Transition time

In which our Diva does her best to stay connected

One more shooting day on Connections. Mixed feelings, as always when any project ends. Sad to see it go, excited for the next thing. Pretty much everything I've done this year has been whirlwind, with little time to get to know my colleagues, and this one has been a little longer and settled in a little more. I've gained some valuable friendships even on the small ones, though, and am that much more appreciative of the tools available to us online to keep in contact.

I understand where people are coming from when they worry that communication online is too superficial, too impersonal. And it's true that it's no substitute for real human contact. But it's a heckuva a valuable supplement to it, particularly for actors or anyone else who works on a project basis. My best intentions notwithstanding, cast contact lists of phone numbers and email addresses sit in folders in my hard drive gathering virtual dust. Meanwhile, five minutes on Twitter or Facebook will give me a snapshot of what's going on with people I might not have seen in person in years.

It also plays into something I've frequently tried to explain to friends, that growing up on Air Force bases with a constantly shifting collection of faces in the classroom and in the neighborhood makes it seem perfectly natural to me to operate that way as an adult. I don't go in much for big goodbyes, or fretting about making sure ties of friendship are tended to -- arguably to a fault. In my head, it makes perfect sense to run into someone after a week or a month or a year or a decade, and essentially pick up wherever we left off.

In between, I do miss them, in the sense of "Oh, so-and-so would have loved to see this." (And how much do I love being able to see something online and share it with so-and-so with a few clicks?) But I've gradually come to understand that it's not the same thing most people mean when they say they miss someone. The intensity, the acuity, of that is something that I still work hard to grasp. It's certainly an important thing to understand about human nature, which is of course what I'm all about as an actor.

This Wednesday, I'll say goodbye to my first TV series (a final count of three episodes is still a series!) experience, with all its ups and downs and the challenges of a very small-time environment. Goodbye to Michelle's desk, with all the little details it acquired. But the people involved are still there on my Facebook friends list, to see where they go from here and where we might connect up again.

First, though, I have the first read-through for Pride and Prejudice today. A completely different show, a completely different environment, with some of the same people I got to know during last fall's Dracula. I can't wait to find out which ones (I don't know all the casting info yet), to pick up with them where we left off, and take part in the alchemy of creating something new with them and with others I don't yet know.

A truth universally acknowledged

In which our Diva returns to the page and the stage

I've been loving the crazy last year-plus, with the rapid-fire succession of characters to create in various projects, but lately I've also been craving the in-depth experience of a full stage production. (Seven Plays in Seven Days, as awesome an experience as it was, definitely doesn't count.)

So when I heard that Greenman Theatre Troupe, home of last fall's gorgeous Dracula, would be opening this season with Pride and Prejudice? You better believe I was there!

Being really too old for Elizabeth Bennet, the first character on my wish list was Caroline Bingley. The second was Charlotte Lucas. The call came today, and Charlotte it is! (Thus further cementing "best friend" as one of my primary types. *g*)

Time to reread the novel, which I haven't actually done in probably 20 years. It's not as dear to my heart as it is to many of my friends', but I do love Austen's crisp and observant voice and the characters she created. There can't be too many better ways to spend the next few months than bringing them to life.

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.

Connections, Week Two

In which our Diva is officially a vlogger

It's shaky and dorky, but it's mine. Hope it doesn't make you seasick.



I do intend to get better at this. In the meantime, check out Cami's blog about the living Peeps and the video she was watching on her laptop. (And no, I am not condoning the dyeing of baby chicks. Just boggling at the fact that people do it and at how darn cute they are.)

Up, up, and away!

I know I'm late to the party, but I would just like to note that Up is completely charming and sentimental in the best possib-- SQUIRREL!

Connections, Week One

In which our Diva breaks a promise

So here I am, all excited to cut together that video diary I promised on Twitter the other day. Then I went to download the video files into my PC and discovered that the two I needed most... hadn't saved properly. I'm guessing it's because they were too long and overran the available memory. If that's the case, the problem should be solved by the fact that I finally cleared off the Christmas morning videos. *blush* It's also possible that I hit I wrong button somewhere.

The shiny shiny toy in question was an early holiday present from my hubby, in response to my saying I really wanted to get a camcorder for recording auditions, etc., but was leery of spending several hundred dollars for a serious one. I wouldn't make a feature with it, but it's certainly sufficient for my needs, and I've been meaning to make more use of it, thus the video-diary-from-the-set idea.

So, next week. In the meantime, I'll tell you I'm having a blast. Our set -- the office of a fictional (and rather dysfunctional) social service nonprofit called "Positive Connections" -- looks, well, like a rather dysfunctional office. The cast is terrific, and everyone brought *ahem* positive energy to our first episode. Not too surprisingly for Chicago, most of my fellow actors come from an improv background, and the green room chatter featured a lot of interesting "tales out of school" from Second City.

Columbia College's TV department must be teaching people right (the show is for their on-campus and online channel Frequency TV), because the crew -- all Columbia students -- were as focused and on-the-ball as those I've seen on professional film sets. It does mean they'll be handing off duties in a way you don't usually see on pro gigs, which will be interesting to see as we go along. For instance, Cammie, the script supervisor/set manager (whose pleased reaction to my dubbing her "Goddess of All Things" was unfortunately lost with one of the bum video files) for episode 1 will be directing ep 2. She looks like Eliza Dushku's long-lost little sister, is super-organized, and will most certainly pick up admirably where ep 1's director, Joe, leaves off. Can't wait to get back on set!

It's a small, small world

In which our Diva's TV adventure has begun

I'll make a proper post this weekend, but in the meantime, here's a sneak peek at my character Michelle's wardrobe for the first episode of Connections.

Guest star: "You look like a doll escaped from the Small World ride and grew up." He's... not wrong.

Theatre express!

In which our Diva heads back to the stage in a new way

Check out n.u.f.a.n. ensemble's Seven Plays in Seven Days one-act festival! One week from audition (last night) to performance (next Monday, July 20). I'm playing Jackie in "Triple Salami to Go," an eccentric little two-hander by David Kravitz, directed by Thirsa Hodits. Get more details and buy tickets here.

And yes, this is overlapping with Elgin Opera's "Comedy Tonight!" -- concerts Friday and Saturday nights and Sunday afternoon, then 7 in 7 Monday night, with rehearsals slotted into the nights between now and then.

And yes, still shooting that scene for One Night overnight between Saturday and Sunday.

What can I say, I embrace my crazy. Come check it out!

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!

Opening night!

In which Broadway comes to Elgin tonight and tomorrow

Broadway Night! will be presented on Friday, July 10 and Saturday, July 11 at 8:00 PM. A variety of singers, including Solange Sior (Elgin), Susan Dennis (Bartlett), Robert Jastrebski (Arlington Heights), Charles Martin (Elk Grove Village), Valerie Meachum (Elgin), Kimberly & Brittany Albrecht (Barrington), Jori Jennings (Chicago), Kendra Wieneke (Barrington), Lindon Warren (Round Lake Beach), Marianna Adaire (Evanston), Nicole Teram (Chicago), Tatiana Ranallo (Gilberts) , Annamarie Schutt (South Elgin), and Gabriella Stocksdale (Elgin) will perform excerpts from Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, Porgy & Bess, The Sound of Music, Annie, Show Boat, South Pacific, Songs for a New World, and The Light in the Piazza, and music by Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Kurt Weill.

All Events and Performances will be held at the Kimball Street Theatre, located on the first level of the new Rider Center, on the Campus of Elgin Academy, 261 Dundee Avenue, Elgin, IL 60120. (Visit our website at www.elginopera.org for map and directions.) Tickets are $18 for Adults and $15 for Seniors and Students. Discounted prices for members of the Elgin OPERA Guild.

Hope to see you there!

And the beauty is, I still meet people I know

In which our Diva is holding breath and keeping fingers crossed

Posting on the fly. If I stop and think about how much I have going on through the rest of this summer, it's enough to make my head spin! So I'm just being in one place at a time and loving it. (And not thinking too much about how my house looks kinda like we were raised by wolves.)

The first concert of Elgin Opera's first Summer Music Festival is this weekend's "Broadway Night." Download a PDF of the festival brochure, and come join us!

There are a million things I want to post about right now, and no time to put them into words! Remember, if you ever want to know where and when you can see me performing live, check the events calendar on my website.

Song for today: "The Beauty Is" from The Light in the Piazza, which I get to sing in this weekend's program. I love Clara's sense of wonder and adventure, finding commonality with a foreign place and people. I hope I always remember how to approach the world that way.

One night to get it right

In which our Diva climbs aboard yet another electronic bandwagon



The nifty little widget you see above is generated by IndieGoGo, a site where independent filmmakers can promote and get grass-roots support for their projects. This particular one leads to the page for One Night, the project I start shooting next week as Sheila the waitress.

If for some reason you don't see the nifty little widget above (I know not all browser settings are created equal, even if a lot of designers these days don't seem to!), click here and support independent film!

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!"

Glad for my dad!

Happy Fathers' Day to the wonderful man who taught me to fix stuff in the process of teaching himself, opened doorways of books and TV and movies to worlds of amazing imagination (and delightful cheese), answered questions with "look it up," and laughed and loved and always believed in me.

For him and all the dads out there, have a fantastic day!!

June is bustin' out all over

In which our Diva is getting her ducks in a row (as soon as they stop swimming on her lawn)

Hey, what's that shiny round thing in the sky? *g* I was joking on Facebook yesterday about building an ark, and an old college friend pointed out that God promised never again to make it rain for 40 days and 40 nights, but nobody said anything about 39. Thankfully, it was only about five. And the thunderstorms yesterday were spectacular! There's just something about them that always makes me happy.

Plenty going on, but mostly continuations of stuff I've already blogged about. Tonight is my maiden voyage as a "Ghost Host" for Historic Ghost Tours of Naperville, and I've been stuffing my head with the facts and fancy of the town's hauntings. Still need to shop for good sturdy summer walking shoes -- really don't have anything right now that will take me through the season.

Earlier in the week I updated the photo gallery on my website, including blast-from-the-past theatre pics and stills from recent film projects. I've been meaning to scan some old photos, both professional and personal, for ages and ages, and it was fun to finally get around to it. Of the theatre ones, I think my favorite has to be the Witches goofing off in the dressing room before a performance of Macbeth at Rosebriar Shakespeare Company in 1994. Good times, man. The headshots I added are still in the proof stage, but I'll have my shiny new marketing materials in hand in the next couple weeks, and then it'll be time to get some more agent mailings out.

We've now had a table read and some great discussion for One Night, and I'm grooving on the way Sebastian, the writer/director, thinks and works. There are plans in the works for at least one actual rehearsal of my scene before we shoot in July, which marks the second time I've had that luxury with a film. (The first was The Storm, which really couldn't have done without it since so much of the interaction was nonverbal.) He's also keeping the actors filled in on the business plan for his production company, which I've never run into before, and which really makes me feel like I'm getting in on the ground floor of something special that could really go somewhere. I know there are no guarantees, but for now, there's a great energy in that. Giving life to Sheila the waitress is that much more awesome when I can feel how excited everyone is about this project and where it could go.

Meanwhile, on the singing end, things are coming together for Elgin Opera's Summer Music Festival, which promises to be a great time. It's an ambitious undertaking -- a different concert each weekend throughout July -- and it comes hard on the heels of the annual voice competition (which I decided not to do this year after all -- too much stuff going on, and still transitioning into bigger lyric soprano rep, so I just wasn't going to be ready). I'll be checking out the finals next weekend with an ear on the musical theatre numbers, to help plan the Broadway Night program. The website and Facebook page will be updated soon with more details on the July concerts and master classes.

Oh, one more thing: I won't be performing at this year's World of Faeries festival, but I did promise I'd ask around. It's a fun time, and I still say my best review to date was the small child last year who declared that "some of them are just pretending, but the purple fairy is real!" They're looking to cast a couple dozen interactive performers, so if you're in the Chicago area and think you might be interested, drop me a line and I'll get you in touch with the guy you need to talk to.



Back to studying spooks!

Pause for breath

The first subject line I typed up there was "Holding pattern," but then I realized that was silly, because things are still moving and growing every day. I think maybe I'm just so used to the pace now that even a slight pause feels like a thudding halt, like I'm slacking off. F'rinstance, an evening off to finish reading the shiny new book I drove to Toronto last weekend to have signed by a longtime favorite author. (And spend a few hours hanging out in the friendliest of bookstores -- seriously, if you're on Queen West and you read SF/fantasy at all, BakkaPhoenix is an absolute MUST -- gabbing with a gaggle of fellow fans/friends, munching on strawberries and cookies, and generally having a fabulous geeky time.)

Fabulous fun book. Will make you crave pie. Consider yourself warned.

Auditions all over the map this week: Student films, musical theatre, and storyteller/guide for haunted walking tours. One of these things is not like the others, I know. But hey, not going to turn my nose up at a paid gig that's also a bit of exercise and good spooky fun. Which is good, since I got the call today, so that'll be where you find me at least an evening or two a week through October.

And whaddya know, there's a video about it on YouTube, hosted by none other than my friend Mary!



I've got myself pretty well trained at this point to think of the audition as a performance in itself -- best way I've found to be done with it and not dwell on whether they're going to call me, what they were looking for, etc. I have to confess, though, I'm still thinking about the one last night for Man of La Mancha. Not second-guessing myself -- they're looking for what they're looking for, they'll know it when they see it, and I'm that or I'm not, so I give my best and that's it -- but definitely hoping to hear back. I love that show so much, and I like everything I've heard about this company. Promises to be a nice long run, too -- their current production of Evita has even been extended.

The cure for that is, of course, to keep the brain occupied with other things. Going to curl up and finish that book in a few minutes here. And in the next day or two, I should have the updated script for the film I'll be shooting in July, so I can prep for rehearsal on Sunday.

What film is that, you say? Yeah, I know, bad blogger, no cookie. It's an indie feature called One Night, of the genre that I call "postmodern romantic comedy," for lack of a better/standardized label (or at least I've never heard one) for films like Chasing Amy or Garden State. I originally read for one of the leads, and wasn't really holding my breath that anything would come of it, so I was delighted when they contacted me to offer a different character that's going to be a lot of fun. Can't wait to meet the rest of the cast Sunday and start building!

My life: It does not suck.

Meet Blue!

In which our Diva has photographic evidence of her stint as Creepy Mystery Woman

Check out this nifty set of behind-the-scenes photos from the set of The Storm, the HD short I filmed in April. Taken by Nate, the action man, who taught me to slap a clip in a (prop) handgun without looking.

Even more excited about this one now... Can't wait to see it!

Kissing history

In which our Diva endeavors once again to kick-start a long-dormant project

Those of you following me on Twitter may have noticed some cryptic comments the last couple days about "Lizzie," and wondered what the heck I was on about. Or possibly you didn't care, which is also perfectly fine. (The cryptic thing is one of the reasons I've finally caved and climbed aboard yet another electronic bandwagon -- 140-character-or-less nibbles of people's lives are astonishingly addictive, and I'm finding the more opaque ones to be the most compelling. But I'm weird like that.)

In any case, it all started with this self-portrait of Elizabeth Siddal, when I first saw it about 20 years ago (eeep!) in the now out-of-print Pre-Raphaelite Women by Jan Marsh. I vividly remember flipping through it in the bookstore and stopping dead to stare at this image for what seemed like minutes. I instantly wanted to know who this woman was, and how she could possibly be the same person painted by William Holman Hunt, or Dante Gabriel Rossetti, or most famously by John Everett Millais. I've read everything I could get my hands on about her ever since, and a few years ago hatched the crazy idea of developing a one-woman show about her.

There are certain images crystal-clear in my head, threads the notion hangs by when I hit a writing wall and think I can't do this... but I want to put these images on stage! With all the crazy-busy of the last year or so, with my career suddenly growing in different directions, I haven't even been doing the little dribs and drabs of work on it that I had been. Now something's gone *sproing* and I'm getting back to it. Not much concrete yet, maybe, but a shift in my way of thinking that makes me realize some of the things that have been stopping me are really irrelevant to this project.

See, I want to get her "right." And I didn't realize how much I hadn't let go of the notion that it needs to be factually accurate. I'll let the scholars duke that one out, as they have for over a century. This is a work of theatre, and it needs to be the Lizzie that's right for how her work and her words and others' images of her and words about her come together and come down to me.

It doesn't matter whether her death by laudanum overdose was accident or suicide. It matters whether she wanted to die. (Do I know the answer to that? Not yet, but now I think I'm asking the right question.)

It doesn't matter what the actual clinical diagnosis of her chronic ailments might have been. It matters that she was an intensely creative person who persistently lacked the strength to create. (I can barely imagine the frustration of that, but have several dear friends who live it every day.)

I don't have this trouble when it's just about acting. I'll research a historical figure in as much depth as I possibly can, mostly because it's an excuse to research. (Seriously, my ideal day job is dramaturgy. Too bad there's even less call for that on a full-time basis than for acting!) I've posted here before about that process when I played Lucy Hale. And I read more about Catherine de Valois than anyone would think I possibly needed to know just to play Princess Katherine, with her broken English and her whole adult life ahead of her. But surely even that girl, listening bewilderedly to Harry's clumsy so-called wooing, must have something in her of the woman who would outlive him and remarry to become the mother of the tempestuous Tudor dynasty!

But I've always started with Doug Hoehn's Lucy, Shakespeare's Katherine, William Gibson's Anne Hathaway. They gave me the words, and I made them my own. This time, the words are mine.

I knew that was harder than it looked, but damn.

Here's to keeping momentum going this time! Let's see where it takes me...

New Cyrus promo

In which our Diva is actually in this one!

None of my lines, but you can spot me just past the halfway point, munching away on a "Road Kill Burger." (It's the bright sunny shot with no blood. *g* As opposed to the most of the rest of the video.)

Check it out on MySpace!

Hopefully you can't tell I'm freezing my tushie off in that cute little rayon dress!

Of ballet, blades, and bloodthirsty walking dead

In which our Diva has busy and talented friends

Once again, I find myself with several friends' shows I really want to see nearing the end of their runs. Gotta figure out how to slide them in around auditions, singing, and other friends' weddings...

n.u.f.a.n. ensemble's world premiere of Caliban, Dancing reunites Mary Czerwinski and Adam Krause (our Mina and Jonathan in GreenMan's Dracula) in a story of relationships woven around two of my favorite things, ballet (Giselle, even, my all-time favorite!) and Shakespeare. I didn't even realize until just now that it's directed by Jim Heatherly, whom I'll love forever for seeing Jekyll & Hyde the same way I do, and undoing some of the tweaks that should never have happened between out-of-town and Broadway. And, just for the home run, it's running at Chicago Actors Studio, where I train when I can commit to the consecutive weeks of a session.

Caliban, Dancing runs Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm, Sundays at 3 pm, through May 24.

It's not exaggerating to say that Babes With Blades are one of the reasons I moved to Chicago, and working with them in Horror Academy was every bit a dream come true. The stars weren't aligned for a repeat with their current all-female production of Macbeth, but I'm determined to be there in the audience. The Babes are deservedly getting ever-increasing notice for bringing the dramatic goods, and still delivering the action that made their reputation. This show also sees them in partnership with The Viola Project, a fantastic workshop program building girls into powerful women through the vehicle of Shakespeare. (Of which one of the cofounders is a dear friend of an old friend from Columbus. I love this town!)

Macbeth runs Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 pm, Sundays at 3 pm, through May 30.

Last but far from least, WildClaw Theatre is getting raves all over the place for their Midwest premiere of The Revenants. Their tagline, "A relationship drama -- with zombies" pretty much says it all. Aaron Christensen (or, as he's known in Chicago horror-fan circles, Dr. AC) served as fight choreographer on this one, and he and his WildClaw colleagues are at the forefront of what seems to be a burgeoning horror theatre scene. It's smart stuff (last fall's stage adaptation of Lovecraft's The Dreams in the Witch House was not to be missed), and if the momentum keeps up, it'll be right up there in visibility with the physical theatre that's exploded in the last few years (at companies like the House and Lookingglass). Chicago has great improv, but there's a LOT of other stuff going on here! Did I mention that I love this town?

The Revenants runs Thursdays - Saturday at 7:30 pm, Sundays at 3 pm, through May 24.