No.

This is not the post I was going to make tonight.

I was looking forward to taking advantage of my evening off to give you a nice Crunchy Process Goodness post that's been brewing in my brain about Pride and Prejudice. Then, this morning, I read this article about the petition demanding the release of Roman Polanski. I'm embarrassed for my industry. I'm embarrassed that this statement is being perceived as our collective position on the subject.

And make no mistake, it is being perceived that way. Type Polanski's name in the search box on Twitter or in a Google Blog search, and watch the derisive comments about the industry as a whole scroll by. Who can blame them, given the growing list of signatories, individuals and institutions alike?

I'm exactly nobody in this business. I have no illusions about that. After all, that's the reason I don't post about contentious subjects here. This blog is a fun place to yammer about the work I love, with the occasional shameless plug or YouTube video that makes me happy. The last thing my modestly growing little career needs is for somebody to Google me and be offended by my spouting off on a contentious subject.

This subject should be anything but contentious.

I'm nobody. So maybe it means nothing to anyone but me that I declare, definitively and on my public blog, that this document does not speak for me. Or maybe it will mean something. I don't know.

There are so many things wrong with the statements in that petition: The characterization of Mr. Polanski's offense as "a case of morals," as if he got caught skinny-dipping in a hotel pool. The implication that an outstanding warrant should somehow not count simply because of its age, and the failure to acknowledge that he is not merely a suspect but a convicted felon.

And then there's this: By their extraterritorial nature, film festivals the world over have always permitted works to be shown and for film-makers to present them freely and safely, even when certain States opposed this.

I have the greatest respect for the tradition of presenting works by filmmakers who face genuine political persecution, who struggle and risk to create in the shadow of oppressive governments. I applaud festivals for doing whatever they can to get these people there safely and get their voices heard.

That the text of the petition equates Mr. Polanski's situation with theirs, when his arrest is the consequence of actions that have nothing to do with his work, is disingenuous and deeply insulting.

I'm nobody in this industry. But that's not to say nobody in the industry is standing up to dissent.

Kirstie Alley. Allison Anders. Alison Arngrim. Patricia Arquette. Adam Barken. Roseanne Barr. Ed Bernero. Luc Besson. Carrie Brownstein. Drew Carey. Beth Chamberlin. Noel Clarke. Paul Cornell. Michael Cudlitz. Jamie Lee Curtis. Sarah Fain. Lexa Doig. Jesse Eisenberg. Darren Ewing. Elisabeth Fies. Neil Gaiman. Martin Gero. Melissa Gilbert. Christopher Gorham. Javier Grillo-Marxuach. Greg Grunberg. Hart Hanson. Lore Hartounian. Salma Hayek (on Access Hollywood, link pending). Aviva Kempner. Sue Kramer. Lisa Kudrow. Robert Llewellyn. Joshua Malina. Denis McGrath. Ashley Edward Miller. Tom Morello. Rosie O'Donnell. Mo Rocca. Chris Rock. Michael Seitzman. Sherri Shepherd. Kevin Smith. Zack Stentz. Kurt Sutter. Alison Sweeney. Emma Thompson. Bo Zenga.

Honorable mention to a former Hollywoodite, because, well, the people of California did elect him Governor and all.

It might not be a very long list, but it's a start. And I'm sure there are more I don't know about. I'll add them as I become aware of them.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled babble.

Edit, 10/1/09: Thanks to yinyang for the comment pointing me to chrismm's post. I'm borrowing from her list (and the suggestions of her commenters) to expand this one, but also recommend you head over there. Partly to congratulate her on a job very well done, but also to check out the additional public figures -- authors, journalists, musicians, etc. -- whom I haven't added here only because it's the film industry that's primarily being perceived as calling for his release as a monolithic entity, and I want to do my little bit to demonstrate that isn't the case. She's also more thorough than I am with multiple links and descriptions. Generally awesome, please check out!

Edit, 10/3/09: I've now seen (and added my name to) two counter-petitions online, one at Care2 and another at Big Hollywood. The latter specifically calls on industry professionals.

Last Daughter of Krypton

In which our Diva plays catchup and flouts the Edna Mode "no capes!" rule

This blog was supposed to happen a couple weeks ago, but it didn't quite get squeezed in around Pride and Prejudice rehearsals (which I'm loving and will post about soon) and Hawaii (which was absofrickenlutely AMAZING and will be posted about soon).

I love serious acting. I love Shakespeare and edgy new works and digging in deep to tell meaningful stories.

Know what else I love? Walking around a stadium in a cape and flippy skirt with an S on my chest, interacting with kids and signing autographs as Supergirl. I'm a soprano of a certain physical type with a dance background, so it's inevitable that I've done my fairytale princess time in children's theatre, and the best part was always meeting the young audience afterwards. Being Cinderella in their eyes was priceless.

But being Kara Zor-El? A hundred times dearer to my geeky little heart.

I'm both a superhero girl and a princess girl. Always have been, always will be, and I'll never understand why people think they're somehow mutually exclusive. Only grownups, though. Little girls get it. Just ask my young friend in the pink over there. (If that makes you blink, you haven't seen the pink Batgirl costume made by the same company!)

If you looked at my actual comics collection, you wouldn't necessarily peg me as a Supergirl fan, but she's the natural first choice for a family event appearance. She's who I would have looked for when I was the little girl who went to her grandparents' house and read through piles of her her uncles' and aunt's comics for hours at a time. (Yes, Virginia, girls read superhero comics and always have. No matter how often people seem to think it's news.)

Maybe it's because she's a little bit of a princess girl herself. Not in the needing-to-be-rescued way, but then that's never what I cared about in fairytales either. Certainly her story could be a fairytale in the blink of an eye: Once upon a time there was a young girl who lost her home and family forever, and traveled alone to a strange new world...

And that last part is important, the main reason she's not just a female copy of Superman. He grew up entirely on Earth, and for all that he honors his heritage, he'll always be more Clark Kent than Kal-El. Kara arrived here as a fifteen-year-old girl who saw everything she knew destroyed. She started from scratch at an age that's hard enough for kids who've lived here all their lives, while simultaneously learning to deal with extraordinary power and the responsibility that comes with it.

Over at Marvel, you get Spider-Man's Uncle Ben telling him "With great power comes great responsibility." The DC equivalent (well, sort of, since it applies to a narrower set of characters) is the concept of what it means to "wear the S." The family crest of the House of El, now symbol of the fusion of Kryptonian power and Ma and Pa Kent's homespun values. The badge of the Big Blue Boy Scout (an actual nickname pinned to Superman by more cynical Justice League colleagues).

And of his cousin, whom an essay I read recently described as "the original indestructible cheerleader." (Now that they mention it, there is a whiff or two of Kara about Claire Bennet, isn't there?)

I'm rambling. A lot. Maybe I should just cheat and direct you to this excellent blog post about Supergirl-as-icon, and why she's really irreplaceable for little girls in particular. Go ahead. I'll be right here when you get back.

Done? Cool. I have even better news: That blog post is a couple years old, and the problem she's talking about toward the end there? The Supergirl she couldn't give to the girls who came into her store? Things are looking a lot brighter these days. First came the Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade limited series, and just recently, the main title got a big dose of sanity in the portrayal of Kara by Renato Guedes and then Jamal Igle. Look! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a plausible teenage girl!

Since I'm not actually reading the series at the moment, I discovered this development via news of the tempest-in-a-teapot "controversy" over Igle's drawing her with bike shorts under her skirt. (No, really. People got very riled up about this. It even got a news mention on NPR. I blame Ed Benes, because it never would have occurred to anyone that she didn't at least wear cheerleader-type spankies if he hadn't perpetrated this. *beat* Okay, it wouldn't have occurred to anyone with a lick of sense.) And what with the reversal of the Incredible Shrinking Top and Skirt, I'm gradually warming up to the current costume.

But for my family-event icon, I'll stick with the classic. Call me old-fashioned. *g*

Or, better yet, come on out and meet the kids with Gotham's Finest.

Song for Today (way too long since I did one!): What else? "SuperGirl" by Saving Jane. I'm actually fonder of their previous single, "One Girl Revolution," but this one's a lot of fun too. Best known as the theme song of Olympic gymnast Nastia Liukin. Who seems to have more than a little Kara Zor-El in her too.

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.

Cyrus on the market

Just found out that Cyrus is one of two movies the distributor, Moonstone, is screening at the Marché at Cannes. One of the three screenings was this evening. Hopefully it'll get snapped up... Can't wait to say I'm coming soon to a theatre near you! *fingers and toes crossed* And I can't wait to see it myself!

Seems like we're steadily getting more feature production in Chicago, and Michigan is really hopping. Those tax credits are doing their job. Keep the work coming, filmmakers!

Sunday evening change of venue

In which our Diva is singing for scholarships instead of her supper this week

Elgin Opera is partnering with Highland Christian Academy to raise Scholarship Funds for both organizations. Please come out for a wonderful evening of Opera, showcasing several vocalists and young students who have a love for singing.

When
Sunday, May 17th, 6:30-9:00 PM

Where
Highland Christian Academy 2250 W. Highland Ave. Elgin – 847-741-5530

Cost
$5.00 per ticket, donations/offering accepted at the concert

Call For Tickets & Reservations
847-695-5014 (Elgin Opera) or 847-741-5530 (Highland)

Donations
An offering plus a Silent-Live Auction will be a part of the evening (All Donations Tax Deductible)

Highland Christian Academy is the school under the umbrella of Highland Fellowship Church, where our resident tenor/Elvis impersonator (and my waltz partner in Fledermaus recently), Jeorge Holmes, is senior pastor. And if you read this blog at all, I don't need to explain Elgin Opera. We have a terrific program of opera and musical theatre favorites lined up -- hope to see you there!

Summer of Shakespeare?

In which our Diva ponders the potentialities

I've been jonesing to do some Shakespeare again for a few years now.  Stepping in for a weekend as the Widow in Taming of the Shrew last year really just whetted my appetite.  So I was delighted when I read the sides for the callback I had last week -- not Shakespeare, but a pretty darn good pastiche, in perfectly respectable iambic pentameter with some nice wordplay.  (Bonus: the callback was at North Lakeside Cultural Center, so I got to get in some nice Lake Michigan shoreline time in Berger Park on a gorgeous sunny day.  I didn't grow up around water at all, and now I have a pretty little creek with a nice strip of woods a block and a half away, a gorgeous scenic river six blocks away, and a whole freshwater inland sea smack-dab against a lot of places I go.  All of them just amazing.)

Yesterday I got (and this is going to sound odd, but it's not ironic or facetious at all) the best rejection email EVER from the director of that show.  I love people like that -- he knows I'm a professional and I know the odds, that when you have three or more awesome actresses and two female roles something's gotta give, and that something is as likely to be me as anyone else, but he still took the time to write me a nice personal note and promise to keep me in mind for future projects and recommend me to other directors.  It's such a simple thing to do, and shows so much class.

I didn't even have time to be disappointed (and I am, a little, but there's never time to wallow for long around here!), because not ten minutes later I got another email -- based on a recommendation from the Shrew director -- inviting me to audition for a really cool-sounding project that is Shakespeare, but with a very intriguing twist (on a play I've done no less than three times in various capacities).  That'll be coming up in the next couple weeks, and I'm excited to learn more about it.

And then, this morning, an email from the director of last fall's Dracula, announcing auditions for the As You Like It he's directing this summer.  With all this going on, it just might be that somehow, somewhere, I'm going to get to feed that jones soon!

Time to get the Titania "forgeries of jealousy" speech solidly back in my voice and body for auditions.  I don't think I'll ever get tired of that one, and it blows my mind how often it gets cut to the bone in productions.  All that amazing imagery, and most importantly of all the arc that tells you so much about her and about their relationship: Nature is going berserk, and it's all your fault... and there's this terrible thing, and this terrible thing, and it's your fault, your fault... our fault.  "We are their parents and original."  And then, of course, Oberon opens his big mouth and blows it, because fairies are contrary that way (kinda like humans -- funny, that!).  But for that moment, there's honesty and taking responsibility and... just wow.

And GreenMan, the company where I did Dracula, is opening this fall with Pride and Prejudice. Talk about a solution to the "too many awesome actresses" problem!  Of course, at this point even my much-younger-than-my-real-age playing range (which is a bit more elastic for stage, but still) is really too old for any of the Bennet girls except maybe Jane.  And even according to my birth certificate I'm still too young for Mrs. Bennet and much too young for Lady Catherine.  Caroline Bingley could be fun (especially if I float the idea of the Lost in Austen subtext, which I still say explains an awful lot about her).  Charlotte...  hmm. Maybe.  Perhaps not coincidentally, GreenMan's season wrap-up party is tonight, so I'll be able to get the skinny on it and the rest of the upcoming season there.  I had such a great time in Dracula, and I'd love to work with them again.

Mozart and Yeston and Strauss, oh my!

In which our Diva had a marvelously operatic weekend

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

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

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

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

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

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

By the company I keep

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

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

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



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



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



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

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

Objects on calendar may be closer than they appear

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

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

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

Shiny things for your Thursday

I have decided that "Love & Fairy Tales" is an okay name, but we should have called it Die Flederflöte. Or Die Zaubermaus.

Watch: Harper's Island, premiering tonight at 10 Eastern on CBS in the US and Global in Canada. I started out looking forward to it because it means Gina Holden on my TV, and she blogged a bit about it during filming. Now I'm looking forward to it because it looks really nifty in general, and in particular because I love that a major US network is experimenting with the British model of telling a full-season story with a definite end.

Read: The "Hollows" series by Kim Harrison, starting with Dead Witch Walking. We're up to our eyebrows in kickass urban fantasy heroines these days -- not that you'll catch me complaining! -- but Rachel Morgan is easily my favorite (at least of those whose authors haven't moved on to other worlds). I have a thing for protagonists who really really really want to do the right thing, but who need to be grabbed and firmly shaken on a fairly regular basis. Rachel is definitely that, and Harrison's universe is a seriously nifty place to tell stories in.

Listen: The Secret Garden. Still the most shimmeringly gorgeous score ever composed for Broadway, with an amazing cast including Mandy Patinkin, Rebecca Luker, and (pre-Hedwig) John Cameron Mitchell.

Eat: Southwestern BBQ Chicken Salad from Portillo's. Yum!

Thus endeth my plugging for today. :-D

Hell the King trailer

In which our Diva loves the not-quite-instant-but-still-pretty-darn-fast gratification of DV

First glimpse of Intrepid Reporter Tara Kyles in action!  :-)

Almost more awesome than the "Dragostea Din Tei" ballerina

In which our Diva cannot stop grinning

There are a bunch of cynical comments on the YouTube page about its being an advertising stunt, as if that ruins it somehow.  Let me get this straight: Some phone company decided to spend money on something really fun to witness.  And the problem with this would be...?

Join the opera!

It's sort of like joining the circus, only not.  :-)

Elgin Opera needs supernumeraries (don't trip -- it's just the opera term for extras) for scenes from The Magic Flute and Die Fledermaus.  Adults and children are needed for performances May 1-3.  If you're in the Chicago area and you're interested, please contact the office at (847) 695-5014 or office@elginopera.org.  These are volunteer positions with a minimal rehearsal commitment.

Rehearsals have been a lot of fun, and it's shaping up into a great evening.  Hope you can make it!

I actually get a bit of a breather this week -- church gigs are a staple for many of our singers, and Holy Week keeps 'em hoppin' like Peter Cottontail, so it's not practical to schedule any rehearsals.  So I have a little time to scrutinize my headshot proofs, do some updating on my website, spend some quality time with my very patient and supportive hubby, and maybe even do a spot or two of spring cleaning.  The first quarter of 2009 has been insanely busy, even by my standards, so this is very welcome indeed!

Song for today: "Beauty" by Shaye.  For the many, friends and strangers alike, walking in the toughest of places.

Little Toy Gun

In which our Diva reflects on her day as Creepy Mystery Woman

Random waking-up thought of the day: "Acting is what happens inside the curves."

No clue, but it sounds kinda profound, huh?

Great day on The Storm yesterday with a whole new set of cool Chicago film people.  Thanks to the two JRs of JR2 productions, Whitney the Clark Kent of directors, Nate the action man, Stephanie the chess goddess, and the whole crew.  I had a longish day, but everyone else had two VERY long days, and they're all champs!  (Hopefully they're all safely sleeping in right now!)

I think (hope?) Blue will surprise you when you see her.  She's all stillness and economy of movement, which is a challenge for perky-fidgety Val!  The stillness made it all the more important to find her default posture, and I was having a little trouble with that at first, until I tilted my head down a little bit to peer through my hair.  (It was a big deal in their concept of the character that her hair partially obscured her face, which was another challenge.   Not just because of what bits of expression might be lost, but because having my hair anywhere near my eyes drives me nuts.)  And *click*, there she was!  Funny how sometimes all it takes is the tiniest adjustment.  From the reactions of people on set, I think (hope?) she came across right.  Did I succeed in making real someone so very different from me?  We shall see...

Once again, forgot my camera, and I was doubly kicking myself for it when I saw what an awesome location Michael Reese Hospital is.  It closed last summer, though apparently it's connected somehow to other buildings that are still open.  But it has parts that look maybe a little dated but could be cleaned up easily enough to look like a working hospital... and parts that look like the zombies are waiting to grab you if you step off the elevator!  Chicago location scouts, take note!  (And get it while you can.  Apparently the property is slated as part of the Olympic Village if we get the 2016 games.  Which I want mostly for the proposed augmented public transit service in the burbs.)

It seems obvious to me, but people always seem surprised when I tell them I've done a little bit of target range shooting in addition to stage-combat firearms basics.  I have no interest at all in ever touching a real gun anywhere but on a range under qualified supervision, but it's such an incredibly valuable experience to have.  Ninety percent of convincing gun handling is not being afraid of the prop.  Which you can get from a stage-combat class firing blanks, along with valuable sense impressions like just how loud it really is, and how heavy it really is, and the smell of the metal and how stays on your hands.  (I don't even have a very good sense of smell, and that's a key thing for me.)  But when there's an actual projectile coming out of the thing and that force kicks back into your arm or shoulder, when "Don't point the barrel at anything you want to keep" is Rule Number One for much more immediate reasons, everything feels completely different.  If you're an actor (or a writer, for that matter), find a good basic class and take it.  There is no substitute. 

Also, I have big pieces of paper in a box around here somewhere with holes in them that say "Look! I can hit things with a .38!  And occasionally with a 9mm!"  Which is really very cool.

Also also, shoulder holsters are very uncomfortable.

I was off to the side during a shot setup, wrapping myself up in Blue's music, when one of the PAs (who's also an actress) asked what I was listening to.  She and another girl seemed surprised/impressed that I'd made a playlist just for the character, and they're going to keep it in mind.  So yay, I shared one of my favorite tools with other people!  And a nice reminder that what other people learn from you doesn't have to be any great stroke of genius, just something useful that's new to them.  I know it's true of some of the things I've learned from other people, when I gush at them about it and they give me this look that says "Um, yeah, okay..."

Here's Blue's playlist on MySpace.   (It's an imperfect way of sharing these, since I have a lot of older and/or obscure stuff, so something is always missing.  In this case, three or four songs, plus one substitution -- my preferred Snake River Conspiracy cover of "How Soon Is Now" isn't available, but t.A.T.u.'s is.  But it gives you the general idea, and it's convenient.)

Give it a listen, and then think about going from that person to operetta silliness for Die Fledermaus rehearsal this afternoon.  If Prince Orlovsky wants to keep from being bored, he should try that!  :-D

Score!

Blue has a biker jacket.  It's polyester, not leather, but should read okay on camera.  I was hoping for a nice beat-up one, but I went on my lunch hour yesterday to my best beloved thrift store and it's GONE!  :-(

With opera rehearsal last night, that left me running around like a crazy person this evening, and discovering no jackets to speak of at the thrift stores near my house.  I found one I really liked the looks of at H & M, but even a couple sizes up the sleeves were just too tight.  Blue is a practical kinda girl, and I need to be able to move!  So I got the windbreaker one at Forever 21, which ought to do the job.  (Sometimes I work for people who have budget for wardrobe.  This is not one of those times.  This is one of the times when my own skills in that department come in handy.  Such is life.)

Song for today: "Strange Little Girl" by Tori Amos.  Creepy mystery woman tomorrow, sassy operetta diva at rehearsal Sunday... Guess you could call that pretty strange!

Winter wonderland

In which our Diva stays inside where it's warm a little while longer

Rehearsal for The Storm (working title of the HD short I mentioned the other day) rescheduled due to a family emergency for the director.  I'm eager to get to work on it, but still a little relieved -- check out the view from my back door to see why:

Still have to venture out for an audition later, unless they decide to reschedule too.  Which wouldn't surprise me a whole lot -- it's in the Loop, where they have six inches and still falling.  Chicago is situated such that the full brunt of lake effect is mostly on the South Shore in Indiana, and up toward Milwaukee.  We've gotten spoiled in the last couple weeks, but there was bound to be a last gasp of winter still coming.  Hopefully this is really the last!

Song for today: "Little Toy Gun" by honeyhoney.  Fun video directed by Kiefer Sutherland.  First song going on the playlist for Blue.  I don't always do them (last one was the "Vixen Mix" for Dracula, which was a big hit when I burned CDs for everyone), but this character really calls for one.

I can has brains?

In which our Diva is (re)animated

I checked in with the folks from the zombie voiceover gig, and the website isn't live yet, but one of the clips I worked on (as both female voices) is up on Vimeo:

Mall Hell 2 from 5-Minute Meter Productions on Vimeo.

Braaaaaaaaiiiiiiiinnnnnnzzzzzzzzzz.