Shakespeare Week!

In which our Diva has a little classical fun

Shakespeare Week is a UK-based educational initiative (put together by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust), but enough of it happens online that it's pretty inevitable people would pick up on it overseas.

Like me.

To that end, in lieu of my usual trying-to-be-weekly vlog efforts, I've been posting a short "mono-vlogue" each day. You can check out my full Shakespeare playlist over there, or begin at the beginning with Monday's take on Portia's famous "quality of mercy" speech from The Merchant of Venice.



Hope you enjoy! Do give a nod to the Bard this week in celebration, will you?

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!

A Year And A Day

In which our Diva has recorded a few more poems, and made a pretty video to go with one

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!

Witches and Roses

In which our Diva has been keeping out of trouble. Or maybe getting into more. She isn't sure.

There's a wealth of creativity and boundary-pushing at the lowest-budget end of the indie film world, but with all the challenges inherent in making something out of practically nothing, the visual textures of fantasy and history, as a rule, are left to those with ample resources to create them.

Every rule was made to be broken. :-)

I'm over the moon to have two examples in my acting life right now. One is a brand-new project, Colin Clarke's Witchfinder, in which I'll be playing the titular witch. (Say that ten times fast! Or maybe not.) Principal photography will take place in November, and in the meantime Colin and his team are hard at work creating the gritty period details that will make this look like no other horror short I've seen. I've already been involved in one rehearsal -- we have limited time in historic locations, so the aim is to eliminate as many unforeseen variables as possible before then -- as well as had my whole body encased in duct tape for top-secret FX purposes and had a first costume fitting. It's going to be an amazing process, and I couldn't be more excited to be in the thick of it.

The other, of course, is the dark fantasy fairy-tale update Rose White, which you've been hearing about since I filmed my scenes last spring and summer. The official theatrical trailer has just been released, and is gobsmackingly gorgeous.

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!

Do you believe?

Things are moving fast in the Resonance world today! As I type this, the summer party is probably still going strong in London, though it's fast approaching 1 am there. I'd be lying if I claimed not to have a pang at not making it over there this time, but it's been fun to watch various attendees tweeting about it, and I'm looking forward to more pictures and impressions once they've gone home and gotten some rest. (On balance, probably just as well I'm home this time -- besides having lots to do as the project moves into its next phase, it's a busy production time in Chicago, with lots of auditions and background work going on, and I don't need to be missing those!)

In conjunction with the event, lots of content has become publicly available today that wasn't before. The eight-minute mini-pilot, "The Morning After," has previously been presented at several events in addition to being shared with team members. Now it's at your fingertips in all its HD glory, ripe for the puzzling!



At the same time, the call for engagement from our audience has gone out on the main Facebook page, together with an FAQ guide to how to go about getting involved. (Click on the "Discussions" tab at the left-hand side of the page.) This includes a link to "The Story," a detailed summary of the beginning events in the core narrative (more than I knew before today, and I've been working on this project for months!), which  highlights opportunities to hook your ideas into the story.

Meanwhile, there's still some technical work to be done on the first scene in our Chicago story, but until then, we've posted a phone conversation between Alice (Mary Czerwinski) and Beth (me) that kicks off the investigation that will lead them... well, you'll just have to see, won't you?



If you want to make a "The Morning After," you need a full-blown TV crew under a kickass director like Colin Teague. But that's not the only way to start a story.

What will be yours? I'd love to see!

We Create Resonance

In which our Diva heads into a busy summer

Last week was one of my craziest ever, and that's saying something! It was funny -- as of Sunday night, my evenings were entirely free, but by Monday night, the calendar was a wall-to-wall patchwork of deadlines, auditions, day-job shifts, and a day as an extra on Boss, a new Starz series starring Kelsey Grammer as the mayor of Chicago. (I didn't work with him, but I did have a nice featured spot in the scene, and had a great time with the instant family they assigned me to that morning. You never know what's going to happen with background work, which is really the fun part.)

Bit more time to breathe this week, but still a lot to get done. In the midst of it, I came in contact online the other day with a writer/producer who was kind enough to share with me a draft of his script in development. There's a lot for his company to do before there's an opportunity to audition for the character I immediately fell in love with, and of course there are never any guarantees of anything. But it's nice to dream and to turn over this potential person in my head.

One week from today is the summer Resonance event. I'm not off to London this time around, alas, but I'm planning to be there by Skype. If you're in the UK, why not sign up to attend? You can meet the team, learn where we go from here and how you can help, and then tell me all about it afterward! :-)

If you're not in that neck of the woods (or even if you are), visit the Resonant Object Facebook page for instructions on submitting a video postcard to be part of the evening's presentation. It doesn't have to be terribly fancy; here's my team's contribution:

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!

Five things make a post

In which our Diva is kind of a wee bit all over the place tonight, and rolling with it

Watch: Mao's Last Dancer, which I had never heard of until it happened to be one of the movies on my flight back from London. A bit heavy-handed at times, as these things tend to be, but generally an interesting biopic and the dancing is superb and (a clincher for me) mostly even filmed well. The funny thing is, I got about ten minutes into it and went "Wait, everyone is calling this guy Li, and he's arriving in Houston in 1981... OMG, is this about Li Cunxin?"

See, I actually saw him dance Swan Lake on Houston Ballet's tour in 1982, in the midst of my hardcore ballet-baby phase, an occasion memorable for being the first time I saw ballet of that caliber in person. If I'd thought about it when I was older, I would have realized it was almost a given that his life story would be a dramatic one, but I hadn't, and I had no idea. And (unsurprisingly, given that ballet has its politics and mercenary side just like everything else) not all the drama was the fault of the Chinese government.

Bruce Greenwood with a British accent (as artistic director Ben Stevenson) is a little blink-inducing, but once you get used to it he works well. Of the three actors playing Cunxin, it's actually the middle one, Chengwu Guo -- covering his teenage years in Beijing -- who impressed me most, as both actor and dancer.  It gets a little on the soapy side, but nobody (except maybe Madame Mao, who was kind of a living caricature anyway) comes off as either a saint or a villain.  It's a collection of flawed people with their own goals and agendas, some of whom happen to dance gloriously.

Eat: Ancho Chili BBQ Burrito at Qdoba. Ridiculously good. And reheats well, which is important, since it's one of those burrito-as-big-as-your-head places, so the thing is easily two meals.

Read:  The "Walker Papers" series by C.E. Murphy. I've been doing pretty much all research reading lately, and it's great stuff, but I picked up the fifth book, Demon Hunts, just in time to have some lighter travel reading for the trip to England. Joanne Walker has all the most fun "standard" urban-fantasy-heroine traits -- notably a very hard head, in both the literal and figurative senses -- and a few that are very much her own.  Plus an interesting cosmology, a great support structure of interesting characters, a personal life that's engagingly complicated without crossing the blurry line into paranormal romance, and (at least so far) nary a vampire in sight. Which, as you know if you read much urban fantasy, is worth noting. Not that I'm not demonstrably quite fond of the fangy types in a variety of flavors, of course, but it's nice to have a universe that does things a little differently.

Do?: Spring fever has hit me early this year, partly because -- due directly to the wicked cool stunt work you can catch a glimpse of in the Resonance trailer -- I'm having an attack of see-something-cool-and-want-to-try-it with respect to parkour. Which may or may not be practical (given my schedule, dodgy knees, and questionable upper-body strength), but I've been watching Jump City on G4, reading articles and watching videos on GirlParkour.com, and eyeing the mentions of beginner jams on the Chicago Parkour site. For all that it looks pretty outside most days, of course, it's still too chilly for me to want to actually be out there if I can help it, but I can smell spring, darnit!

All this is proving once again that part of me is still the slightly reckless eight-year-old who was prone to things like taking a friend's big brother's go-cart (the old-school home-built kind you may have heard about from Bill Cosby) down a rather steeper incline than it was, strictly speaking, intended for. Suffice it to say the cart and I parted company well before the bottom, and I arrived there with noticeably less skin than I'd started with. (And yes, this coincided with the hardcore ballet-baby phase. I'm a complex creature. *g*)

Listen: I'm always behind the curve with pop music -- I have no patience for commercial radio, and most often find music I like because it appears in movies or TV shows I like, or because it's used for fannish music videos -- so I only recently downloaded Paramore's Brand New Eyes. The first track, "Careful," is getting a lot of repetition on my MP3 player because I've mentally adopted it as the theme song of a Chicago-based Resonance character. (I'll tell you who when she goes public, and you can decide for yourself how well it fits.) But it's "Brick By Boring Brick" that has the video I keep rewatching.

Holiday greetings of a... different kind

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



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

How I spent my Christmas vacation

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



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

Blessed Solstice to all and to all a good night!

Surprises, secrets and serendipity

In which our Diva alliterates, ruminates and collaborates

In modern popular culture, our modes of storytelling, and of talking about stories, place a high premium on the element of surprise. We're all about the twist, the stunning revelation, the "everything changes." Creators of hotly-anticipated projects pile safeguard on safeguard to keep their story details under wraps, the spoiler mill works even harder to get the scoop on leaks, and some fans eagerly snap up those leaks while others are hard-pressed to avoid them.

With all this going on, it's hard to remember the twist isn't everything. (Even when people think it is. I seem to be the only person on the planet who liked The Village on other merits and didn't care that I saw the "twist" coming a mile away.) Not every story  is "ruined" if we know or can easily guess what's going to happen. Sometimes it's just as rewarding to watch how it gets to a place we fully expect.

And sometimes it really does matter. Sometimes there's a mystery, a puzzle, a picture best built gradually, piece by piece.  When you're part of telling that kind of story, you get really good at keeping your mouth shut, at keeping track of what you're allowed to tell whom and when.

For the second time this fall, I've been all cryptic lately about a new endeavor. The cryptic will be with us for a while, but I can at least stop typing Sooper Sekrit Project. (As amusing as that may be, if only to me.) Resonance isn't a whole lot shorter, but it does sound cooler. And, courtesy of a serendipitously-timed email I wasn't even sure anyone was going to read, I'm now part of its development team.

For the moment, that's all I can really say. But I was excited about the possibilities of the project before I was ever in contact with anyone involved in it, and now I've found them very much kindred spirits. I'm in, not quite on the ground floor, but certainly the first floor, of something that promises to be pretty huge. Perhaps more to the point, it's something I can't wait to see, and I get to help make it happen. Does it get any better than that?

Lots to do in the coming months, but before you know it we'll be asking: Will you help?

November already?

In which our Diva wonders how the heck that happened

Halloween down (and much fun -- my first one in this house without a show, so I finally got to hand out candy and freak out the neighborhood kids as Zombie Tinkerbell), Election Day nearly done, and birthday just around the corner! This fall has flown.

Realized I forgot in my last post to mention one of my favorite moments in the Divine Comedy reading. In Canto 26, where we encounter Ulysses and Diomedes, Virgil turns to Dante and says, essentially, "They're Greek. Better let me do the talking." Seriously, I'm barely even paraphrasing there. I was sitting next to Racole Fisher, Storefront Shakespeare's executive director, and we looked at each other and (silently) cracked up. And nobody else seemed to get it! Yes, even in the Eighth Circle of Hell, there are geeky giggles to be had.

This coming Sunday I'll be back at Villa Verone with fellow Elgin Opera singers for our periodic casual cabaret evenings. Not sure yet what other Sundays I'm going to do, but we have six of them coming up: all through November and December, with Thanksgiving and Christmas weekends off.

Meanwhile, I'm hunkered down and bundled up (getting chilly out there, and trying to keep the ol' gas bill under control), making slow but reasonably steady progress on the Lizzie project and doing various electronic housekeeping.  Promo materials for Scarlet X are in the works; I'm excited to see  and share them. And as always, there are other potential projects swirling in the offing, and I'll keep you posted as any of them solidify.

I know that winter is inevitably on the way, but I'm holding tight to fall, with a little assistance from another animation Daryl made from the "Cemetery Girl" photoshoot.  Enjoy the pretty leaves while we got 'em!


Valerie - Cemetery Girl from Daryl Darko on Vimeo.

When the sun is shining differently

In which our Diva seeks musical inspiration yet again

A friend recently pointed out a curious thing about the Pre-Raphaelites as a group that should have been obvious, but which had never occurred to me: None of them really cared a fig about music. They drew or painted people making and listening to it, and DGR drove people nuts by humming constantly while he worked, but they didn't think of it in the same artistic terms as the disciplines where they made their mark: painting, poetry, design.

Which hasn't stopped a variety of recording artists from being directly or indirectly inspired by them. The second half of Kate Bush's Hounds of Love is a mini-concept album called The Ninth Wave, with a secondary album "cover" intentionally based on Millais' Ophelia. Broadway star Rebecca Luker's last album features a lovely setting of a Christina Rossetti poem. And if you've ever seen or heard Loreena McKennitt, well.

The voice of my Lizzie is coming more easily as I write, and as with many characters I've played, I've assembled a playlist for her. Because unlike the PRs, I am very much a musical creature! Like the show, the playlist is a work in progress, and will probably shift a lot by the time I'm ready to put this baby on stage. (And suggestions, if you have them, are always welcome!) But for now, this is what I'm writing to.

I didn't set out for quite so much of it to speak to her relationship with Gabriel, since part of my intention has always been to bring out her own point of view, which history has tangled so inextricably with his. But then she did that herself to a large extent, and I'm finding my way more to acknowledging and dealing with that, while keeping the story very much hers. It remains to be seen if I succeed.

1. Loreena McKennitt ~ Stolen Child
2. Idina Menzel ~ Gorgeous
3. Sarah McLachlan ~ Fear
4. Plumb ~ Better
5. Sarah McLachlan ~ Stupid
6. Anne Buckley ~ Our Wedding Day
7. Evanescence ~ Going Under
8. Sarah McLachlan ~ Ice
9. Jewel ~ Foolish Games
10. Emilie Autumn ~ Opheliac
11. Rebecca Luker ~ Remember
12. Loreena McKennitt ~ The Lady of Shalott

 At least one of the above is equally applicable to the Lizzie and Gabriel of the BBC's rollicking and gorgeous Desperate Romantics, as evidenced by this fan-made music video. Inspiration abounds!

Fairies and cannibals

In which our Diva has rather a wide range of projects

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

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

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





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

When in doubt, cute

Busy week, no time to write a proper blog post. (And when I do, I owe Travis a guest blog about Raymond Did It.)

But I get antsy if I go more than a week (OH NOES THEY WILL THINK I AM DED!!!11!!), so in lieu of a proper post, I give you forty-eight seconds of a snoring duckling. I am not even kidding. We are talking lethal levels of cute here.

Extra, Extra!

In which our Diva has finally posted a new video diary

I've been saying for years I should write up an "extra's survival guide," assuming someone hasn't beaten me to it. In the meantime, here are some top tips from my fellow background players during a recent four-day stint on the ABC pilot Matadors.