Wolfing out and Going Rogue

In which our Diva is having a very eventful costuming week

For several years I've been saying I should join Costumers With a Cause, in which a number of my friends were already active, and this past spring I finally did. Pretty much as it says on the tin, it's a volunteer organization of costumers/cosplayers who come out to interact with kids at charity and community events. Whether I'm Supergirl, Rey, or Merida, there's always at least one wide-eyed little one excited to meet their favorite, and the chance to make that happen and make it special for them is a feeling like no other.

Yesterday's adventure was a little different. Last week, one of our organizers posted a call for "monsters" for a little boy to "arrest" as part of his day as a Chicago police officer, organized by the Make-a-Wish Foundation. We've partnered with them for past wishes, but this was my first chance to be involved, and I eagerly volunteered to come out in a werewolf mask I picked up at a con a few years ago but had yet to use. As the planning continued, it became clear that what 3-year-old David meant by "monsters" was the "savage" animals in his favorite movie, Zootopia. For those who haven't seen it, it's about a rabbit who becomes a police officer in a city of "evolved" animals, where a rash of citizens reverting to their "savage" instinctive behaviors turns out to be a political plot to sow fear and mistrust between prey and predators. Pretty complicated stuff for Disney animation!

With that in mind, my wolfy alter ego joined several other "monsters" in getting rounded up by the newly sworn-in Officer David. That was a lot of fun, and he loved it, though I'm pretty sure the chance to drive the Chicago Police bomb squad's remote-control robot was the real highlight of a day filled with real-life police coolness, including tours of various vehicles and meeting K9 officers and police horses. Our furry butts may have stolen the spotlight for a little while, but they really made the day happen!

In the course of planning, legendary voice actor Maurice LaMarche, who voiced the Godfather-like Mr. Big character in Zootopia, got wind of the project, and recorded a special message for David. Check out his reaction:

It was an amazing day, and quite a diversion in a week that has been -- unsurprisingly if you know me -- All About Star Wars.

It all kicked off last Saturday evening, when I was invited to appear as Rey at the Blue Box Cafe's Star Wars night. That also happened to be the night of our first real snow of the season, so it was lucky for me they're very close to home. Attendance was light, but enough brave souls came out to have a good time and a lively discussion on Live at the Blue Box. You can find them on your favorite podcast app, or watch the whole livestream on YouTube:

Anybody who knows me knows I can talk for days, so I was right at home. :-) Hopefully they'll have me back sometime!

Then on Monday night I got back into Rey mode to try my hand at another new experience: Live modeling for artists, through Mistress Bones Portrait Playhouse. They host "Drink 'n' Draw" events at three different locations with a monthly theme, and this month is, of course, Star Wars. I met some great people, got a taste of holding an extended pose to bring into performing Unvarnished (though brandishing a lightsaber for 20 minutes is nothing like spending hours in a tub of water!), and looky looky what one of the artists gave me! <3 p="">

They have one more Star Wars event scheduled, next Wednesday (December 21) at Emporium Arcade Bar in Chicago.

These nights are FREE (with a suggested donation), and some supplies are provided. So bring your drawing hand and give it a try. I'll certainly be back for future themes - stay tuned!

And finally, tonight's the night! Rogue One: A Star Wars Story hits the screens, and I'll be on hand, this time as Mara Jade, at the Hollywood Palms Cinema in Naperville, alongside some very talented friends from the Chicagoland costuming community as well as the jaw-dropping talents of the 501st and Rebel Legion. There may still be some tickets available for tonight's screenings, but the lobby event is FREE from 6-9:30 pm. So come out, say hi, and get photos with a whole array of Star Wars characters from throughout the history of that galaxy far, far away.

Hope to see you there!

The Light at the End of the World

In which our Diva is officially an audiobook narrator

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Go! Download! Listen! :-)

Godspeed Challenger

In which our Diva remembers

Thirty years ago today, about ten minutes into chemistry class, the phone rang.

Before that moment, I don't think any of us had really noticed that there was a phone in the science room. We all stared, bewildered, as our teacher walked over, picked it up, listened silently for a moment, and put it back down. Then, still without a word, he pulled out the TV cart and turned it on.

I don't remember hearing a word spoken for at least an hour that didn't come from that TV. There might have been an announcement over the PA at some point, but if so I didn't really register it.

It took several minutes to grasp what we were seeing, that somewhere in that enormous plume across the sky -- too big, all wrong -- were the atoms of what had been seven brave, excited people.

He never said, but I can't imagine Mr. Underwood didn't apply for the seat Christa McAuliffe sat in that day. The man who hosted the Science Club at his own house, playing an old 45 of "They're Coming to Take Me Away" at the beginning and end of each meeting, presiding over discussions of when we would next take the Van de Graaff generator over to the elementary school to raise little kids' hair or how one might build a working lightsaber. The one who nominated me for both my Society of Women Engineers awards, even as I was realizing my career path led through all the stories I had to tell.

But I knew that plume was all wrong, too big, because I had watched so many of them rise into the sky before. Most of us in that class were born the year Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. None of us remembered a time when the countdown and the ignition and the rising column of smoke weren't events to look forward to on TV, to hope they fell on teacher in-service days during the school year, to tape when VCRs became a thing. The "send a civilian to space" idea happened because the public was losing interest, a fact that was utterly baffling to me when I read about it.

When I was a little girl (big enough to know that "pirate" and "Jedi" weren't actual options, but before I figured out they came under the heading of "actor"), I wanted to be a ballerina or an astronaut. Preferably both. By 1986, three years into a twelve-inch growth spurt that threw my center of gravity so far off I didn't find it until I was about 25, "ballerina" was pretty firmly off the table. But "astronaut" was still very much in the mix, alongside a few other options that had cropped up over the years. I was even considering applying to the Air Force Academy the following summer, for the sole reason that it was how you got to be an astronaut. (Well, one way. But Annapolis was two time zones away while Colorado Springs was at the foot of a mountain I could see from atop the swingset in my back yard. Besides, I was an Air Force brat, and "Navy wings are made of lead." *g*)

When this anniversary comes around, there's a lot of talk about how the loss of Challenger and her crew changed NASA -- made it more cautious, made people start questioning even more whether we should be doing all this in the first place. It wasn't the first accident, but it was the first I remember seeing with my own eyes. The first to to happen when space travel had become so seemingly routine that we were sending a social-studies teacher up there.

That caution was, and is, all to the good. As much as we might yearn to stand on Mars tomorrow, we need to be careful.

These people should be celebrating this anniversary with their families. They should be telling their children, nieces and nephews, grandchildren what the Earth looked like from orbit on that January morning.

They are immortal, but they should be home. Our pioneers should not be martyrs, not if we can avoid it.

But we still need our pioneers.

To the Safe Zone!

In which our Diva faces off against some gnarly zombies

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



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

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

Welcome (back) to Fright Night

In which our Diva gets to revisit an old friend on the big screen

Thirty years ago this summer, I got my dad and then my friend Kathy to drive me to Aurora from the booming metropolis of Bennett, Colorado (population ~1800) for three separate viewings of a movie with the dubious title of Fright Night. Once I got my hot little hands on a VHS copy, I systematically wore it out over the next couple years.

It's the tale of a teenage horror fan who happens on unusual nocturnal activities next door and quickly discovers that his new neighbor is a vampire.  It sounds like the setup for a joke, and there's no shortage of humor. But, as with so many stories that seize my little fangirl heart in their fangy jaws and run away with it ("A vampire, a werewolf, and a ghost share a house," anyone?), there's a whole lot more going on too.

All these years later, I'm gratified to know that I'm not the only one who thinks so, and that it has taken its rightful place as a horror classic. Its cast is in high demand at conventions, two limited-edition Blu-ray pressings have sold out in a snap, a forthcoming documentary blew its Kickstarter goal out of the water, and mere mention of the 2011 remake can elicit the kind of vitriol usually reserved for those who dare meddle with beloved childhood icons. (I'm secure enough in my fan cred to assert that said remake is perfectly serviceable, albeit nothing special.  But that's not a course I recommend undertaking lightly.)

Last night, at an anniversary screening as part of Bruce Campbell's Horror Film Festival at Wizard World, the Chin himself opened the festivities by asking who had seen it in the theatre. I raised my hand and confirmed that I'd done so three times, when I didn't yet have a driver's license and the nearest movie theatre was 25 miles away.

If you've ever seen Campbell in action at a fan event, you're probably not too surprised to hear that this resulted in a solid five-minute interrogation about just what was so special about this particular movie that I went to those lengths. Trying to be concise (yeah, I know, good luck with that!), I first mentioned what really was most important to 15-year-old me: "Teenagers who made more sense to me than the ones in the John Hughes movies." Pressed for further reasons, I mentioned the gorgeous production design, and how there always seem to be more details to notice in both the visuals and the characters. (Just last night I registered for the first time that the pendant worn as part of Peter's "Great Vampire Killer" outfit is a hamsa.) I didn't mention the balance of horror and humor -- so commonplace today that it's hard to remember just how groundbreaking it was in 1985 -- partly because it's so intrinsic to the film that I no longer consciously think about it, but mostly because I was thinking back to why it was so compelling to me then.

Fifteen-year-old me didn't really think much about the uniqueness of the horror/comedy thing, as much as it's gone on to become part of the DNA of so many of my favorites. She just knew she was in love with these characters and this story.

Thankfully the Groovy One finally moved on to quizzing another fan, though heaven knows I could babble for an hour about why I love this movie. About how it was a lightning strike, exactly the movie I didn't know I needed at exactly that moment in time, that might or might not have made the same impression on me if I hadn't been fifteen and smart and bouncy and weird and living in a small town that seemed hopelessly limited and limiting.

When writer/director Tom Holland did his introduction, I didn't even need to ask the one question I'd brought to the Q&A, about why he chose to make this particular story about teenagers. As he explained before the screening, his original brief for Cloak & Dagger was a sort of juvenile update of Rear Window, but the final form of the screenplay didn't go that way. Still, the idea persisted, and he reached the conclusion that the only way for it to make sense for a modern kid to see a murder through the neighbor's window and have nobody believe him or do anything about it would be if the murder he witnessed was supernatural. And the only adult he could turn to would be the horror host he watched on TV... and thus a classic was born.

They said "Be crazier than that!" I'm in the fourth row center, obliging.

Charley, Amy, and "Evil" Ed are ordinary kids living ordinary lives until they're forced to deal with something extraordinarily dangerous. We don't know what the social pecking order of their school looks like, except to infer that Ed has been bullied and that he and Charley have bonded over horror fandom. All three are just a little awkward, drawn not as stereotypical nerds, just regular kids navigating the bumpy transition to adulthood -- heightened emotions, stilted relationship talk, and all.

Amy is bouncy and optimistic and compassionate and enthusiastic and adorkable. She also bears the perpetual Hollywood onus of being "the girl" (and thus damned to represent all girls), and has taken a lot of flak over the years that -- as someone who strongly identified with her, flaws and all -- I sometimes have to remind myself not to take personally. Four years after the remake, I still bristle at dismissals of her as a flimsy damsel-in-distress in the process of praising the more assertive characterization in the update. Now, don't get me wrong -- I love Amy 2.0. Heck, when the promo stills were released, my first comment was a gleeful "Amy gets a gun. I could be on board with this." And the character we eventually saw lived up to those images and to the promise of a Marti Noxon script.

However. You don't get to say "only hung sweetly by Charley's side" about the girl who steps up save him before he ever needs to save her. (Well, it's a free country; you can say whatever you want. But I'll take umbrage.) When, according to all evidence available to her, he's having some kind of mental breakdown and is determined to do something that will get him locked up for the rest of his life.

Ed turns to her and says "What are we going to do?" It's Amy who immediately comes up with the tactic of asking Peter Vincent for help, thus buying time in which Charley promises not to take action and marshaling the resources of the only adult he's currently prepared to listen to. If they had been living in the world they thought they were, if Dandridge had not in fact been a vampire, then Charley's sanity and future would have been saved entirely on Amy's initiative.

I babbled something to that effect at Amanda Bearse during a Q&A at a convention a couple years back. It wasn't the most coherent thing in the world, but she seemed pleased, and I hope she's rightfully proud of the character she created, particularly having now raised a daughter herself.

On a related note, another aspect of that article linked above that irritates me: "until she was turned vampire by Jerry and became the typically sexed-up evil female. Evil because she is sexual, as has been the case in vampire narratives since Carmilla and Dracula. Contrastingly, in the remake Amy has far more sexual agency–and is not demonized for it."

Here's my problem with that line of reasoning: The original Amy had an agency that was immensely important for 15-year-old me to see, the agency to make her own choices and have them respected.

Charley, with his "we've been going together almost a year" outburst, very nearly disqualifies himself as a hero before even starting to become one, then saves it by apologizing in the next breath without prompting. He was clearly parroting the script he's been force-fed by popular culture about what he's supposed to want and how he's supposed to get it, and he's instantly ashamed, probably without fully understanding why he even said it. He admits to being scared too -- a cardinal no-no in the teen-movie guy code! -- and the ensuing earnest discussion of what level of physical intimacy they're ready for is funny without being played for laughs at their expense. They have all these feelings -- and yes, they both have them -- but not the experience to deal with them in any way that isn't all kinds of awkward. So they talk about it awkwardly, and healthily, and with the understanding that it's important to talk about what they are and aren't ready to do. In the teen-movie landscape of 1985, this was nothing short of a revelation.

So it's all fine until Dandridge comes along and uses Amy's sexuality against her, manipulates feelings she has explicitly stated she is not ready to act on, with the aim of overwriting her identity and turning her into someone else entirely. Not even the long-dead woman in the portrait, but merely his image of her. She's not "evil because she is sexual." She's dangerous because Dandridge is using her as an extension of himself.

At the end of the movie, when she's free of that influence, we're nominally back where we started, with Charley and Amy making out -- fully clothed -- in his room. But it's comfortable in a way that it wasn't at the beginning. They've survived shared trauma and come out stronger, but they're not adults, and they're refreshingly not in any hurry to be. They've decided what they're ready to do, and there's no tension about whether that should change. It will come in its own time, and we're left with the sense that they'll decide it together.

So... that's Amy. One character. That's not even getting into Charley and Ed and brilliant creepy-charming-predator Dandridge and the treasure that is Roddy McDowall as Peter Vincent. A blog post only has so much space.

Anyone still wondering why I love this movie so much? :-)

The accidental filmmaker

In which our Diva took a walk and made a thing

I love where I live. To wit, where I can, on a Friday morning whim, walk two blocks, shoot for about an hour with a consumer DSLR and zero crew, and by Saturday afternoon have made this:

Even before I went to VidCon, I've been pulled up short more and more often recently by the ever-expanding array of creative tools accessible to the ordinary person. Did you know you can download full-blown 3D animation software for free? I didn't until last week. And those hand-drawing-on-a-whiteboard videos you see all over the place? Sparkol VideoScribe is only free once, but isn't terribly expensive after that, and it's super easy to use.

Cross-pollination of ideas from tech to arts and back again drives evolution of both at a merry clip, with concepts like open source and Creative Commons benefiting creators and consumers alike.

Next thing you know, you've made a thing that can quite properly be called a short film, starring a gorgeous pocket of nature that happens to be down the block.

Nature and technology conspire.

It's a pretty fantastic time to be a storyteller, y'know?

Shakespeare Week!

In which our Diva has a little classical fun

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

Like me.

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



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

#DearMe

In which our Diva sends a message in an imaginary digital bottle to her teen self

Dear Me,

You are a Smart Kid, and a Pollyanna, and a nerd, and a skinny girl, and getting taller seemingly by the minute, and watching people flip out about this sex thing with no small degree of bafflement.

This is for you.

Love,
Val



In celebration of International Women's Day, take part in YouTube’s global #DearMe initiative to inspire and empower young girls everywhere. We all know that growing up is tough. But if you could go back in time, what wisdom would you share with your teenage self? It all starts with two words. Dear Me. 

**Share your advice by making your own #DearMe GIF at http://youtubedearme.com **

Remember the ladies

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

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

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

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

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

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

MY autograph? Um, okay...

In which our Diva commits vlog with tremendous ambivalence and curiosity

I am, as you may have noticed, not even a little bit famous. Despite this fact, from time to time, I receive an email or letter asking for an autographed photo. Typically they mention a relatively recent credit from my IMDb page, tell me a little about themselves, and are generally polite and respectful.

The one currently sitting in my inbox (waiting for me to get around to printing a promo photo at Walgreens in a size that can be sent with regular letter postage, which the 8x10 headshots I actually have on hand rather decidedly can't) says he's a fan from Epitaph: Bread and Salt. Now, that has over half a million views on YouTube, increasing the odds that he's actually seen it, as compared to some other films requesters have mentioned.

One of the previous requests I've received, upon googling the name of the requester together with "autograph" (because I'm nothing if not a curious beastie), let me to this blog post by author C. Leigh Purtill. She was understandably baffled at receiving an autograph request from a Polish gentleman who seemed vanishingly unlikely to have actually read her books, and took her blog to see what her readers made of it. I'm guessing she probably never predicted that there would still be a fairly lively discussion happening in the comments nearly six years later, with all manner of obscure public figures (including myself) chiming in to relate their stories, share the names of requesters, and puzzle over why they're interested in us.

It says a lot about the state of the world, and particularly of trying to make a go of it in the entertainment or publishing industry, that the first place pretty much everyone's mind goes is "Is this some kind of scam?" The short answer, as far as I've been able to determine, is no, although currently the discussion is circling around the pros and cons of confirming that the email address they're using for you is valid. (In my case, it's the one I list on my IMDbPro page for professional purposes, so if it weren't, I'd definitely be doing this "self-managed actor" thing wrong! But that's not the source for everyone, so it's a valid question to consider.)

In my aquaintance with collectors, no matter what their area of interest, the qualitative and quantitative properties of what they collect, of what makes a particular item worth including and what doesn't, is a highly idiosyncratic thing. I can easily picture the autographs of obscure public figures having a place in the collection of someone for whom the act of collecting itself, of organizing and cataloging, is the point. There are social interactions in both contacting celebrities (or even not-so-celebrities) with requests as well as in the collector community, which, as a glance at the fanmail.biz forum or the Google results for "my autograph collection" will tell you, is a diverse and thriving one.

So I can guess at what's going on when I get that request in my inbox. But I don't really know, and (although I briefly considered asking this latest requester if he'd mind taking some sort of survey and passing it on to fellow collectors), it seems sort of rude and weirdly presumptuous to ask directly. If someone is writing to me saying "I'm a fan," I don't want to go essentially accusing him of lying.

Instead, I spent my latest vlog ruminating on the phenomenon, and inviting insights from the people who do the requesting. Whether any of them will respond, or even see it, is a total unknown. But what the heck, right?

Grieve not with thy bitter tears

In which our Diva commemorates a famous death

On this day in 1862, Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal died of a laudanum overdose. The inquest ruled it accidental; some who knew her claimed to know for a fact that she had taken her own life. We will never be able to confirm with absolute certainty what was in her mind that night.

We do have her poems, many of which dwell on death and loss, a tendency in which she was not alone among her contemporaries.

On this solemn anniversary, this one -- probably my favorite of hers -- seems fitting. It closes Unvarnished; I recorded this reading a few years ago.



Early Death
Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal

Oh grieve not with thy bitter tears
The life that passes fast;
The gates of heaven will open wide
And take me in at last.

Then sit down meekly at my side
And watch my young life flee;
Then solemn peace of holy death
Come quickly unto thee.

But true love, seek me in the throng
Of spirits floating past,
And I will take thee by the hands
And know thee mine at last.

Ophelia is everywhere

In which our Diva ponders how the girl nobody at court considered until it was too late came to be considered a great many things

Long, long ago, when woolly mammoths roamed roamed the wilds of the information superhighway between the glittering GeoCities and the gates of AOhelL (which one reached by means of shiny wheels that appeared by the dozens in one's physical mailbox), yours truly created a section of her personal website called "Doubt Thou the Stars Are Fire - An Ophelia Gallery."

Through the magic of the Wayback Machine (and a temporary change in my display resolution - raise your hand if you remember SVGA being fancy!), I can give you an idea of what it looked like:

Also thanks to the Wayback, I can quote my long-forgotten "about the site" statement:

I had no idea it was going to get this big.

This project was originally conceived as a page for my Fireside Tales section [that was where I used to blather about fairy and folk tales before discovering blogging], but it wasn't long before I realized there was far too much material to fit in that context. It began (as so many things seem to) with Shakespeare, and with the familiar figure of Hamlet's poor tragic lady-love, who is driven mad by the madness going on around her, and who drowns in the brook with a song on her lips.

The next ingredient was my long-standing fascination with Pre-Raphaelite art, and with the circle of individuals who produced it. Ophelia was a favorite subject of theirs, as you'll soon see if you didn't already know. At one time I had notions of doing a website on the Pre-Raphaelites, but the lovely folk at WebMagick and The Germ have covered the subject far more thoroughly than I ever could.

The final catalyst was reading Mary Pipher's Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls, a standout amid the recent flood of pop psychology and women's studies. To Dr. Pipher, Ophelia is the symbol of the loss of identity that so often strikes girls as they reach adolescence and are pressured to define themselves by everyone's standards except their own.

As you'll see throughout this site, Ophelia has far more faces than those few. She is a potent identifying figure for women in general and teenage girls in particular, and she means something a little different to everyone.

"This big" might sound funny in the age of blogs and content management systems and wikis (if I were to undertake such a project today, it would totally be a wiki!), but in the Wild-Digital-West days we prided ourselves on hand-coding HTML, which was actually the easier way to make something look the way you wanted than the clunky web-authoring software of the time!

So there were quite a few hours and a lot of love in that handful of pages, gathering art, photos, essays, and links to people, businesses, and pets bearing Ophelia's name.

Then came blogs and wikis and aggregators, and a far wider and more populous online world, and it all became far too much for one busy woman to keep track of. The links became outdated, and the subject became amply covered in multiple elsewheres. So I retired the site, and moved on to other things.

I still think often of poor drowned Ophelia, of course -- I could hardly help it even if I wanted to, up to my eyebrows in dramatizing a woman whose legacy is inextricably bound up with her. I still have the ghost of that "I need to add this to the site" impulse when I encounter a new expression of our enduring cultural fascination with her -- Emilie Autumn's tour de force album Opheliac; or a chamber opera entitled Ophelia Forever that features not one but three incarnations of the title role; or even a contemporary art piece involving a recreation of Millais' painting in bacteria, time-lapse photography of its decay, poetry collected via voice mail, and a musical composition based on the genetic code of digestive flora!

I think of poor drowned Ophelia, and also sweet hopeful Ophelia, and mad Ophelia struggling to make herself heard through old words and melodies and the language of flowers. I think of the reality of an old ballgown turned gossamer flotation device and glittering anchor by turns. I think of a role that can liberate or imprison, or paradoxically do both at once -- for Lizzie, one of its most famous exponents, or for unknown dozens of young actresses taking her on at any given moment.

I've never played Ophelia myself (barring reading from our desks in a high school literature classroom), and I've passed the "ingenue" phase of my Shakespeare career and into the "queens" -- though, despite having dived headfirst into Titania and Lady Macbeth, I somehow don't feel ready to tackle Gertrude. But she remains there in the background, somehow, well past the adolescent confusions in which one is supposed to identify with her.

For a fictional girl who didn't make it out of her teens, Ophelia really does contain multitudes. Like many characters, really, especially those of whom we learn tantalizingly little in their moments on the stage. Those whose shadowed lives we can illuminate with the experiences and questions of our own.

It's with this role I begin Unvarnished, with Lizzie offering a few typically wry observations hinting at how it has touched on the corners of her own life. A glimpse:



Three years ago, I witnessed in person the sensation Millais' Ophelia still creates in those passing her on the Tate Gallery wall. Lizzie was part of making something magical, whose appeal is impossible to quantify. Yet her experience of its making involved entirely earthly and practical considerations of cold water and needed wages. If anything encapsulates the contradictions of her life, that's it.

 The music opening the above video is from Helen Trevillion's "The Goose Girl"

Unvarnished vlog: Why Lizzie?

In which our Diva gets some use out of that phone tripod she got for Christmas

I've been bitten by the vlogging bug. (Well, technically I can call myself an early adopter -- all of these predate my even hearing the term "vlog" -- but it's way easier now.)

For those of you who prefer the written word, don't worry -- I still plan to do proper blog posts too! But thoughts come out differently in writing than they do in speaking, and of course once the Unvarnished process is more visibly underway, this way of sharing it should be even more fun.

I started simple today, with a few thoughts on why I'm so fascinated by Elizabeth Siddal and what inspired me to create a solo theatre piece about her. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you've probably encountered most of these thoughts in one form or another, but I wouldn't mind your giving a listen even so. And, if you're so inclined, sharing with potentially interested friends? :-)

Unvarnished sneak peek

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

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

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

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

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

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

Something in the water in Geneva

In which our Diva gives thanks that her Frankenstein castmates made everything such fun backstage

Frankenstein Official Quote List
GreenMan Theatre, Fall 2014

You can be in various stages of beverage... ness.

Let's have you pout again. That was good.

You're just kind of frantic piano-ing, so you don't notice him right away.

She's a great governess. She's the best. And you really did have a frog situation with the other one.

If you're not Victor or the Creature, you can take five.
 - Am I the Creature?
 - If you don't know if you're the Creature or not, I can't help you.

So fight your natural instinct to get up and punch them in the face right away.

Walk it off. She's going to die. You just got beat up.

You're Enlightenment guys. You think you know everything because you read a book.
 - I read two books, thank you very much.

Any inappropriate audience reactions will be dealt with by the Creature.

I feel bad for Victor, but I hate him too.
 - Ding-ding-ding! You get to lead the talkback.

I made you a present.
 - I made you a playmate. He's in the park waiting for you.
 - Totally in keeping with the period. Handmade presents.

And once the set's built, the first time you smack your head on that wall will remind you.

Did we do this part yet?
 - No. Be careful.
 - Kung fu Frankenstein.

Easiest scene transition in the entire show. Except for the giant tarp.

I think Bill & Ted might have paid a visit and dropped their shoes off.

What am I doing?
 - Trying to comfort the crazy man.
 - Same as always.

Now let's do one "happy, fun, before everyone dies."

Let us talk of happier times. Things. Topics. Three T's.

And then I realized that someone was talking about watching Dexter's Laboratory when they were little, and I was sad.

No! No amount of torture? Line.
 - Yep.

Thank you, son. I will go and inform your wife. Uh, your future wife. Your bride.
 - That's the one.

Justine and Elizabeth, you learn about this conversation, and you can feel about that however you feel about that. Disgruntled is one option.

I wrote in big letters "Victor and Creature up." Because you both love the floor.

Whose body parts are these? Why hasn't CSI been invented yet? We can pay them in Toblerone and clocks.

Elizabeth, you're next. We're going to kill you now.
 - What about Henry?
 - Oh, yeah, Henry!
 - I'm going to live.

Dying is great. Keep doing it.

I think that will work better once I figure out where to touch her in a nice way.
 - Yes. We don't want any sort of lawsuits.

So in a... appropriate for Dad, and yet also, like, kind of locker-room way.

The Creature has an extra body part.
 - It's your purple appendage.

Go to the end of 7. Victor beats Effie. I mean Elizabeth. That's a different scene that I didn't write.

This guy said, "You look like Tina Fey," and I was like, "You're too old for me. Do you have a grandson?"

Why couldn't you get, like, a whole person and bring him to life?
- Well, that's no challenge!

I finished punching and I thought, "Oh, I wonder where I went with that? Well, it doesn't matter now."

My keyword for a crushed windpipe will be a lot of wheezing.

You're sort of period-esque moving while carrying a bench. And if that's not vague enough for you, I can try to make it a little more unclear.

That time I was listening for the knap. I have been growling. I like growling. Growling is fun.

That felt kind of weird.
 - It looked weird. I think it's because your foot got hooked on her boob.
 - If I had a nickel for every time somebody said that...

At what point in that do I die?

I've been saying, "I've been riding a horse for forever. Is this Felix's family?"
 - You'll notice that I'm walking weird. It's not just because I'm Spanish. I've been riding a horse.

I think you can enjoy his bad Spanish a little more. You already are, but you can be like, "Oh honey, we don't need to talk."

We speak the universal language.
 - Polish.

I wrote lots of kissing notes tonight. We'll work on it.

People will get it. And the people who don't, that's fine. Their friend will explain it to them in the car on the way home.

Warm up your slapping hand.

Ben's doing this reaction of "Oh, my hand came from a dead guy. That's gross. Oh, and this one too. That's also gross."

Henry, your grossness is still awesome. Keep it up. Literally.

It can get a little shouty. Then it's like, "I have rage! Don't you have rage? Yes! I have rage!"

Erick, you need to learn to use a blanket. Or maybe it's Frank.

Early is on time. On time is late.
 - Late is dead.

He's trying to defend you, but it's not working very well.
 - Yeah, you're supposed to be poking me.
 - I'm not into poking anyone.
 - It's against my beliefs.

You're so friendly. I'm too hungry to be friendly.
 - As long as you don't actually eat the people you're greeting, it's all good.

You sing like a bird. A vulture.

Becky, are you ready to get your face beat in?

Do you sweat?
 - He sweats on the inside.
 - I sweat on the inside and then I spit it all over Erick in our fight scene.

I think Val should go on just like that. Nothing says intimidation in the courtroom like a tank top and curlers.

I didn't care for Romper Room. It was too educational.

Everything has changed. The show is now a musical.
 - Ohhh, sweet mystery of life, at last I've found you!
 - That's now the jail scene.
 - Hey, I'd be way more scared of Madeline Kahn than some random thug with a stick.

It's all your fault. You made me kick my own butt.

Unfortunately, most of the sound and light cues are cued off of violence.

Ahh. Oh, my knee. Ahh.
 - Oh, come now, you're a better actor than that.
 - Ahh.
 - We're gonna have to shoot him.

I'm waving the grey flag.
 - It's like, I'm kind of giving up. I sort of quit.

I'm telling lies to the child. What else is new?

Keep the bottles for Foley purposes.
 - Keep the bottles for killing.
 - I actually said "Keep the bottles for Foley," not killing. But killing is just as accurate.

Don't pace behind me.
 - I'm not pacing. I'm staring.

Yeah, that would be me leaving my brain in my other pants. Or rather my pants in the wrong place.

You've never looked at your scalp before?
 - Not close enough to see freckles.

Twenty-seven.
 - Thank you, 27.
 - Sorry. Fifty-seven.
 - That's better.
 - Thank you, heart attack.

I was tempted, but I never seriously thought about it.
 - About what?
 - Punching someone.
 - Hunting someone?
 - PUNCHING someone.
 - Oh, I thought you said hunting someone.
 - That's a whole different level.

You want to do some highlights here so you can see the breakage of his head.
 - "Breakage of his head" is a phrase I really only want to hear in very specific circumstances.

I died? Nobody told me this.

Look what I found in the back.
 - Yay! More death!
 - More death bottles.
 - I'm going to have a fear of water bottles after this.

Why are we sitting on Duard?

She spent the whole week going "Thursday... Thursday..."
 - I'll kick his ass on Thursday.
 - And you know Mr. Val was like, "Honey, what's wrong?"
 - I haven't beaten anyone up in DAYS.

Do whatever you need to do to bring extra energy.
 - Should I eat all my Halloween candy?
 - I recommend doing that AFTER the show.

Thank you for washing my super-gross shirt.
 - Oh, yours was nothing compared to Erick's.
 - That was my excuse to myself.

Why didn't you make a puppy, seriously? Or, like, a chimpanzee.
 - Yeah, science starts with small animals. You should have made a slug.

And I saw it for the dumbest reason. I'm seven years old, and I saw Alan Rickman, and went *clutches heart*.
 - Y'know, Becky, that tells us so much about you.
 - It really does.

I'm going to tell her she's the cat's meow, and she's going to tell me I'm the cat's pajamas.
 - I love cats! And pajamas!

What if they canceled the show because someone couldn't get a shoe on?
 - That would be...
 - Ridiculous.
 - It would be a one-shoe show.

Erick, you've been e-Victored.
 - Wow.
 - You have no idea how much joy that brought me.

I will find you a water.
 - But only the green ones.
 - Don't start with me.

Looks like a greatcoat.
 - Well, it's good. I wouldn't call it great.

I already came up with a way that everyone could be happy. Except Justine.

Hey, Rachael, you used to be on my side. What happened?
 - I was never on your side. Sorry.

This isn't working.
 - You have to work for it.
 - I did. I gave her four mints for it.
 - That's not work. That's bribery.

I feel naked without at least eyeliner.
 - See, I feel naked without clothes, so I usually wear those.

Well, you had that look on your face like, "First I'm going to find out how you're doing, and then I'm going to destroy your day."

You should wear that out there. Be like, "I killed Victor."
 - I killed him for the hat.
 - I wish you never went to University! Bang!

That might not be the right show.
 - What show would it be?
 - Harvey.
 - See, I'd give it to my family, and my dad would be like, "Well, he said it was an adaptation."
 - I created a giant rabbit. He's invisible.

Now do you see the dangers of this game?
 - There are no dangers. I've only been hurt once, and that was when someone interfered.
 - True. And that someone was your mother.

So your version of flipping the bird to your mother is stealing all her chocolate and bringing it to us.
 - Yes. Also, she told me to.

The spark of life

In which our Diva plays dramaturg as Victor plays God

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

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

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

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

Hope to see you there!

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

Mermaid-like awhile they bore her up

In which our Diva's much-delayed dream project draws ever closer to reality

It's been over a month since I scrawled the words "END OF PLAY" in a spiral notebook, and just over a week since I typed the same ones into Celtx. Over a decade since the idea first hatched in my little brain, Unvarnished: A Portrait of Elizabeth Siddal is finally becoming an actual coming-to-a-stage-near-you solo theatre piece.

It even has a Facebook page, for which the wonderful Pre-Raphaelite social mediasphere has already garnered 161 Likes. I'm in contact with a venue for the first public reading, which will likely be in November or December in Elgin, and mulling various logistical considerations for touring the fully realized production.

With all that going on, of course I picked today to have a eureka moment about Ophelia's dress.

That's not entirely out of left field. In my text, the dress is the springboard for a little flight of fancy while Lizzie poses in the infamous tub, and it's always been important to my mental image of the show. But the details craved by my obsessive little costumer's brain (which couldn't help being a bit disappointed by the sad greyish thing the mostly gobsmackingly gorgeous Desperate Romantics put on Amy Manson; the designer for Emma West's Ophelia short film seems to have given it a little more thought, albeit on a restricted budget), are tantalizingly thin on the ground. Millais himself recorded in a letter that "To-day I have purchased a really splendid lady's ancient dress - all flowered over in silver embroidery - and I am going to paint it for 'Ophelia'. You may imagine it is something rather good when I tell you it cost me, old and dirty as it is, four pounds." (The Tate Britain educational info on the painting estimates that this would be about £250 today.)

Now, it didn't take too long to decide that a 20-something guy's idea of an "ancient dress" -- even if that 20-something guy is a genius painter intent on getting his masterpiece absolutely right -- is likely to be defined fairly broadly. In all likelihood, we're talking about something kept in a trunk for a generation or two before it found its way to the secondhand shop where Millais found it.

Which somewhat remarkably gives us more to go on than the painting itself, in which the distortion of the water makes it nigh impossible to discern much about the actual shape of the garment. That said, the shape does appear to be relatively simple, which lends further weight to the likelihood that it dated to the first couple decades of the 19th century.

The advent of machine-made net at the close of the 18th century paved the way for the early-19th-century fashion for gowns of muslin overlaid with embroidered net, often in gold or silver thread. So I've been working for a long time under the assumption that the Ophelia dress fell into that category, as typified by this gorgeous specimen at the V&A.

However.

The place I've always been tripped up is the neckline, which is clearly a couple inches higher than is typically found on this type of dress, appearing to cover Lizzie's collarbones. It's one of the few structural details we actually can see in the painting...

...or so I've always thought.

That eureka moment I mentioned? Follow the red dotted line:

Yup. Right there in front of me the whole time: the actual neckline of the dress, outlined in reflective bluish highlights.

At first I thought maybe he painted the actual neckline, then altered it to look more medieval and/or better represent Ophelia's virginal innocence for his contemporary audience. But the more I look at it, the more I wonder what that lace flounce around the top of the V&A dress would look like if it were flipped up and clinging to its sopping wet wearer. I suspect it'd look a lot like this.

So, that's that direction settled on. Too bad I hemmed and hawed just a little too long about that perfect vintage sari on eBay; I probably could even have used the choli for the bodice! Ah, well. I'll just have to look around some more. Darn. Shopping. ;-)

Ice Bucket Challenge

In which our Diva chills out in support of combating ALS and related diseases

Over five years ago (I got it wrong when I said four in the video), Spinal Muscular Atrophy took my brilliant, wacky, wonderful friend Abby away from us at the age of 33. With that in mind, I'm making "Ice Bucket" donations to both the ALSA and MDA.



The closing line of my blog post linked above was inspired by Abby's stated belief that any and all fanfics -- whether or not they had anything whatsoever to do with Stargate -- should end with the phrase "And then Teal'c took off his shirt." With that in mind, I have to think that wherever she's watching from, this is her favorite:

Houston, we have a draft!

In which our Diva reaches a noteworthy milestone

There's still a whole lot of work ahead of me before Unvarnished comes to a stage near you, but I cannot begin to tell you how sweet it was to scrawl these words this morning:

Meanwhile, another intrepid theatrical look into Lizzie's life is about to debut in New York. Be sure to check out Shakespeare's Sister Company and their imminent premiere of Kris Lundberg's Muse.

The quality of mercy

In which our Diva has been doing some listening and pondering

Being acquainted with a number of industry people on the other side of "The Pond," as well as a fan of various British TV fare, I've had quite a few conversations in the last few years that touch on the differences in acting education and career shapes between the US and UK. The broadest is that over here, we're much more likely to be specialists, whereas traditional British drama-school training assumes that you'll be doing a bit of everything -- theatre, film, TV, and what is arguably the most specialized in this country, audio.

British friends are often surprised when I explain that straight-up, studio-produced radio drama has been absent from American airwaves for decades, with a few NPR offerings recorded in front of live audiences as the closest thing that remains. Happily, there's been a resurgence of the form in the explosion of podcasting. Nobody could have predicted the runaway popularity of Welcome to Night Vale (which, after listening to it for nearly a year, I still think is most conveniently described as "News From Lake Wobegon with Cthulhu mythos," though that doesn't quite cover it), and the likes of Pendant Productions and Decoder Ring Theatre are making a pretty respectable showing too.

Meanwhile, though, Auntie Beeb never stopped putting original drama on the radio, and these days you can stream or download a lot of it online. (Unlike most of their video, BBC iPlayer radio programming can be played outside the UK.) Some programs are also delivered by podcast; I've been subscribed to the one for the Drama of the Week for a while now.

Which is how I came to find Porcelain: The Trial for the Killing of Sophie Lancaster (sadly not currently available) in my digital media library in March. It sat there for weeks on end, un-listened-to, for precisely the reason it turned out to be even more interesting to me than it otherwise would have been: I was in the middle of rehearsals for The Laramie Project, and wasn't quite up to another dramatization of a hate crime against a young person by other young people.