Once upon a time

In which our Diva ventures into the deep, dark forest

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

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

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

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

Kid stuff, right? ;->

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

We mind because it matters

In which our Diva is thoroughly disgusted, but also hopeful

Earlier this week, I tweeted: Andrew Wakefield made a fortune by lying, without regard for harm to others. Last I checked, the word for that was "sociopath." That's pretty much all I have to say on the topic. It will be years before we'll be able to calculate the damage done by the falsified study linking vaccines to autism, if indeed it ever stops posing health risks and lining the pockets of a whole legion of quacks preying on desperate parents.

Also in the last few days, there's a lesser-known (and let's pray he stays that way) sociopath by the name of Kenneth Tong tweeting an endless stream of hardcore pro-ana propaganda and touting an alleged "size zero pill" that will make everything all better. Never heard of him? Neither had I. Apparently he was on Big Brother for about seventeen seconds before getting booted for threatening a housemate. This post on the blog "A Very Public Sociologist" sums up quite well which rock this individual crawled out from under, what makes him tick, and why paying any attention to him plays into his greedy little hands.

That last is why I hesitate to mention him at all, but I've come to the conclusion that it's important for a variety of reasons. I still refuse to link directly to anything of his, and have in fact set him to "blocked" on both Twitter and Facebook. Not that he would notice or care, but my hope is that a wave of users doing so will be noticed by the services in question, which are unfortunately unlikely to ban him regardless of at least one e-petition calling for it. (Not linking to that either, not because I don't agree with the sentiment, but because they don't work. Spend your energy elsewhere.) Unfortunately, I have no doubt that they regard him as nothing more than "controversial," and will continue to allow him a forum for what is nothing more nor less than hate speech. (If you don't understand why that phrase applies, spend an hour or two at Kate Harding's "Shapely Prose" archive. I used to add "and try not to say anything too ignorant while you're there," but then I stopped because it was fun to watch her take such comments apart. Unfortunately, she appears to have gotten burnt out on that -- and I don't blame her a bit -- but the archive remains a valuable resource.)

When references to him first popped up in my Twitter timeline a few days ago, my first thought was that it was some misfired attempt at "ironic" hipster misogyny, following the current trend in (so-called) humor of spouting things so outrageously, offensively bigoted that surely no one could take them seriously, so we must know the speaker is joking! That's apparently how you're supposed to tell that it's funny, and if you don't laugh, well, you must be the humor-deficient one. (Hint: No.)

I've since come to the conclusion that, while he might end up claiming retroactively to be up to something like that (see also: "It was a social experiment!"), there's nothing remotely so clever going on. Just some guy who may or may not understand, but certainly doesn't care, that he's doing very real harm just to get attention. And make no mistake, there is harm. Every single thing he's saying amplifies the tape already playing in the background for any woman who lives in our society, and which tyrannizes the lives of those living with eating disorders.

It may be a mixed blessing (due to the aforementioned giving him attention), but it's still cheering to see the virtually unanimous disgust in response. From high-profile figures like Rihanna and Simon Cowell, from less famous but still influential people like Being Human star Sinead Keenan and Doctor Who composer Murray Gold, and from pithy private citizens like this and this and many more. Like British educator Philip Edmundson, who's gone beyond the single-tweet statement to begin building a counter-campaign of sorts, including a link to this eloquent and heartbreaking blog post about just what it is Tong's comments are enabling.

Twitter is full of call-to-arms hashtags (enumerated and retweeted by the Kardashian sisters): #stunningnotstarving, #nosizezero, #curvesaresexy, #curvesarebeautiful. While I support the sincerity of those using all of them, I'm personally only using #stunningnotstarving, as I find the others problematic for a couple of reasons: #nosizezero denies the existence of the minority (however few) who are very small but healthy, and the last two are more positive but still imply a bit of exclusion. A woman of any size and shape can be stunning and not starving, so that's one I can take to heart.

What's sad and infuriating is that it took absolutely no effort for Kenneth Tong to seize his pathetic little bastion of power, because the structures are already in place. Every word he's tweeting is part of the basic formula women get from every direction every day they live in our culture:

What you weigh is how you look.
How you look is whether you're wanted.
Whether you're wanted is what you're worth.


So we can ignore Tong and his blatant "if you're not thin you fail at life" (by a definition of success at life that seems to consist entirely of whether you sleep with celebrities) all we want, but the message will still be there, and in more insidious forms. I'm not immune. Neither are women of my acquaintance who, even while expressing their disgust with Tong's comments, had the courage to admit he affected their food choices that day.

Which brings me to the good news: Long before this creature crawled out from under his rock, the opposition was in place. And it's gaining momentum. In the BodyHeart Campaign, which also came to my attention via Twitter, thanks to Dollhouse star Miracle Laurie. In the Viola Project, bringing out the power of young women through the power of Shakespeare's words. In the increasing public awareness of the extent to which fashion images are retouched and manipulated, which is just beginning to build into a backlash. In the documentary Superskinny Me, in which two British journalists discover firsthand the destructive consequences of the "race to size double zero" even under close medical supervision. And now in the stream of tweets calling Kenneth Tong out on his douchebaggerie, and the fact that they vastly outnumber the heartbreaking ones -- every single one accompanied by an avatar depicting a perfectly attractive young woman -- asking him where to get his magical miracle pill. (My money's on some of those being sockpuppet accounts designed to feed into the publicity machine, which is that much more disgusting, but might also mean that many fewer victims falling for his flimflam.) Edit: Thanks to long-time friend Mandy, who brought my attention to this amazing community of Harry Potter fans, who focus on a different real-life "horcrux" (the word for a type of curse in the HP universe) each month, and who happen to be discussing body image this month. Serendipity!

This issue is nothing new. It's not the first time I've blogged about it, and it won't be the last. It'll be back the next time the camel's back breaks, and I trust you'll bear with me.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a nice healthy dinner to cook. All that misogynist claptrap is making me hungry.

Song for Today: I know I've named Saving Jane's "One Girl Revolution" before, but I can't think of anything more appropriate or inspiring. Raise your hand!

P.S.: If I ever say to you, individually, that you're beautiful, you're gorgeous, you're anything wonderful I happen to feel like calling you? I'm not blowing smoke. I'm not just trying to make you feel better, or making empty noises to puff up your self-esteem. I'm saying it because I believe it is true, pure and simple. Contradict me if you absolutely must, but know that your energy would be better spent trying to teach a pig to sing. :-)

Overtones

In which our Diva is polishing her holday repertoire

Yesterday I was asked on Formspring what was the most challenging song I've learned to sing. I answered that it was a tossup between the Gounod Ave Maria and "The Finer Things" from Jane Eyre, but as I think about it, it's really no contest. That Ave Maria just fills my heart and makes me cry every time, if it's sung right.

And oh, it's that "sung right" that's the kicker. The deceptively simple melody -- based on a keyboard exercise from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavichord -- leaves the singer completely exposed, with nowhere to fudge in the slightest on breath control/support and placement. Its tessitura calls for the most support, smoothness, and control right across the passagio of my particular lyric soprano voice.

In less technical terms, there's a killer ab workout going on that the audience (ideally) never sees.

You can sing it without feeling like you've done fifty crunches, and it may very well even be pretty, but there'll be something missing. (I'm looking at you, Hayley Westenra, much as I love a lot of your stuff. Though you get closer than some.) But when the mind and body and heart are in tune, and the natural instrument is Kiri Te Kanawa's, you get this.

I haven't sung it since the Elgin Opera holiday party last December, when I had a little bit of a support issue (there's only so much I can convince those gut muscles to do what I tell them when they want to clench up because I'm cold) that led to a little bit of a pitch problem, but made my mom cry anyway. December has rolled around again, and I'm singing at Villa Verone on the 5th and the 19th, so I'm working on getting it back up again.

All my adult life, the word "resonance" has been very personal in a rather literal way -- all about the bones and spaces in my body and head, and how sound spins inside them and out into a performance space. As you can see in my previous post, my relationship with the word is growing, to encompass not just the exciting project I've gotten involved in but the principle of physics that gives the project its title.

Which is, of course, the exact same thing as that personal sense I started with. The continuum of microcosm to macrocosm, in scientific or mythic terms, has always been a fascinating concept to me, and a mental image that winds through all my creative endeavors in one way or another. So when I ran across this awesome Flash toy illustrating the scale of the universe, I thought it was the coolest thing I'd seen all month. You might or might not be as childishly gleeful about it as I was, but you should definitely check it out and play with it. Slide the control and see what those words you've heard for units -- and maybe some you've never encountered -- look like in clear, cartoony color.

I've been pulling it up to play with at least once in a day, just because it makes me smile. And in a weird way, it'll be in my mind when I'm directing breath and muscle and magic to resonate from the small spaces in my body and out into the restaurant.

Song for Today: Self-evident, of course. My all-time favorite recording is Michael Ball's. It's not perfect, or even necessarily the closest to the ideal I have in my head (and there is a very clear ideal in my head, one that no real singer has ever quite sounded like), but my emotional attachment to the piece began with his performance on the 1990 holiday album recorded by Broadway and West End performers as a benefit for Save the Children. It's interesting to me that my ideal is a purely classical soprano, but I prefer Ball's rendition to those of straight-up operatic tenors.

Dunno what that means. But I know what I like and how it makes me feel, and that's knowledge of value too.

The persistence of poppies

In which our Diva follows a flower through a labyrinth of meaning

This week marks Armistice Day, more commonly referred to as Veteran's Day here in the US, and Remembrance Day in the UK, where its specific reference to World War I tends to be more noted than here. Digital poppies have been scattered through my Twitter feed for a week or more, adorning the userpics of Brits and Canadians, many of whom are presumably also wearing fabric ones in real life.

I didn't know until I was an adult that the tradition originates with John McCrae's poem "In Flanders Field," and it wasn't until a couple years ago that I learned of the alternate tradition of wearing a white poppy, signifying hope (specifically for peace) rather than sacrifice.

All I knew when I was a kid, living in England from ages 7-10 when the Air Force stationed my dad at RAF Lakenheath, was that the British poppies came out around my birthday and were manufactured completely differently from the wire-and-crepe-paper ones I was familiar with thanks to the American Legion.

Legion and VFW poppies come out for Memorial Day (end of May, for those not in the US), which originated with the Civil War, but which in my lifetime has tended to emphasize WWII. Perhaps especially in my experience, which included, at age 5, riding in the Memorial Day parade, on the back of a red convertible generously decorated with those crepe-paper poppies, as Poppy Queen for my WWII-vet grandfather's Legion post. It was quite the day for a little girl already inclined to show off, and I still have the red pageant-style sash, long white dress, and little white gloves. (Tangential factoid: I was quite small for my age until age 13, at which point some weird biochemical switch flipped and I shot up a whole foot over the next five years. Both dress and gloves -- which I clearly remember wearing for Easter and Memorial Day that year -- look impossibly tiny now.)

The American Legion figures prominently in many of my memories of Grandpa W. I even have my original membership card for the Legion Auxiliary, issued shortly after my birth, when I was among the first granddaughters admitted to the organization when the eligibility rules changed.  The point was rendered moot within months, when my dad's number came up and he became a Vietnam-era veteran, eligible for Legion membership himself.

The poppy-wearing tradition, at least in my adult lifetime (probably earlier, but I have next to no frame of reference for the civilian world during my childhood), isn't as ubiquitious in the US as in Britain and Canada, a fact that surprises me over and over again. (It shouldn't by now. It gets harder every year to find a Legionnaire to buy one from.) It happened again this morning, in a Twitter exchange with film writer Neal Romanek, an American living in London who was mystified by the poppies all around him this week until it was explained to him today.  And, though almost exactly two years older than I and the child of a Vietnam vet himself, he wasn't aware of the American poppy tradition at all.

As a small child, I was perennially puzzled by the Wicked Witch of the West using a field of poppies as a weapon to stop Dorothy and her friends from reaching the Emerald City. "Something with poison in it," she crooned to the captain of her flying monkeys. I'd never seen a real poppy before we lived in England, but I knew they existed, and I knew some plants were poisonous if you ate them, so that potentially made sense. But just walking across a field putting everyone to sleep? I have a vague recollection of asking my mom about it, around the same age as my pretend-royalty-for-a-day experience. I don't remember what her explanation was, only that I didn't really understand it. In retrospect, I suspect she was at a bit of a loss for something that would make sense without recourse to L. Frank Baum's turn-of-the-century vantage point, when opiate-based medications were still freely available but their hazards widely known. Fifteen years passed between the publication of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and John McCrae's battlefield composition, and it's the latter that invokes the common European wildflower rather than its potent cultivated cousin.

None of which I knew when we moved into our housing unit at Lakenheath, with a lawn that was covered with tiny daisies in spring and early summer, and with wild poppies in late summer and fall, so thick that friends and I would run through them over and over again toward an imaginary Emerald City.  That profusion is the image invoked by Sir Thomas Henry Hall Caine in his account of the famous opening of Lizzie's grave to recover the poems DGR had buried with her seven years before: "fresh poetry and new poets arose, even as they now arise, with all the abundance and timeliness of poppies in autumn." Even so, as Stephanie Pina notes in today's blog post on LizzieSiddal.com, the choice of metaphor is striking in reference to Lizzie, for whom the cultivated opium poppy, processed into laudanum, brought relief, addiction, and finally death.

DGR painted three oil versions of Beata Beatrix. In the first, housed at the Tate Gallery in London, and the second, which I visited this summer at the Art Institute of Chicago, a red dove delivers a white poppy into Beatrice's open hands. In the third, completed by Ford Madox Brown after Gabriel's death and now in the collection of the Birmingham Museum, the colors of bird and flower are reversed.

It would be half a century later, on the other side of the war whose technology irrevocably changed what war meant in Western culture, that those colors would come to denote the hope and sacrifice I mentioned at the top of this post.  What they meant to DGR when he conceived the painting(s) is open to interpretation and debate. Beata Beatrix is often referred to as his tribute or memorial to Lizzie, but the more I think about his repeated execution of the design, the more it feels like an attempt to make peace with her spirit. Metaphorically speaking. (Or mostly; there are those seances with the Brownings to consider.)

But it's the inside of Lizzie's head I'm trying to explore these days. There's only so far I can or should try to puzzle out Gabriel's too!  (It was a pretty scary place for a while there. I don't envy him inhabiting it.)

Song for Today: When I bought Sting's Dream of the Blue Turtles, my teenage mind was completely blown by the lyrical continuum from WWI's "lost generation" to the modern lives destroyed by the drug trade. Today, 25 years later, war and the drug trade occupy the same space, where opium cultivation appeases the Taliban and puts food on the family table.

Poppies for young lives. Bitter trade indeed.

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.

Babes With Blades beginner workshops!

In which our Diva encourages you to get violent

For anyone who's wanted to dip their toe in without committing the time/money/risk-of-intimidation for a full college course or what-have-you, the ever-awesome Babes have just the ticket!

Stage Combat Basics For Adults

Sunday, August 1
10 am - 1 pm
Interested in playing with swords onstage, but never had a chance to take a stage combat class?

Well, here's your chance!
We're going back to the basics - all beginners (over 15) welcome!
$30 - minimum age 15.
Under 18 - signature of parent/guardian required for participation.

Stage Combat Basics for Kids

Sunday, August 8
10 am - 12 pm
Beginner class for kids - $25 - open to ages 10-16.
Signature of parent/guardian required.

If parent/guardian cannot be present the day of the workshop to sign the permission form and waiver, give us a call - we'll try to work something out!

Both workshops will be at Chase Park
4701 N. Ashland Ave.
Chicago, IL 60640

Call to register: 773.904.0391

or go to http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/116261

Questions? Want to hear about the next one? Please email workshop@babeswithblades.org

Song for today: "Cross the Line" by Superchick, because it makes me want to get my swords out and play!

I am a spirit of no common rate

In which our Diva outlines the particulars of how this summer doth tend upon her state

Storefront Shakespeare presents
A Midsummer Night's Dream

228 S Third St, Geneva, IL:

• Friday June 25th at 7pm
• Saturday June 26th at 3pm and 7pm
• Sunday June 27th at 3pm
• Thursday July 1st at 7pm
• Friday July 2nd at 7pm
• Saturday July 3rd at 3pm and 7pm
• Sunday July 4th at 3pm
• Monday July 5th at 7pm

2035 S Washington St, Naperville, IL:

• Friday July 9th at 7pm
• Saturday July 10th at 3pm and 7pm
• Sunday July 11th at 7pm

All tickets are $10.

I know I'm usually Babbly McPosterson during theatre rehearsals but haven't been this time around, and I'm not sure why that is.  This Monday I'll see the Geneva space for the first time, and our set will be coming together in it over the next couple weeks. Very excited about that!

Song for today: My Titania-inspired playlist is just about where I want it to be, and I'll be posting it here and sharing it with my castmates soon. I missed doing this for Pride & Prejudice, but for that the purpose was really served by the music in the show, especially since I was involved in two of the dances.  The right mix of music really helps get my head and heart in the right starting place before a rehearsal or performance.

This Midsummer has a contemporary fantasy sensibility, and that's reflected in some of the decidedly contemporary songs that felt right to put in the playlist. Idina Menzel's "Gorgeous" is one of them -- a great fit for Titania and Oberon's tempestuous relationship!

If I had a million dollars

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

If I had a spare few hundred bucks lying around:

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

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

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

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

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

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

That kind of woman

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

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



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

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

Stages and stages

In which our Diva is all along the continuum

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

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

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

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

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

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

In the pattern of the grand design

In which our Diva spins a whole post out of her Song for Today

This time of year, you see The Ten Commandments on a lot of TV stations' schedules. For about a decade now, my tradition has been to bypass Charlton Heston in favor of The Prince of Egypt. It didn't make the money Dreamworks wanted, but it's a gorgeous and heartfelt movie that deserved far better attention than it got. If it had gotten its due... nah, they probably still would have abandoned hand-drawn animation. But the couple of flicks they turned out its wake might have been less forgettable.

The art -- hand-drawn, digital, and groundbreaking sequences blending the two -- is stunning. The voice cast is jaw-dropping, with dialogue spoken by Val Kilmer, Patrick Stewart, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sandra Bullock, Danny Glover, Jeff Goldblum, Ralph Fiennes, etc. etc., and singing duties entrusted to the likes of Broadway powerhouse Brian Stokes Mitchell (who created the role of Coalhouse Walker in Ragtime and currently serves as president of The Actors Fund) and the late Israeli superstar Ofra Haza. And the whole is held together by Stephen Schwartz' songs, Hans Zimmer's orchestral score, and a humanity of storytelling that is by turns heartrending and incredibly inspiring.

One of the most memorable sequences -- the portrayal of the final plague, the death of the firstborn -- is nearly silent, and simultaneously terrifying and tearjerking. But what I always go back to is the musical number "Through Heaven's Eyes," sung by Brian Stokes Mitchell as Jethro. The high priest of Midian, who takes in a fugitive Egyptian prince, welcomes him as husband to his eldest daughter, and sees them both away with his blessing to fulfill a mission from the Hebrew God.

In my book? That's a guy with his head screwed on straight.

For some, this is the midpoint of Passover. For others, Good Friday. For still others, it's sacred in the way that any day is that sees warmer winds blowing through and tiny, tender bits of green beginning to unfurl on the trees and bushes. For some, it's just another day.

Whatever it means to you, any day is a good day for what this one has to say.

Insta-mom

In which our Diva has acquired a teenage son

Casting has just been announced for a couple more roles in Raymond Did It, including Alex Smeltzer as my character's son Edgar. I had a great time reading with all the young actors at callbacks, and was very glad I didn't have to choose among them! I remember a couple points of really "clicking" with Alex in our reading, and I'm looking forward to being his onscreen mom. (Even if it is a little weird to suddenly have a teenager the first time I really play a mom!)

It's always exciting when the words on the page get attached to a living, breathing person, and you can really start working on creating the relationship between characters. Especially with Edgar's dad out of the picture in the movie -- just having a face for our kid gives me all kinds of new insights to work with in figuring out who he was and what our lives were before the movie.

Song for Today: "Sink 'n' Swim" by Plumb. I know this is the third song of hers I've plugged, but I've been listening to her a lot lately, and it's just what's in my head today so I thought I'd share.

A few of my favorite things

In which our Diva has been neglecting her blog again. Bad Diva. No cookie.

Watch: Being Human, the BBC series that sounds like the setup for a joke -- a werewolf, a vampire, and a ghost share a pink house in Bristol -- but is in fact one of the more brilliant things to hit my TV in years. Anyone who knows me knows that my favorites list has always included various supernatural dramas, but the main thing that sets this one apart is its intimate scope. No Chosen Ones, no cosmic prophecies, no apocalypse-of-the-week. Just three people who happen to have some extraordinary problems, building their own weird little family. Even when they do inevitably get caught up in larger circumstances, the focus remains on protecting that family. Saving the world is a bit out of their league, just as it is for the rest of us.

Like all good fantasy, it isn't really about monsters. It's about how life is frequently and drastically unfair, but we find ways to make it worthwhile anyway. And how what really matters is looking out for the people we love. The three mid-twenties stars -- Russell Tovey, Lenora Crichlow, and Aidan Turner -- are individually superb, and collectively a perfect storm of ensemble chemistry. And creator/writer Toby Whithouse (who has written, among other things, the milestone "School Reunion" episode that reintroduced Sarah Jane Smith to the revived Doctor Who) has a knack for defying cliche, and for acknowledging the absurdity in dramatic situations without lessening their impact. For those on this side of the pond, BBC America has already aired the first season, and has announced plans to run the second (which has just finished in the UK) and third (which will be starting production soon).

Eat: It's the time of year again for my two greatest vices: Cadbury's Creme Eggs and Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies. I've already stocked up on the former, stashing boxes in odd corners of the freezer to be rediscovered throughout the year. The latter have thus far eluded me. At this rate I'm going to have to start going from grocery store to grocery store until I spot a table of earnest little girls. I need my fix!

Read: Currently I'm in the middle of Derek Parker's lively biography of Nell Gwyn, the most famous mistress of the famously randy Charles II. It's unpretentious, full of all kinds of cool incidentals about Restoration theatre, and generally a very enjoyable read.

Listen: The other day, my mental soundtrack randomly started running Clara and Fabrizio's soaring duet that closes the first act of The Light in the Piazza, so I've been playing the cast album a lot. Still bowled over every time by the heartfelt performances and the utter beauty of the score. Still cry at two or three points every single time. If there's a "the" Broadway composer of this generation, Adam Guettel is probably it.

That was the week that was

In which our Diva waves on her way by in a bit of a blur

Whew! Since I last posted here:

• Three auditions, one of which scored me a fun day-player part in an indie feature, shooting the end of February (more info soon)
• Rehearsals for two projects (My Cousin Radu, which shoots next week, and Elgin Opera's upcoming gala)
• One rush web promo video -- I submitted on it this morning, and shot it this afternoon! That last also means my first paid gig of 2010 is in the can, yay!

And of course there was still day jobs and electronic housekeeping (updates on my website...um...soonish) and actual housekeeping (life is never entirely out of control if you're caught up on laundry). With a couple hours' breather carved out for the Sanctuary season finale and penultimate Dollhouse episode, as well as the unaired pilot of the latter. (Which is way talky, and showed way too much of its hand too soon. The gradual and ambiguous way the true horror of the Dollhouse came to light may have made a lot of people very very uncomfortable -- because it took a long time for the show to be overt about saying yes, what is happening here is a horror -- but I don't think it would have been nearly as effective otherwise.)

The upcoming week includes more rehearsals and a callback I've been looking forward to, which will involve fight work as well as reading. The prospect of playing with swords remains the most reliable motivation for getting my behind out of bed and getting that morning workout in!

Song for today: "Do You Wanna Date My Avatar?" by Felicia Day and the cast of The Guild. Just 'cause it's the earwormiest earworm that ever earwormed (seriously, I dare you to get it out of your head), and the video is hilarious if you know even a little bit about online roleplaying games.

The power of the story

In which our Diva finds new reasons to believe in people

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

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

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

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

Save the world.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On Beyond 40

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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








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

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

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

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

Fury, shade, priestess

In which our Diva trades in Austen for Sophocles

I've been missing the ever-awesome Babes With Blades something fierce lately. There's been so much crazy in the last couple years (starting not too long after I had the privilege and fun of acting with them in Horror Academy, come to think of it), and every time they invite me to a workshop or fight jam I always have something else already booked.

This time, when the call came, I had the chance to answer in the affirmative, and I grabbed it! Ensemble member Jennifer Mickelson (one of my HA buds!) has been honing and refining her play The Last Daughter of Oedipus through the Babes' New Plays Development Program, and I get to be part of it! I'll be playing Tisiphone (one of the Furies), Jocasta (!!!), and a priestess of Apollo in a staged reading next Saturday, November 14 at 1:00 p.m. The public is very much welcome to join us for this exciting sneak preview before the play has its full production in the fall of 2010.

Jo-freakin'-CASTA, people. My little classical-theatre heart is going pitter-pat! Jen has done amazingly cool things with all the story threads Sophocles left lying about. If you're in Chicago, you really must come check it out!

Song for today: Rose Red, by Emilie Autumn. Because I'm celebrating my big four-oh at her concert tomorrow night, and that's the song that started it all.

Coming soon?

In which our Diva is thinking happy distribution thoughts

Cyrus will have two screenings at the American Film Market, November 5 and 7. Wouldn't it be an awesome birthday present to hear that it got snapped up? Stay tuned!

Song for today: "Good Behavior" by Plumb, just because it's been running through my head the last couple days. Probably something to do with last week being hella stressful on the day-job front, just in time for P&P tech week! But the show is going great (two weekends left - have you bought your tickets yet?), and strategies for dealing with the recession-fueled craziness are kicking into gear. And I have high-energy cathartic music running through my head. So it's all good.

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!

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.