pretty sure they actually predate the term "vlog." *g*)  Now that Unvarnished is not only written but most of the way toward the final version that will be produced, I have plenty to babble about -- including far more detailed background than could ever have fit into a 90-minute show, and maybe some outtakes from earlier drafts!

In the meantime, a sneak peek at said script (though most of the words in this snippet are Lizzie's own):

Hope everyone has had a very happy holiday season, and looking forward to a bright New Year!

The spark of life

In which our Diva plays dramaturg as Victor plays God

Just got home from an encore screening of the National Theatre's amazing Frankenstein, which I was lucky enough to see on my UK trip in 2011. Still one of the most satisfying experiences I've ever had in the audience of any theatre, and it was lovely to revisit that experience as well as see it in new ways courtesy of the expert filming.

Once there, I kicked myself for missing the opportunity to give out postcards for the entirely different Frankenstein in which I'm currently performing, which has been equally amazing in its own way, even if we can't afford several thousand light bulbs and a turntable/elevator. I did give the website info to some lovely geeky ladies sitting nearby; I do hope they come check us out!

It's been particularly gratifying to log my first actual credit as dramaturg, after years of diving down the research rabbit hole at the slightest provocation. And then there was the delight of watching Cory Sandrock's fantastic brand-new script evolve through two developmental readings, one of which afforded me the privilege of reading the delightfully developed role of Elizabeth. I have smaller roles in the full production, but they're still lots of fun, and I had a great time creating the lobby display too.

With a steampunk slant and some truly stunning performances, you really don't want to miss this one. If you come out Halloween night (with a delayed 9 pm start to let all the little ghouls and goblins get home and start in on the sugar coma), there's $5 off if you come in costume.

Hope to see you there!

Frankenstein runs through November 9. Visit the GreenMan Theatre website for more information.

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 lights of Laramie

In which our Diva returns to GreenMan Theatre in rather a change of pace

This is probably the latest I've ever blogged about an upcoming show, but that's partly because we have a bit of a compressed rehearsal process before our April 4 opening..

With a play like The Laramie Project, that's a lot of emotion packed into about six weeks.

In the fall of 1998, when Matthew Shepard's horrific murder captured the world's attention, I caught the news coverage in between rehearsals for the production of Macbeth I was directing in Columbus, Ohio. In New York, playwright Moisés Kaufman and company members of his Tectonic Theater Project prepared to travel to Laramie and, ultimately, create a very different narrative from the one constructed by the 24-hour news cycle.

The play is assembled from over 200 interviews with the people of the town, as well as public-record texts and journal entries by company members. That last category of insight, as woven into the show's opening moments, reveals the chroniclers' own prejudices and apprehensions about what kind of people live under the wide high-plains sky. About what kind of welcome they might find.

I can't help chuckling a bit at those passages, but I can't blame them either. They were city-bred strangers, some of them gay, venturing into the relatively small town where a young gay man had just been beaten to death. More than that, they had been inundated with the same media narrative as the rest of the country, the one that turned the romantic literature and folklore of the American West inside-out and hung it up as ironic backdrop to darker truths.

It's a narrative I know all too well, and one that sets my teeth on edge every time it finds its way back onto my TV. Every time the worse angels of human nature manifest themselves somewhere in the vast portion of this continent so often dismissed as "flyover," the old romantic notions are trotted out and tied to the pillory for the mocking, as if no one has ever challenged them before.

Those people over there, far away from us in our enlightened sophistication. There is the stagnant pool where society's diseases fester, the ignorance and hate that infect our world. Those rednecks, hicks, zealots, bigots, so foolish as to be surprised when these terrible things happen there.

As I watched the news from Laramie unfold, my shock and grief at what had been done to Matthew Shepard sat alongside distaste and growing resentment for the way the story was being told.

Yes, I said "resentment," and I chose that very personal word deliberately. From sixth grade until I moved out of my parents' home, I lived in Bennett, Colorado, some two hours south and east of Laramie, with less than a tenth its population. Wikipedia will tell you it was home to "Colorado Spam King" Edward Davison and to the late Tim Samaras of Discovery Channel's Storm Chasers.

It will also tell you, in a single dry paragraph, about Bennett's fifteen minutes of national attention a few years ago, when the elementary school music teacher faced firing for showing her first graders a 30-year-old episode of the PBS series Who's Afraid of Opera? It won't tell you about the most ignorant possible quotes plastered all over the news reports, from people (not all of them even parents) hand-wringing over  the subject matter of Faust as if the kids had seen the entire opera instead of a sanitized excerpt.

It won't tell you how sad I was to read those news reports and be reminded forcefully of a similar kerfuffle the summer before my junior year of high school, when plans to implement a "global education" curriculum were scuttled by the outrage of parents, largely stoked by John Birch Society activists from out of town who turned a public forum about the issue into a circus. Not enough of one to catch national attention, but a Denver news team did drive out to grab a few sound bites. School hadn't started yet, so I think they were just looking for B-roll of the building when the cheerleaders came out of practice and gave them some (as I recall, from my 16-year-old perspective) pretty succinct and cogent comments about the misinformation going around.

When the segment aired that evening, though, the one and only resident who appeared was a woman saying "Well, I think it has a Communistic or a Satanistic background," and the tone of the entire piece was "Look at this backward, benighted town." So when "Operagate" came around years later, and all my arts friends were looking at the coverage and shaking their heads, I didn't much relish the awkwardness of simultaneously standing up for my former hometown and being sad that such reactionary elements can still disrupt everyone's lives there.

Bennett is lucky: It's had its embarrassing media moments, but not because anyone died. The humiliation of Laramie on the world media scene, the painting of an entire community as backward and destructive and rotten, the implication that everyone was as culpable as the actual murderers, shook me on a level I still can't adequately express.

Fear makes monsters, and fear is learned. We learn from our community. There's no disputing that, and no disputing that the vein of fear and hate that made monsters of Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson was mined from their families, their community. Their world.

But the "let's all shake our heads at the benighted hicks" narrative places their world somewhere outside our own. It encourages us to believe we're different, to sit back in our self-righteous blue-state complacency and ignore the tar pit of unexamined assumptions and privilege bubbling under the foundations of our own homes.

Kaufman and his colleagues did a brave thing in turning away from that narrative and seeking the truth. The people of Laramie did a brave thing in agreeing to share their truth, with all its awkward pointy angles, with yet another set of strangers with tape recorders. Between them, they created something that isn't easy or tidy, that sometimes presents more questions than it does answers. They created a way to tell the story as it was, and as it continues to be.

In The Laramie Project, Father Roger Schmit, the priest who hosted the first vigil for Matthew Shepard as he lay in intensive care, urges the company members interviewing him to "deal with what is true... You need to do your best to say it correct."

I'm humbled and honored to be part of telling that story.

The Laramie Project runs April 4-13, 2014, at GreenMan Theatre in Elmhurst. Details and ticket information can be found at their website.

Five things make a post

In which our Diva plugs a few of her favorite things

Watch: I'm a little behind with this recommendation, since the season 1 finale aired last night on Syfy, but Continuum sort of snuck up on me as a favorite, while proving one of my favorite points: A story doesn't have to be super-innovative and groundbreaking to be worth telling. On paper, it certainly seems like we've seen all this before: Members of a terrorist group escape execution in 2077 by traveling back in time, and a rank-and-file cop is inadvertently carried with them and dropped in the middle of 2012. Cue potential pardoxes, mysterious clues, and shocking revelations about the future of apparently ordinary people.

It's smartly written and beautifully designed and shot, with a solid ensemble peppered with familiar Vancouver-based faces, including Lexa Doig, Roger R. Cross, and Tony Amendola as the charismatic and enigmatic revolutionary leader.

The glue that holds it all together, though, is Rachel Nichols as Kiera Cameron, the cop forced to navigate an unfamiliar world and driven by the twin -- and sometimes opposing -- motivations of stopping the revolutionaries from reshaping the future to their liking, and getting back home to that future and the husband and young son she left there. If you've only seen Nichols in GI Joe or Star Trek, you've only scratched the surface of what she's capable of. Kiera is as smart, tough, and resourceful as her role at the center of a sci-fi adventure requires. She's also a young mom ripped away from her family, an officer of the law forced to lie every day to the people she works with and depends on, and an idealist confronted with mounting evidence that the system she serves -- and the husband she loves -- may not be everything they seem. Nichols navigates all this with raw, breathtaking honesty, and breaks my heart every week.

Listen: All this week, BBC Radio presents a brand-new audio adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere with a gobsmacking cast ranging from rising young stars like Natalie Dormer to veterans like Bernard Cribbins to straight-up legend Christopher Lee. I'm a huge fan of the original 1996 TV miniseries (which many people don't realize came before the novel), and this new incarnation -- smartly updated for the cultural and technological developments of the last decade and a half -- breathes new life into Gaiman's colorful characters and places them in a flawlessly atmospheric aural environment. It's a great listen, and (unlike the BBC iPlayer's video content) you can catch it from anywhere in the world.

Follow: I ran across Grace Nuth's blog The Beautiful Necessity several years ago, and heartily recommend it to anyone interested in the Pre-Raphaelite and/or Arts and Crafts movements. But today I want to give a plug to her newer blog, Domythic Bliss, inspired by her ongoing mission to transform her home to reflect her artistic and story tastes (and, unlike what you tend to see in magazines, on an ordinary-person budget). Currently she's in the midst of a "Mythic March" series in which she and regular readers share current decorating, craft and art projects. If you want a practical way to live in a fairy-tale forest, get inspired by people making stuff, or just want to look at pretty things, you should definitely check it out.

Listen some more: I ran across Sandra Joseph's blog around the end of her record-setting Broadway run as Christine in The Phantom of the Opera. Of everyone I encountered way back in Michigan State's theatre department, she didn't surprise me a bit with that high-profile success, but I would never have predicted the direction she's taken since then. First in the blog, and then moving into a second career as a motivational speaker and coach, she's been unfailingly candid about her own anxiety and insecurities, and made a mission of inspiring and supporting others in achieving their dreams. The latest iteration of that is a new podcast, Behind the Mask Radio, featuring in-depth interviews with fellow artists, which has promptly landed a permanent spot on my "cynicism detox" list. If you're interested in being a creative person and also having a happy, healthy, balanced life, it's very much worth your time.

And finally, Looky looky looky! The gorgeous poster design for Witchfinder makes me feel like a real movie star.

I can't wait to see the finished film. It's already been selected for Panic Fest in Kansas City, MO, where it will screen as part of the Short Film Showcase on April 20. If you're in the area, I'd love it if you'd check it out and let me know what you think! There's talk of a cast/crew road trip, but it's early days, and I don't know if that'll happen. But I'll definitely keep you posted if it turns out I'm going!

Trailers and festivals

In which various of our Diva's projects are coming to light

Film is a delayed-gratification world. You work intensely for a short time -- days, weeks -- and then comes the waiting. Which sounds sort of awful, except you then have nifty surprises trickling out all through the the post-production PR process. Maybe it's just me, but shiny things in which I look all professional and stuff are that much more exciting when they pop up on my computer as I'm sitting here in my PJs with scrungy hair.

A quick rundown of the things I've been excited to see come to light lately:

Rose White continues to get fantastic reviews across the indie film blogosphere, and will soon be coming to a festival screen near, well, some of you. It's an official selection at the Nevermore Film Festival in Durham, North Carolina, February 22-24 (keep an eye on their website for the full schedule). More festival dates are expected soon, and will be posted to the film's Facebook page and Twitter feed.

I've only seen a rough cut myself, but even in that form it's absolutely stunning, and I'm all kinds of proud to be a part of it.

Speaking of festivals, Words Like Knives will be screened at Blood at the Beach in Virginia Beach, May 10-12. (It's not yet listed on their Events page, but I expect that'll be updated soon.) It's already garnered a couple of great reviews too, including one over at The Critic's Word that really qualified as one of those surprises that make my day:

Michael Wexler and Valerie Meachum delivered spot on performances as Mr. and Mrs. Price. What I found most impressive was how both actors handled themselves on screen, body language plays a big role to a great performance, and both actors showed a good display of that.

Can hardly ask for more than that!

Finally, I'm over the moon about how Witchfinder is coming together. The rough cut I've seen of it looks amazing, and I'm so proud of the team for realizing this ambitious 17th-century vision on an absolute shoestring. The trailer hit the web this week, and I can't wait to see the finished film.

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...

Screw your courage to the sticking place

In which our Diva's near future includes a lot of handwashing

LADY. MAC. BETH. Really, what else is there to say? *happy actor dance*

GreenMan Theatre Troupe, October 19-November 4, 2012. All the details can be found here.

With rehearsals already underway, I'm happily up to my eyebrows in text and character and all those wonderful Shakespearey things. We have a fantastic cast, with a terrific director, and the show is going to be one not to miss.

I've been involved in three previous productions of the play (including one as director), and have joked for years that I've played practically everyone in it but Lady M. Guess I'll have to find a new joke! Which probably won't be difficult; it's a pretty dependable truism that the higher the body count onstage, the more silliness is generated backstage. ;-)

Hope to see you there!

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!

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!

Getting my geek on

In which our Diva babbles about supernatural housemates for fun and no profit

I mentioned Being Human briefly in my last post, but in my other life as an  Unapologetic Squeeing Fangirl, I've been known to go on at far, far greater length and in rather exhaustive detail. :-)

Fortunately for me, there are other people who go in for that sort of thing, including the ever-charming Andy, host of the "Being Human Cast" podcast. Recently he was kind enough to invite me back for a third time as guest host, to discuss "Adam's Family" (series 3, episode 2), and the episode is now live on their site and on iTunes.  If you're a fan of the show, give us a listen, and please stop by the podcast website to leave a comment!

Women's Work

In which our Diva heads back on stage and back in time

One of the best groups of theatre people anywhere, Babes With Blades, has a fabulous in-depth New Plays Development Program, and much to my delight they've invited me to be part of it again. I'm one of the cast for the public reading of Deeds Not Words: The Rise of The Jujitsu Suffragettes by Anne Bertram, which tells the complex story of members of the Women's Social and Political Union fighting for the vote. I had the opportunity to take part in a closed reading earlier in the development process, so it's extra cool to see how the play has evolved and be there for its first bow in front of an audience.


There's far more history here than can be told in a single play, of course, but it's a fascinating story that I think will engage audiences while they're in the theatre and hopefully afterward too.  It's not just about how a group of suffrage activists came together with Edith Garrud to learn to defend themselves with martial arts in a manner one might not immediately associate with middle-class British ladies in 1913. The fracturing of the movement, the personal cost as leaders began to move in different political directions, is at the heart of the drama. It's a story well worth the telling.


The public reading of Deeds Not Words will be held at The Second Stage (3408 N. Sheffield, Chicago) at 1 p.m. on October 22. Admission is free.

After that (well, in the midst of it, actually, since the rehearsal schedules are concurrent) I'll be doing my first musical (yay!!) in several years, as Marmee in Little Women with GreenRoom Productions. I picked up the book from the library on the way home from work, since I last read it when I was about 9. It's... large. I don't remember it being that large. Mind you, I was a pretty hardcore reader as a kid, so it doesn't really surprise me that I don't remember it being daunting or anything. I do remember it being an emotional rollercoaster, and the snippets I've heard so far of the show's score (it's a different adaptation from the one produced on Broadway a few years back) promise to serve that purpose very well indeed. I'm excited to revisit it as an adult, with an eye toward identifying with Marmee instead of Jo! (I always feel like I should pick one of the other girls, like identifying with Jo is a bit cliche, but, well.)


Little Women runs two weekends, December 10-18, at the Cosman Theater in Huntley, IL.  Tickets are $20 in advance ($15 for students and seniors), and will be available online at the GreenRoom website sometime shortly after their current production of Doubt closes.


If you can make it to either or both shows, I'd love to see you!

Shameless plug time

In which our Diva is, well, shameless

Keep meaning to write nice meaty posts on a couple of topics, keep not quite getting to it. Until I manage it, here are a few things that have come down the pike since my last post:

Photographer Daryl Darko's new book Cemetery People is now available for ordering, and looks amazing! You can preview it on the linked site. I'm delighted to be featured among the eclectic mix of people captured by Daryl's lens.

From visual to auditory, Elgin OPERA is back with the "Festival of Singers" at Villa Verone from 6-8 pm every Sunday evening through August. I got all involved in setting up my new computer this weekend, and completely forgot to let you lovely folks know I'd be singing last night. D'oh! But I'll be back next week (July 24), and probably a couple of Sundays in August, contingent on my schedule. I'll confirm the dates ASAP.

Resonance is starting to gain momentum, with new cells popping up all over the place! So excited to see what stories the community will come up with to expand the world. The first Chicago video scene is now live, with more being planned for shooting as the summer progresses, along with in-character blog and social media content, and an experiment or three in storytelling in different media. We're currently looking for a logo design for the fictional record label that figures into our story. So here's that key question... Will you help?

In the meantime, you can see Beth and Alice get together to catch up on life since Alice moved to L.A., and compare notes on the early stages of their investigation. This was edited from about 20 minutes of improvised material, shot by the terrific Adam Daniels. The folks at Bistrot Margot could not have been more friendly and helpful, and we had ourselves a yummy brunch besides! If you're looking for a great meal in the Old Town neighborhood, you won't go wrong there.

It's the nature of guerrilla filmmaking that something will always go wrong, and in this case it was the input from our body mikes suddenly deciding not to work when we were actually shooting, even though they were fine when we tested twice! Our experiment with homegrown ADR was also, unfortunately, less than successful. I managed to clean up a lot of the traffic noise, but it and the music at the restaurant still definitely intrude on the scene, so you might want to watch with the captions turned on. (Click the little "CC" near the right-hand end of the video's control bar.)



Onward and upward!

It's here!

In which our Diva is available on podcast and DVD

Two and half years after our time at the Icebox Inn (not unusual for an indie feature), Cyrus: Mind of a Serial Killer is out on DVD today! I'm honored to be part of such a knockout cast, and proud to have played sidekick to the fabulous Patricia Belcher.

My friend (and fellow Resonance collaborator) Mary Czerwinski is co-host of DVD Geeks on Fearless Radio, and she was kind enough to invite me on for a brief interview to go with their review of the flick on this week's show. Check out the podcast on their site. Mary and John have the skinny on the new releases every Monday night, and I can guarantee you they know their stuff!

Speaking of Resonance, we're planning plots and plotting plans for new Chicago story content and clues in a couple different formats. Look for a link or two by the weekend, and be sure to follow the Twitter feed or Facebook page to keep up with the latest developments.

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.

Scarlet X trailer

In which our Diva has been looking forward to this

And I'm pretty excited about how it looks. I've had a great time creating the character of Scarlet, and am looking forward to digging in and shooting more this spring/summer. In the meantime, I don't have a date yet for the release of the first webisode (time is the enemy of indie projects everywhere!), but it shouldn't be too terribly long, and I'll keep you posted!