31 Plays in 31 Days: #10 - "The Late Mrs. Chadwick"

This is very clearly inspired by Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit. One thing I found to be a slight missed opportunity in that piece is that only Charles Condomine is able to see the ghost Elvira, I think there would have been lots of funny things to do with a slightly different scenario. I also wrote it imaging two of the very talented gentlemen I worked with in Sherlock Holmes, Chris who played Sherlock and John who played my husband Larabee, as Chadwick and Shrewsbury. It made things much funnier for me.

Another inspiration was one of the one-acts Jared and I saw at the festival of them thrown by the Hovey Players. The piece on its own was fairly whatever-- it was about a man who went into the hospital for an appendectomy and came out with a sex change and was trying to very politely bring it up with his doctor. The jokes were pretty obvious and not that remarkable on their own, but they made it work by giving the characters English accents, and making the joke out of how completely polite and stiff-upper-lippy they were. I thought I'd borrow that for my own piece here.

Also, for some perverse reason I really like writing dialogue for characters who hate Catholics. I love using the term "papists."

Day #10 - "The Late Mrs. Chadwick"

(Two very stiffly-dressed English gentlemen, ARTHUR CHADWICK and EDWIN SHREWSBURY sit in a tastefully decorated parlor drinking tea and talking about cricket.)

SHREWSBURY: That is a bold statement, friend. That is a four-time championship team you’re talking about.

CHADWICK: I say the team is ageing out of their skills. Their lineup has not changed in far too long.

(There is the ghostly wail of a woman from offstage.)

SHREWSBURY: I say, Chadwick, did you hear something?

CHADWICK: Beg your pardon?

SHREWSBURY: Apologies, nothing, old boy. You were saying?

CHADWICK: Yes, well, they’ve got to get some new blood in there. Thirty-six isn’t absurd, but they’re no spring chickens when it comes to test cricket.

(Suddenly a woman ghost, MATILDA CHADWICK, her skin painted a pale gray wearing a diaphanous gray gown, sweeps through the parlor, wailing as she goes. After a moment she exits. CHADWICK appears not to notice, but SHREWSBURY is vaguely perturbed.)

CHADWICK: Shrewsbury, are you quite all right?

SHREWSBURY: Forgive me, old friend, but what was that?

CHADWICK: What was what?

(MATILDA reenters and sweeps through again, waving her arms and wailing, then exits.)

SHREWSBURY: Are you aware that there seems to be some sort of… spectral lady… thing… of some kind… floating around your parlor?

CHADWICK: Oh, yes, good of you to notice. That is my late wife.

SHREWSBURY: Your… late wife?

CHADWICK: Yes, Matilda. She’s recently taken up residence in the house again.

SHREWSBURY: I see. But, if I might ask, how can that be so, given that Matilda is… what’s the polite word… dead?

CHADWICK: Yes, in a freak croquet accident on the front lawn. Very tragic.

SHREWSBURY: I recall.

CHADWICK: But it seems that somehow in the Great Beyond word reached Matilda about my recent remarriage, and as far as anyone can deduce, she is so distraught over the news that she’s crossed back over to the material plane in order to seek eternal vengeance from beyond the grave.

(A piece of crockery flies onstage and explodes on the ground. MATILDA enters after it and swans around dramatically, making rhythmic keening sounds.)

CHADWICK: But please, don’t let it trouble you.

SHREWSBURY: Oh, I hardly notice.

(MATILDA knocks the teacup out of SHREWSBURY’s hand. He is just slightly nonplussed.)

CHADWICK: More tea, old friend?

SHREWSBURY: Please.

(SHREWSBURY picks up another cup from the tea set, which CHADWICK fills from the pot. MATILDA knocks that cup away too.)

SHREWSBURY: On second thought, that’s enough for me.

CHADWICK: Quite right.

SHREWSBURY: And what does the, shall we say, living Mrs. Chadwick think?

CHADWICK: Between you and me, old boy, I will confess that she is not entirely pleased with the whole arrangement.

SHREWSBURY: Oh, the poor dear.

CHADWICK: Apparently Matilda sees fit to take out the whole sad business on her by vowing to haunt and torment her through this world and beyond until the fires of Judgment Day.

SHREWSBURY: How unfortunate. You have my sympathies, Arthur.

CHADWICK: Thanks very much. These things are sent to try us.

(MATILDA begins picking up household items and hurling them to smash upon the ground.)

SHREWSBURY: Where is your wife at the moment?

CHADWICK: Well, Hermione’s found it a bit vexing to remain in the house for long periods, what with the flying crockery and Matilda’s propensity for setting fire to her hair.

SHREWSBURY: Quite understandable.

CHADWICK: I rather thought so. So my dear girl’s dedicated herself to having Matilda exorcised.

(MATILDA wails.)

SHREWSBURY: I say, exorcised?

CHADWICK: I believe that’s the term. You know, banished. Returned to the Great Beyond.

SHREWSBURY: For my edification, what is the process for such a banishment?

(MATILDA breaks something.)

SHREWSBURY: In case any of my departed relations also elect to make a return visit.

CHADWICK: I’m afraid we’re still in the process of figuring that out. Lord knows we’ve tried a few things.

SHREWSBURY: With no success, I take it?

(MATILDA pours a ewer of water over CHADWICK’s head.)

CHADWICK: Not as such, no. First we rung up one of those, what do you call them, mediums, who commune with the spirit world.

SHREWSBURY: Oh, yes, they’re very entertaining at parties.

CHADWICK: To be sure, but this one seemed to have difficult effectively communicating with Matilda.

SHREWSBURY: Ah.

CHADWICK: I suppose I can’t criticize. It was a feat I had yet to achieve myself in five years of marriage to her!

(They laugh politely. MATILDA knocks over a table and wails.)

SHREWSBURY: Perhaps you could find a more diplomatic one.

CHADWICK: Perhaps, but the whole affair left Matilda quite cross, and I’m not inclined to weather that again. With all the blood weeping down walls.

SHREWSBURY: Most troublesome.

(MATILDA hurls a pillow at SHREWSBURY. He dodges without skipping a beat.)

CHADWICK: And then there was the woods witch who made a terrible mess of the drawing room with all those goats she sacrificed.

(MATILDA hurls another pillow at CHADWICK, who dodges equally casually.)

SHREWSBURY: Oh, I can imagine.

(MATILDA screams with rage and storms out.)

CHADWICK: It’s all driven Hermione to become quite desperate. At the moment she’s gone down to St. Swithin’s to ask assistance from the pastor.

SHREWSBURY: St. Swithin’s? Your Hermione set foot among the papists?

CHADWICK: Unbelievable, I know, but the poor thing’s quite determined. I understand they’ve some protocols in matters of peasant superstition.

SHREWSBURY: One does hear all those terrible stories about priests with their heads all spun about on their necks, though.

CHADWICK: Indeed. Bad enough that the neighbors see them coming in the house without having to remove their bodies as well. Still, I’m afraid we’re rather out of options.

(There is screaming and crashing offstage, then the crackling of flames. Smoke drifts out into the sitting room.)

SHREWSBURY: I say, Chadwick. That sounds rather terrible.

CHADWICK: I’ve come to know that sound quite well, I believe it’s the screaming of the servants. Excuse me a moment.

(CHADWICK rises and goes to look offstage where the smoke is coming from.)

CHADWICK: Yes, indeed. She’s set the kitchen on fire.

(There is the terrified screaming of horses.)

CHADWICK: And released the horses from the stables. Oh, I do hope she hasn’t barricaded the door this time. Forgive me, friend, but I’ll have to run off for a tick and handle this.

SHREWSBURY: Can I be of any assistance?

CHADWICK: Oh, don’t trouble yourself. Please, stay at your ease.

SHREWSBURY: If you insist, sir.

CHADWICK: Won’t be a moment!

(CHADWICK exits. SHREWSBURY pours himself a new cup of tea and begins sipping. He occasionally tosses a vaguely curious glance in the direction of the commotion.)

(MATILDA reenters. She storms up to SHREWSBURY and stares him down in the chair. After a long moment, she slaps the cup out of his hand again and runs off.)

Good theater news

I have had two cool theater-related things occur in my life recently which I would now like to share. First of all, I am proud to announce that Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure has been nominated for five annual DASH awards by EMACT, the Eastern Massachusetts Association of Community Theaters. They are as follows:

Best Supporting Actor, Play - Stephen Turner (Dr. Watson)
Best Set Design - Tom Powers
Best Costume Design - Donna Roessler
Best Stage Management - Harry Manuel
Best Play

Except that Dr. Watson is clearly a lead and not a supporting character, this is cool, especially because I've been told these are the most awards for a single show that the TCAN Players have ever been up for. All our nominees are very deserving, but I'm especially proud of the Best Play nod, as our final product was pretty damn good.

Now for the second bit of cool news. As you may have noticed, I put up an announcement about how DREAM, the reimagined Midsummer I'm going to be playing Helena in, still needed a few more actors. I will now have the privilege to be playing across Plesser as Demetrius and Nick Martucci as Peter Quince. I've never gotten to interact much with Plesser onstage, so I'm super excited about that. I also like the changing up of roles-- the first time we did this show, he was Lysander and I was Puck. In Charlotte's Liquid Latex dance, he was Bottom and I was Titania. Now we're Demetrius and Helena. And I understand that this will be Nick's triumphant return to theater after focusing on film for a long time, as well as his first Shakespearean role. Unfortunately there were other talented friends who were not selected, who I will very much miss working with, but I am glad for those who did get in.

Red rose, white rose

Red rose from Moriarty, white rose from Holmes. God, I miss that show.

"A fitting way to toast a Juliette"

God, I love the Holmes cast. They have this wonderful tendency to go off on long group e-mail chains that meander hilariously from topic to topic. The most recent one was started by our adorable messenger boy/Swiss maid, Juliette, announcing that she got through the English final some of us had been quizzing her for in the green room. This led to all sorts of responses on knowledge and grammar that spanned several languages. Not being fluent enough in anything to contribute well myself, this was the response I devised, which played to my particular strengths:

I've been afraid to toss my hat in too;
I have no words in other tongues like you.
But count my beats and see just what I've got,
As someone who has given English thought.
Perhaps iambs will make, in perfect set,
A fitting way to toast a Juliette.

I'm absurdly pleased with it. Not a bad little bit of verse, eh? Makes that grueling semester of iambic pentameter worth it.

Close of Sherlock

Sherlock Holmes closed to great fanfare and not a little bit of sadness this weekend. I know I sound like a broken record at this point, but I was so happy and proud to be in this show, and I loved this cast. The cast party was nice too, with lots of good conversations, if bittersweet. The process and the people were so great, and now it's ending and we won't see each other all the time. I'll have to fill the time with a new project, but the thought makes me feel bereft.

I am worn, though. Too much staying up late, too much unhealthy eating. Today I am going to take a scaldingly hot bath and soak until I'm a wrinkly tomato. Then I may just cut off all my hair in frustration. I am so tired of starched updos packed full of pins that doesn't even feel like hair when you finally take it down. I imagine I will have a few days of prostration due to exhaustion where I don't feel much of anything except grateful for the chance to rest, but then will go into prostration due to mopeyness over the show ending. Getting into this play helped me out of a growing melancholy, so I hope I can keep that positivity going.

Last weekend of Sherlock

Final weekend of Sherlock Holmes performances begin tonight. In an effort to ward off any more debilitating ill health episodes, I am working to stay calm and hydrated. I mean, it's very unlikely that I'll get another migraine, this week has been weary but way less stressful than the last, but I really don't want to deal with that again.

My parents are coming up to see the show tonight and tomorrow. I'm really happy they can make it. They're even bringing my brother and his girlfriend on Saturday. They missed Merely Players due to scheduling issues, and I haven't acted in a show in a couple of years now, so that's special for me.

Also, yesterday I got to see Erik Potter, Tom Heller, and Lily Hwang, in town for their fifth-year Brandeis reunion. They made a campfire in Sachar Woods and invited me to hang out with them there last night. It was wonderful to see them again, after all that time. Erik actually lives around here anyway, so I need to make an effort to see him more.

If only I weren't feeling so tired. All week I have felt draggy, despite taking naps and going to bed early. Not sure what's wrong, though I know it's been going on since the show ended last weekend. I've even been eating right and exercising a lot. I'm used to bouncing back pretty quickly, but whatever this is, it's lingered. I guess I'll just have to push through.

Rewriting Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure

As much as I've enjoyed being in Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure, I think I mentioned that I had problems with the structure of the script. Even ignoring how I honestly don't believe Holmes as Doyle wrote him is capable of falling in love with anyone, and therefore would never cast his admiration for Irene Adler as romantic in any way, I think that even taking that for granted as the play does have a number of inconsistencies that irk me from a writer's standpoint. As I read it I couldn't help but think if I tried to hand in this piece for schoolwork, my teacher would get on my case for every single one of them.

The biggest issue I take is the idea that Irene Adler is set up as this powerful intellect and a remarkable, mold-breaking woman of considerable personal independence... and yet she bounces from man to man within a very short span of time. I guess you could say that allowing herself romantic freedom is a sign of that independence-- which is how I chose to interpret it in my performance --but it all happens so quickly that it reduces the value of her affection, I think, for it to change and move so quickly. Also it reduces her personal value to that of a romantic conquest for the male characters around her. It's not the most feminist portrayal of a character who is supposed to represent the true value women can have.

But okay, I do get that the way the author Stephen Dietz mashed the stories together, it's kind of necessary for the three romantic connections to exist in order for that story to happen. Two are actually from A Scandal in Bohemia, and then he wanted to connect her with Sherlock Holmes. Fair enough, if that's the direction he has to go in. But there's a big problem even in that. Irene is presented as almost as smart as Holmes-- she's able to see through his disguise and thwart his scheme. But then this small-time con man James Larabee is able to so completely pull the wool over his eyes as to convince her he's a gentleman, and make her fall in love with him? I don't buy it. I don't buy that he could trick her when a much more formidable man could not, and I also don't buy that she would go for him. I mean, I know that contrary to popular literary portrayal, love is not logical, you do not get Love to be vended in exchange for ten tokens of Worthiness, but I still don't think Larabee-- who is portrayed later in the play as something of a chump --could sufficiently appeal to her to make her want to spend her life with him.

So how to fix that? How to keep that structure while making it more believable that it could happen that way at all? I pondered this when I couldn't sleep last Wednesday night after a conversation with Chris, our gallant Sherlock Holmes, and I think I know what I would do. I would move the Larabee character out of the position of conning Irene and put Moriarty in his place. I would make Moriarty the one who took on the persona of Godfrey Norton in order to charm Irene and get the photograph from her.

I bet that idea surprises some of you. But hear me out. I swear it's not because of my slight crush on the actor playing him. ;-) Despite the fact that Moriarty appears (barely) in like two stories, he is at least stated to be Holmes' arch nemesis, as formidable a criminal as Holmes is a detective. In this play in particular, Holmes and Moriarty are very much set up as two sides of the same coin. I would believe that, if a man like Sherlock Holmes would attract Irene, a man as similar to him as James Moriarty is would make sense to also win her heart. That consistency in there makes Irene's string of romantic entanglements a little less unbelievable to me. Also, by making the two of them literally romantic rivals in that they are both serious contenders for the same remarkable woman's affection, the dichotomy between them is strongly underscored.

Also, I like the idea that you could have Holmes trying to figure out where Moriarty is in all this, how he has the intelligence he has and how he has managed to gather data on Holmes's own involvement. It would make for a pretty cool reveal when he learns that it's all because Moriarty is right there in the thick of it the whole time, aware of Irene's activity because he is seeing it with his own eyes, even influencing it because of the hold he's gotten over her. Keep in mind, Holmes and Moriarty have never actually met, so they wouldn't know each other by sight, so the audience could even see Moriarty posing as Norton and never realize who he is until he dramatically reveals it.

The one thing you would lose in this schema is the admittedly pretty cool idea that Moriarty never directly involves himself in his criminal activities, which is what makes him so difficult to catch and convict. That is a one of the few things you can genuinely point to in what little literature exists on him that is an intrinsic part of his character. But I would sacrifice that just this one time in trade for all the other cool things that arise from placing Moriarty in that role.

It would change a lot about the rest of the show, for certain. I would probably cut the character of Madge the maid and just have Larabee and Prince as Moriarty's henchmen. Making the overall scheme work again would necessitate some rewriting. But I like the idea that once his identity is revealed, Moriarty can mock Holmes for having won the woman that Holmes has come to love, and taunt Irene for her womanish weakness at being so easily taken in. It makes things more personal, and more believable given the nature of the characters.

Ah, well. It's kind of a pointless exercise. But it has certainly preoccupied me. And given the fact that I'm trying to write a reasonable Holmesian mystery adventure in Mrs. Hawking, this could be useful for me. I still need to work out exactly what's going on in that show. I just need to not turn Mrs. Hawking into a rewrite of Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure.

"You never know what you can do until you have to."

My mother says that a lot. "You never know what you can do until you have to." As someone who in the last few years has had to deal with a lot of things she never had to before, she would know better than most. Of course, I personally think it's just her modest way of brushing off my wonder at how tough she is. But especially for those of us who aren't quite so strong in normal circumstances, what comes out when it matters can surprise you.

We had a great first weekend of Sherlock Holmes performances. Thanks so much to all you wonderful friends who came to see it. But Friday was far and away the toughest night for me to get through, and I'll tell you why. I had a to do list made up of all the things I had to accomplish before my 6:30 call and I was making good progress by around 3:30 when I noticed as I spoke to Steph that I could only see about half of her face. A halo was developing in my right eye, which for me is always the first sign of an onset of a migraine. Three hours before call on opening night, and I was coming down with a migraine. Of all the rotten luck.

Steph kindly made me some tea while I took some Excedrin and tried to plan. One thing was certain, I had to be at the show, and I was not going to screw up my performance of the best role I've had in years. So I slugged the tea and tried to sleep it off, but I woke up about an hour later with my head pounding and my guts rolling. I found my phone and texted Bernie-- "help". He works over at Brandeis so he could get over in just a few minutes. "I know you," he said. "If you're asking for help, you must be in trouble."

He was wonderful, bringing me water and cool washcloths and rubbing my forehead, but I was in bad shape. I threw up five times, could hardly sit up. Bernie called Matt, my director, to warn him that I was sick. By the time six rolled around and it was time to leave, he said that he would drive me. I was nauseous the whole way, but managed to make it without incident. Word of my migraine spread fast, and the rest of the cast and crew was wonderful, sympathetic and encouraging and trying to be helpful. I laid sadly on the green room couch and threw up about five more times. Some of my fellows told me later that they didn't know how I was going to manage to go on. But at a half-hour to places, I dragged myself up, put on my makeup, and made myself appear a reasonable facsimile of an upright, prepared actor.

And I got through. I didn't even screw up any of the myriad costume changes I had to make, thanks in large part to my lovely dresser Stephanie. I'm told the scene where I am pale and distressed from being a prisoner inside my house for several days looked unusually realistic, but largely my performance was where it was supposed to be. I'm very proud of myself for bearing up. And I'm extremely grateful to my concerned and supportive cast and crew, and of course to Bernie, who was a prince, and without whom I never would have made it.

Hopefully next weekend will begin more auspiciously. My parents and brother are coming, as well as some more lovely people. I will do my best to take better care of myself so I am not forced to work through this again. But it's nice to know that I can be a tough little bastard when I need to.

The scandal in Bohemia

If you are familiar with the fabulous Sherlock Holmes story A Scandal in Bohemia, the only one to feature Irene Adler and one of the stories to inspire the show I am in, you know that Irene Adler was in possession of a photograph of herself with the King of Bohemia. The two of them carried on a whirlwind affair, and when he broke it off so that he could marry some Scandinavian princess, she threatened to ruin that marriage by sending the photograph to his bride's father on the day of the wedding. This image above is what we're using for that photograph in the show, and I must say that the two of us do making a charming couple, as they say in the show, "the very picture of love."

With my modern sensibilities, I find it absolutely hilarious that such a tame picture of a man with his ex-girlfriend could be the cause of so much shame and distress. Our director Matt, who took the picture, joked that he should be doing a line of coke or something off my stomach, except that in Victorian times cocaine was a lot more acceptable than dating an opera singer, apparently. I am curious exactly what the nature of the issue is supposed to be. Is it that the highborn king of Bohemia would be degraded to be known to have carried on an affair with a lowborn adventuress from New Jersey? Is it that it is evidence that Wilhelm is going to his marriage less pure and virginal than the driven snow? If that's it, well, at least I am pleased at the lack of a double standard, as I'm sure dear Princess Clothilde is expected to be.

As I mentioned, when we realized the audience is not going to be seeing this picture given how small the prop is, we took silly ones after.

These are my favorites.

Holmes tech

This weekend was load-in for Sherlock Holmes, and things went quite well for my first time doing this with a group other than Hold Thy Peace. I threw on my work clothes and reported for duty at the Natick Center for the Arts, which is a converted firehouse made into a very cool performance space. We spent Saturday and Sunday setting up the stage, building the set, and hanging the lights. I've picked up the ability to at least lend a hand to just about everything, but I was assigned to painting early on with the seventeen-year-old ASM and our Holmes's two young daughters. I think there may have been some of "let's not give the little girls the heavy lifting jobs" in that assignment, at which I roll my eyes, but I enjoyed the work and feel like I made a pretty solid contribution. Our assistant director Tom said, "I really admire your enthusiasm," to me, as I was jumping in to help wherever I could. That made me feel good, as I really do like tech week-- as I said to him, I want to do and make all these things that aren't feasible in my regular daily life, so tech week is my chance to build stuff or paint stuff and all other sorts of things of that nature. My best contribution here was that I was allowed to do the painting for the flats representing the interior of the gasworks. I was told to make the plain green look like aged, worn metal, so I took a sponge and dabbed it with black paint, then went over that with the other end of the sponge dipped in green paint. Then I smeared the whole thing together, and splattered some white flecks by Tom's suggestion. Somebody with more knowledge and experience will probably have to clean it up a bit, but as you can see from this picture, it doesn't look half-bad.

Out with the cast

Gah, so little sleep last night. My body has a strong tendency to wake me up very early no matter how long I've slept, and while I usually am in bed my midnight like a good little no-fun worker Bee, last night I went out with the Holmes cast after our last rehearsal before we get into our performance space. It was very fun, and since I often am often reticent about socializing on short acquaintance, it makes me happy that I got along so well with this all-new cast. Especially since we went to a place pretty far outside my usual style, a dive bar with a too-loud band. Probably would have been sensible to go home a little earlier, but I was very much enjoying the company.

I got my hair done for the show. I had too much trouble on my own, so my mom suggested I go to a salon and have them put it up for me. The lady didn't exactly do the head-muffin I showed her in that picture, but she put it up attractively and gave me a gorgeous complicated bun in back. Unfortunately it was much more expensive than I thought it would be, so I am trying to strategically time when I get it redone. But people seemed to like it and think it looked right. I still don't think I'm ever as pretty with my hair up, but it was certainly more flattering than the head muffin. Our Moriarty is a gentleman named Paul who I like a lot, he's got a wry sense of humor and he's kind of hot in an offbeat sort of way, and he gave me his little rose prop that he uses early on in the show. I put it in my hair and wore it that way for the rest of the night, and when I tried to give it back at the bar after rehearsal, he told me to keep it.

We had headshots taken for the lobby board taken last night. I am not excessively happy with mine. Yeah, yeah, despite my love for people taking and desiring to take my picture, I never like how I look in photographs-- it's a complicated thing, this part of me --but I really don't think these came out. There's a lot of shadow on my face and I think I look distorted because of it. Plus my hair is up, which just never works as well. Bah. I'll just have to pick the best of the lot and obsess over it to myself.

We also took the plot-relevant picture of Irene Adler and the King of Bohemia, the scandalous image over which Irene threatens to blackmail the King and ruin his marriage. Me and Tom, the actor playing the king, looked adoringly at each other arm in arm until Tom realized that nobody in the audience would ever really be able to see the picture, so he started doing silly things. I think we did the pose from Titanic and a dramatic romantic dip. It was lots of fun. I love when I can laugh and joke with the cast I'm in. Especially given my solitary, introverted nature, I got really lucky with these folks. <3

Awkward shot of my head flower again.

Nearing tech week for Sherlock Holmes!

I turned down a part I got in a show today. That's the first time I've done that except in undergrad when I was choosing one show over another, back in the day when it was the etiquette to do so. The role was Dolabella in the Gazebo Players summer production of Antony and Cleopatra, directed by the awesome Debbi Finkelstein. I've always wanted to work with her, but the role is small and I am called for an awful lot of rehearsal given that, which when it requires an hour round-trip of driving just seems like too large a commitment of time. It would have been fun, but I will have just too much grad school work by then to take away time from working on it for a part I don't feel passionate about. I just hope I sounded polite and gracious when I declined. I still would really like to work with Debbi as a director someday, as I've heard she does good work.

This is a picture of me with our Sherlock Holmes. Tonight is the last Holmes rehearsal before tech week begins. I have enjoyed this process immensely, and I feel really good about the show. Having this role has been great for me. I got it strictly by giving a good audition, rather than people knowing me already, which made me proud of myself. And getting the chance to dig into an interesting character and develop a complete performance To be honest I find this conception of Irene in the script to be a little nonsensical if you scrutinize her too much, but I've reconciled and made her my own.

Lenny said to me a little while ago that she thought my best performances were the ones where I didn't need to worry about projecting the opposite gender-- specifically, Cordelia, the Fool, and Puck. Something I've always wondered was if my acting was hobbled a little by having to distract myself with projecting a masculine carriage. Also, because I am so willing to cross cast, I think I get automatically discounted for female roles sometimes because there's always girls who insist that they absolutely can't play a guy. :-P And then most people tend to not want to cross cast important male roles, which means I don't get considered for those either, which limits me further. I should probably just quit saying I'm willing, though I hate the idea of making myself sound so delicate. But it's been nice to get a real role who's a woman for once and be able to concentrate all my energy into acting the character. Also, it's kind of flattering to have gotten it. It's fun getting to be the Pretty Girl. Don't get me wrong, I've loved me my dude roles, but especially given how down I'm been feeling about myself, it's made me feel good to know that people think I make a believable embodiment of a brilliant, singular woman with "a face a man might die for." ;-)

The cast and crew have been great too. They're all really nice and extremely talented, pushing me to try and do better so I measure up to them. I would be happy to work with them again anytime. Even if you're coming to see me, it would be worth it to come to see them.

The height of hair fashion in the 1890s

I got my hair done tonight for my show. As a lady of the 1890s with a well-known reputation as a diva, Irene Adler styles herself only in the latest and most sophisticated of haute couture fashions. Such as this charming muffin-head, with a bun set on top.

I can't say I love it; I've always thought I was vastly better looking with my hair down than up even in the most elegant of styles. I modeled once for a guy who started pinning it up, took one look at me, and said, "Oh, THAT'S why you wear it down." Not exactly sure what he meant by that, but it didn't seem, ah, flattering. This way's also pretty muffin-y, as I pointed out. But it is period, and it got compliments of appreciation (perhaps ironic, who knows) from others in the cast. I will also have a little fall of false hair, not pictured here, styled into long loose curls that I will pin into the bun, to sweep down my shoulder for drama.

The only real downside is I have to learn how to do it myself. The hair lady showed me how, but she can't be there for the shows, so it's on me. It involves flipping my hair over my head, spraying it with a fixative, teasing it, bundling it up on the crown of my head, and twisting it into a bun. I've got very little ability or experience doing hair, so I'm a little bit nervous. I guess I'll have to practice in hopes I won't go onstage looking any sillier than I should be, given the style I'm attempting to wear. You have to promise, guys, that you'll tell me if my head muffin looks dumb.

Kissing rehearsal

I managed to be off-book for rehearsal tonight! Not perfectly so, I had to call line a fair bit, but I was acceptably able to go on my own. I'll have to do some reviewing for tomorrow, but I'm close to where I should be. We ran the whole first act Sunday night and the whole second act just now, and I think we're in pretty good shape.

I am very much enjoying the process, and I'm also relaxing into the company and the role. I was nervous going in because my acting felt stiff-- probably a self-perpetuating cycle there --and I was terrified that someone was thinking "Oh, she got the role because she's pretty, not because she can act." But I'm doing better and better, and I find I really like my castmates. They're all really good actors and, it turns out, very fun people to work with. I love a cast I can laugh and joke with between scenes.

Tonight was kind of amusing. In the script, I have two scenes where I each kiss one of two of my castmates. The first is Larabee posing as Godfrey Norton at our wedding, then Holmes near the end of the show. We hadn't rehearsed either for real yet. While I was ready to put it in whenever everyone else was, I am, however, accustomed to the director declaring "Tonight we'll be doing the kissing," or something like that. Tonight, our first night off-book with it, our Sherlock just kind of went for it. I confess I was a little thrown. Though it surprised me, I had no trouble going with it, and as I said to the gentleman playing Holmes, good for him for just going for it. I always admire people who don't bother with stupid little hangups and don't waste the time being awkward.

The timing was a little bit weird too, because we're supposed to hold it until the lights go out, and because the stage manager was a wee bit slow declaring the transition we had some people teasing us about just hanging out like that. I said I read in an acting textbook once that a stage kiss isn't supposed to last more than four seconds. One of my castmates thought that was oddly specific, so I said I thought the idea behind it was that when people kiss, after four seconds it no longer seems realistic for them to just press their lips together. After that point the kiss needs to "progress," shall we say, basically transitioning to a makeout if it is to stay believable. Of course, that meant  that when we ran the scene for the second time, the SM started chanting, "One thousand one... one thousand two..." causing Holmes and I to break with laughter. I flipped him off, but he rightly said, "You asked for it!" and I had to concede, that yes, he got me there. :-)

What this also suggests is that if the lights are ever late, we've got four seconds until we have no choice but to escalate. ;-) Did the Victorians even have makeouts? Well, since the scene is obviously supposed to imply they go to bed together after the fade, I guess it wouldn't be totally inappropriate.

Poster for Sherlock Holmes

Here's the poster for my show! It has my name on it and everything. :-)

Maybe this will energize me to get my lines down! 

Official Invitation: Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure

Since it occurs to me that since we're less than a month out, I'd better officially invite you all to see my show, Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure!

"Could this be Sherlock Holmes' final case? Could the logical, thoroughly dispassionate detective who has survived poison, pistols, and other precarious perils actually be laid low by his love for a woman?
The villainous and diabolical Professor Moriarty thinks so. And despite the best efforts of Holmes and his loyal sidekick Dr. Watson, Moriarty may just be right. No matter how it turns out, this classic Holmes adventure, full of suspense and the great detective's wry wit will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very end!"
Come see your favorite habitual Shakespearean cross dresser as Irene Adler, international woman of mystery and she who broke through to Sherlock Holmes, in her first female role since Cordelia!

Going up at the Natick Center for the Arts at 14 Summer Street in Natick, MA!

Performances
Friday, June 1, 2012 - 8pm (Opening Night Gala afterwards)
Saturday, June 2, 2012 - 8pm
Sunday, June 3, 2012 - 2pm

Friday, June 8, 2012 - 8pm
Saturday, June 9, 2012 - 8pm
Sunday, June 10, 2012 - 2pm

It's been a while since I've been onstage, and very rarely in a role like this, so I hope you'll all join me the first or second weekend of June.

Costumes for Sherlock Holmes!

Yesterday I got to try on costumes at Sherlock Holmes rehearsal. I was so excited, guys. I am the leading lady in a Victorian show, one who is supposed to look very lovely, which puts me in the enviable position of getting to wear many fun Victorian-era gowns. I tried on several last night, made of drapery silk in red and gold and navy and green, including a gorgeous ivory wedding gown that was my favorite of the lot. At the moment they don't fit very well, but the costumer is a seamstress of some ability and is confident she'll be able to take them in such that they'll look nice. She also tried some things on my castmates, including a very slick gentleman outfit on our Moriarty. I am a sucker for men in Victorian suits, and I must say he wore it well. :-) The costumer also suggested that they will be curling my hair in ringlets, which I've never had before. I wonder how I'll look with them! I've kind of always wished I had wavier hair, so I hope they take. A week from today we'll be taking publicity photos, and I don't know if they'll be in costume or not, but in any case I hope they turn out. I'm always very insecure about how I look in photos. This show spends a lot of time talking about how beautiful Irene is, and I've been joking quite a bit about how I hope the audience agrees. A decent photo or two might help, right? ;-)

Last Pride & Prejudice, first Holmes, and Jesriah casting!

Really good time this weekend. Friday night I went to see Pride and Prejudice again, this time with nennivian* and polaris_xx*, meeting up with electric_d_monk* and captainecchi* for dinner beforehand. Having learned my lesson, we arrived earlier and went to a lower-key restaurant. Their lovely company made for a very nice time, MUCH less rushed and chaotic than the previous Saturday, and we sat up close in the very front row. I enjoyed the different perspective this time; it made me notice things I hadn't been able to before. I found I liked the acting even better for the nuances I could see, and the costumes a bit less for some sloppy or unfinished details, though by and large I still thought it was good, particularly on the men. I am so proud of everyone involved for putting on such a good, enjoyable show, and managing to pack the Somerville Theater to the gills every single night.

Sunday was my first real Sherlock Holmes rehearsal. I think it went well, though I am still kind of nervous. Everyone in the show is very talented, and also quite a bit older than me. Maybe because it's been so long since I've been cast in anything, but I find myself especially anxious to prove I deserve to be there. Though both last night and the night of the read through I warmed up decently as the night went on, my acting has been having slow, stiff starts at the beginning. I worry that somebody thought, oh, they picked her because she's young and pretty rather than because she's talented. I'm sure somebody thought that at the read through, at least in the first half. So I'm feeling especially anxious to acquit myself well. So far I like all the other actors-- as I said, they are all talented --and think they'll be a great experience to work with.

Finally, last night I got my casting for Jesriah at Festival! I cannot tell you how excited I am for that game. I love playing madness and mental anguish, so I'm delighted to play a game set in a fantasy-Victorian insane asylum. Also lovely, my costuming hint suggests I may actually get to use one of those many thrift store evening gowns whose purchase I justified by telling myself they'd make great costumes someday. I am about as delighted about that as I am about anything else! I am supposed to look like a faded starlet from the '40s, so that means, I think, glitzy and slinky. I definitely have a few options that would suit-- I have two sparkly cocktail dresses, one in black and one in blue. I also have a red wiggle dress that I found abandoned in the green room that just happened to be exactly in my size, though the fabric is matte rather than shiny. I should probably also get a cigarette holder to gesture vaguely with as well.

Pride and Prejudice and elsewise

Yowza, busy here. Lots of the things on the plate right now, which has lead to a lot of running around. And in what little free time I've had I've wasted on TV Tropes. I am mostly fascinated by the ones about behind-the-scenes things of the writer's process. Nobody is surprised.

So, things. I forgot to talk about seeing Jared's show Pride and Prejudice last Saturday. I screwed up the planning for the outing; I really should have suggested we meet at the restaurant at six rather than six-thirty, but the service kept us waiting for forty-five minutes anyway until we got after people to just bring us our meals with boxes so we could get to the theater on time. I was pretty pissed about that, though as I said I should have planned better. We did manage to get there on time and I actually enjoyed the show very much. There were a lot of good actors in it, and I liked the costumes and the theory behind the set design, even if it didn't always quite work with the space. It was also quite thrilling to see Jared, Tegan, and Jenn on a big fancy professional stage like that. Jared himself was great, turning in a fairly difference performance from his previous work, Bingley's sweet naivete a real departure from the Angry Authority Figures he's mostly been cast as. I am going again tomorrow night, hopefully with less trouble around eating beforehand. I am admiring this group a great deal, and I hope I get to be in one of their productions before long.

I had my first read through for Sherlock Holmes last night. I was not at all as good as I wanted to be starting off, for some reason I felt very stiff and not very expressive, so the first half of the script I was a little disappointed in myself. Paranoia setting in me makes want to prevent anyone from regretting my casting. But the second half I did a lot better with, so hopefully nobody was too disappointed. I am confident I will warm up soon. I finally have my rehearsal schedule, which takes two or three days a week. Sadly, frequent Thursday rehearsals mean I will miss out on ballet class that night rather often for the next few months. This makes me sad, as I don't want to hold back my progress, and I like the Thursday night teacher as well as the Tuesday night one. But at least I can start planning things.

Like GM meetings, for example. The Stand is cast and sent, and I plan on doing all the printing on my own, but I'd like to have a meeting where we go over plot stuff and make a plan of who will be running what. Paranoia needs more. We unfortunately have not cast yet, but it's such a silly larp that even though it has a story the character sheets don't need a ton of time to read or plan about. And costuming is almost without exception "red shirt, black pants," so no need to give people lead time on that. But we need to refamiliarize ourselves with the game, we haven't run it in two years, organize all the materials, and figure out how the printing's going to get done. Fortunately I think we can get on this in pretty short order.

I got the role of Irene Adler!

I just got the call from the director of Sherlock Holmes: The Final Problem, offering me the role of Irene Adler, and I was delighted to accept!

As I mentioned, I felt really good about my audition, better than I had in some time. I have to say, I almost didn't go to the initial one. I was feeling REALLY emotionally up and down on Monday, and when I got home from work and saw  the audition on my calendar I really wasn't feeling up to it. I started psyching myself out over the fact that the description for the only character I was even vaguely appropriate for, Irene Adler, called for a slightly older woman, and said, "British accent preferred but not required." I grumbled a little over that last bit, as I know from the Holmes stories that Irene was an American. My British accent is pretty weak, and I certainly couldn't sustain it over the course of the play, so I started convincing myself it was a hopeless cause. But Jared encouraged me to try anyway, telling me what I already knew-- that you never get anywhere if you don't try and put yourself out there. Well, I could always say if they called me on it that Irene was American, and I guess I wouldn't be any worse off than I was before. And I'm so glad I did, because as I said, I felt so good about the reading I gave!

Later in the same day that I posted that, I got an email from the producer asking if I could return for the second night of auditions, no problem if I couldn't because it was short notice, but they liked my reading and wanted to hear me again. I didn't want to announce it in case it didn't come to anything, but damn, did that feel encouraging! I really wanted to convey my interest, so I left ballet early on Tuesday and rushed over to the Natick Center for the Arts to catch the last half-hour of the second night of tryouts.

On the way over, I really worked myself up with nerves. These were open auditions, which meant that anybody could show up without an appointment. There could be somebody who showed up that night that they liked better. I really shouldn't get my hopes up. I was getting very tense by the time I showed up, but I took a deep breath and slipped in.

One thing that was consistent both nights were the sorts of actors present. The men were all older than me, in their thirties and forties and maybe beyond. And they were all pretty uniformly good actors who were all capable of respectable British accents. There wasn't a single one of them that I didn't think gave a decent audition. There were fewer women, some of them closer to my age, but still I was the youngest one there. I have a hunch that the British accent thing probably scared a lot of them off. I remember when I played Diamond Geezers, those of us willing to give the ridiculous Cockney accents a try seemed to be much more comfortable speaking and participating in the game, and this reminded me a lot of that. There were a few that gave decent readings, but even on the second night when I was more nervous--  I had more assurance but also more to lose --I still felt that I looked like the front runner. I say that not to make myself look good, honestly I think the competition would have been a lot stiffer I'd been a man. They asked me to project more, that note I've gotten in every show I've ever done, and if I could perform without my glasses on, which I also make a point of every show. I went home hopeful, but terrified of getting my hopes up.

I got the call tonight offering me the part when I was visiting at Albion and gratefully accepted. I am so excited. I've been itching like mad to act again for quite some time now, so I imagine this is going to help a great deal with my feeling of creative restlessness. I've also not had a real lead for several years, not since Puck when I was a senior. Moreover, it will be nice to play a woman for once! Cordelia in King Lear when I was a junior was literally the only female part I've had in my entire adult acting career. One thing I've always been a little concerned about was whether my acting wasn't quite as fully realized as it could have been because I've so often have to worry about pulling on the additional layer of playing masculinity. This is something I can really sink my teeth into, really throw myself into the development of a performance for. And I'm really grateful to Jared for being supportive and encouraging me to get over my doubts.

The show will be going up Friday and Saturday, June 1, 2, 8, and 9 at 8:00 pm and Sunday June 3 and 10 at 2:00 pm in Natick. I hope you'll all join more for my triumphant return to the legitimate stage. :-)