Photographer of Frivolous Affairs

John Lukas, engineer extraordinaire at Babble-On Recording Studios, and I are embarking on a new, terribly exciting audiobook series together.  Our very first session consisted of testing out various microphones and accompanying audio gear to obtain just the right sound.  The story, in pictures*:

The engineering studio and the recording booth beyond, taken from the fancy sofas that I never get to sit on when I’m in session.

The headphones I use in the booth to hear both myself and John when he talks to me from the engineering studio.  I initially took a picture of them because John said the last person to use them was Topher Grace.  Yes, that Topher Grace.  He was in recording some promo pieces for his new movie, Take Me Home Tonight.  In case there was any concern, I can now assure the world that Topher Grace does not have head lice.

Shotgun mic.  This was our first try, and ultimately decided against it.  Not that it didn’t sound good, mind you.

Super-duper ultra-fancy expensive mic.  Gorgeous, and did I mention expensive?  We ultimately decided against this one, too.

The winner.  A Neumann condenser mic.  André, John’s boss at Babble-On and an all-around fantastic fellow, told us after the session that he’s used this mic with me before on a couple of occasions with great results.  Nothing like the joy of many minds coming to the same conclusion independently.  We’ve so got this.

This is a windscreen that we decided to ditch because we didn’t need it due to mic placement – as John so aptly put it, “just one less thing up in your grill.”

I think we toggled back and forth between a couple of pre-amps, and ultimately chose to go with this puppy.  Honestly, I’m really not sure, but the light was on when I came out of the booth, so I assumed this is what we used.  I mostly just took the photo because the light is a killer blueish-purple.  How nice of me to then covert it to black and white, right?  Whatevs, it’s become my special light and I am now very protective of it.  Okay.  Fine. Here:

Happy now?  Sheesh.  Moving on.

The first book we’re going to record.  May Futrelle was on the Titanic and survived, her husband Jacques Futrelle, also a famous novelist, did not.  I studied up on them during my stint in the Science Museum of Minnesota’s Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition portraying Nurse Evelyn Marsden.  There's no way I'm letting 200+ hours of Titanic research go to waste.

I'm working from a gorgeous first edition, printed in 1911.  The illustrations are divine.

John at work, editing out the page-turns and working his audio mastering magic via The Fastest Digits in All The Land.  Holy cajones does that guy fly!

The ultimate goal is to get these distributed via Audible, Amazon, and iTunes.  Of course we’ll let you know when they’re available, are you kidding me?  Until then…you’ll just have to settle for the joy in the anticipation.

*all shots were taken on a whim with my iPhone.  So, you know, don’t judge me on quality.  Dammit Jim, I’m an actress, not a photographer.

2010 in Review

End-of-year lists can be so tedious.  I know this.  And yet here we are.  Because the only thing more tedious than end-of-year lists is searching for some documentation of some thing that happened a year or two or three ago, and not being able to find anything about it because I was too lazy/tired/overjoyed/myopic/disassociated to actually write about it.  I therefore offer up this end-of-year list as a compendium of my professional shenanigans so that searching for them in the future won’t drive me crazy.  You’re welcome, Me. Be sure to thank me later. In 2010 I made my living in front of an audience and behind the mic.  And for that I am so deeply in awe.  So deeply grateful for my fortuity.  While our economy is not nearly as bad as 2009, it’s still in terrible disarray and record numbers of people are still unemployed.  Even so, I was able to make a modest living via my profession; a modest living that didn’t require me to engage in morally questionable behavior (the kind where one would accompany a raised eyebrow with ‘actress’ in air-quotes).

Without further ado, my performance highlights of 2010:

January

• Voice-overs for ParentAwareRatings.org (listen).
• Voice-overs for St. Catherine University (listen).  Turns out a friend heard the spot multiple times and never realized it was me until I mentioned it on Facebook.  I kind of like it when that happens.
• Finished the six-month run of Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition at the Science Museum of Minnesota.  I spent part of my weekdays engaging with the general public as Nurse Evelyn Marsden – sharing, in a darling English accent, her experiences aboard the ship in the first-class cabins and hospitals.  I was sad to say goodbye to her.
• Voice-overs for Marketplace Events -  2nd year in a row (listen).  Ty Pennington and me on national TV and radio urging you to attend home shows all around the U.S. (watch)  TV commercials aired on HGTV and ABC and their affiliates.

February

• Began rehearsals for the Science Museum of Minnesota’s next exhibition – The Dead Sea Scrolls: Words That Changed the World, wherein we would perform a three-minute introductory monologue for visitors every 7.5 minutes.  In all honesty, it was mind-numbing, but the visitors were mostly appreciative.
• Interviewed by Minnesota Public Radio’s Chris Roberts about my line-memorization techniques – ultimately compiled into a clever on-air story and accompanying slideshow with fellow actors Steven Epp, Mo Perry and Clarence Wethern.
• The Big Oscar Crunch 2010 – wherein I try to see as many of the Oscar-nominated films as humanly possible before the awards ceremony.  The fun of doing it that way is not only seeing excellent movies, but actually feeling invested in more than just the red carpet.
• Started rehearsals for Spring of Freedom/Summer of Fear – a new Iranian play by Ali G. Ravi , produced by Table Salt Productions.
• VO gig for Carlson Companies – got to put Nurse Evelyn Marsden’s darling English accent to good use.

March

• Devastated to drop out of Spring of Freedom/Summer of Fear due to a harrowing family crisis which, because it apparently wasn’t bad enough, led to a nasty case of shingles.  Yes, shingles.  Probably the worst three weeks of my adult life to date.
• Called in by the lovely Barbara Shelton at Bab’s Casting to audition for a new WB pilot Mike and Molly.  The network was looking for someone 30 pounds overweight.  I was exactly that (not anymore, thanks to a newfound love of yoga), and so happily went in.  Between the script (and the eventual casting choice), it became quite clear that LA thinks 30 pounds overweight is the same thing as obese.  Surprising?  Not really.
• Called in by the Guthrie Theater to audition for the role of Eunice in Streetcar Named Desire.  Almost missed the e-mail because I assumed it was Guthrie marketing spam and was about to delete it.  Didn’t recognize the sender’s name, though, so opened it.  Close call.
• VOs for Nexxus demos/animatics.  These are voice-overs for a concept by the ad agency for the client.  If it gets approved by the client, the agency then films the spots.  Since I almost never watch commercial TV, I have no idea if these ever made it though the pipeline...my guess is no (especially since many of these were the same as, or similar to, the ones I did in April 2009).

April

• VOs for Nexxus demos/animatics – two more sessions.
• Public reading of Casa Cushman, a new work by NYC’s Tectonic Theater Project (the folks who brought you The Laramie Project, at the University of Minnesota Nolte Center.

May

• Crickets. Both figurative and literal.  Aside from live science demonstrations at the Science Museum of Minnesota, it appears that I did nothing performance-related in May.  And I went camping.
• On Tuesday, May 11, amongst of a jumble of scheduled meetings and things to do, I found written in my calendar, “Hell-cat Maggie and Slops McConnell.”  I have no idea what that means, but I think it’s funny, so thought I would share with anyone who is still reading by this point.  Kiss, kiss.

June More crickets.  Figurative.  See May.

July

• Started rehearsals for See You Next Tuesday, my very first show with Walking Shadow Theater Company.
• Three-day script workshop of Trista Baldwin’s stunning Forgetting at The Playwrights’ Center.

August

• 2010 Minnesota Fringe Festival, and my performance in Walking Shadow’s critically acclaimed See You Next Tuesday.  I was so excited to be back at the festival that I advance-purchased an Ultra Pass, with which I ended up only seeing three shows due to an emergency hospital visit and an emergency vet visit.  2010 was not turning out to be a great year for health.
• VO spots (more, again) for Marketplace Events home shows with Ty Pennington – TV and Radio (listen).  Continued airings on HGTV and ABC.

September

• VO spots for General Mills – TV tags for Totino’s Party Pizzas (listen).
• Attended the (somethingth annual) Ivey Awards – Minneapolis/St. Paul’s version of the Tonys.  Very, very swank.  Very, very inspiring.
• VO spots for General Mills – TV tags for Progresso Soup (listen).

October

• Obscenely busy month that had almost nothing to do with performing.  Included business travel to San Francisco for continued work on behalf of the Science Museum of Minnesota for NISE Net (Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network), with a little leisure travel to San Diego and LA on the side.
• No! Wait!  Because of my General Mills VOs in September, this is the month that I was required to join the Screen Actors’ Guild (SAG)!  That’s right, I got my SAG card in October.  October was not an actorly loss, after all.

November

• Started rehearsals for a three-week, 30-hours/week workshop of Casa Cushman – in collaboration with NYC’s Tectonic Theater Project, choreographer Carl Flink, University of Minnesota Department of Theater Arts and Dance, a couple other U of M departments that I can’t recall at the moment, and The Playwrights’ Center.
• Sent live the brand-spankin’-shiny-new leighahorton.com.

December

• Performance of Casa Cushman at the Northrop Auditorium.  This was a wild ride, and at the end of it all, despite some crazy-cray-cray, it was kind of awesome.  And I kind of loved it.
• VOs for General Mills (42 in total) for Progresso Light Soups, Yoplait and Yoplait Light Yogurts, and Big G Cereals national TV spots.  I just about died and went to heaven.
• VOs for Marketplace Events Home Shows with Ty Pennington – third year running!
• Authored and published a children’s book for NISE Net, Alice in Nanoland, which, as you read this, is being mailed to 200 informal science education institutions (science museums, children’s museums, etc.) across the nation in the 2011 NanoDays kits.  What a curious little experience that was.

And there we have it!  The months of 2010 demonstrate both feast and famine and average out to healthy; December being, by far, the most entertaining (well, for me, anyway).  I continue to stand, mouth agape, at the wondrous profession I have chosen and the beautiful trajectory it has taken thus far.  I cannot wait to see what delightful paths await!

Tall Poppy Syndrome

Last evening brought the first rehearsal in a three-week workshop of Casa Cushman, a new work by Tectonic Theater Project’s Leigh Fondakowski (best known for head-writing The Laramie Project), created with the help of Tectonic company members, various departments at the University of Minnesota, and The Playwrights’ Center.  It also brought cookies (which I consumed) and coffee (which I didn’t), both of which I found touching. This is my second tango with the script, as the playwright was in residence at the University last spring and I was invited to perform in the public reading then.  I loved the script.  Loved, loved, loved it.  All three hours of it.  Before that first read, Leigh jokingly referred to it as The Lesbian Mahabharata.  Around hour 2.5 I understood why.

And as of last night, I still love it.  All however-many-hours-there-are of it.  I love the Victorian era, I love works with a strong female lead, and I love works with multiple strong women (even in their weakest, darkest, most questionable moments) all the better.  Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition gave me my first taste of exhaustive historical research for theatrical purposes, and this new play continues to feed that beast.

Last evening also brought the joy of meeting and chatting with some of the most talented actresses in the Twin Cities, and at one point I found myself engaged in a discussion about being a transplant.  It turned out that I, like the others, find that the majority of our friends are also transplants.  We were all in agreement about how it’s so bloody difficult to get beyond Minnesota Nice and really know people here.  And how Minnesota Nice will smile at you with razor teeth to make sure you’re no shinier than anyone else.

Turns out, I’ve discovered, that many in the Minnesota theater community are willing participants in Tall Poppy Syndrome - the cultural phenomenon where those who flourish get cut down to size - where one’s success is greeted by another’s resentment.  Where, as Garrison Keillor put it, “all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average,” and I’ll add, “and NO ONE steps out of that line.”

Now, I will argue that I am no tall poppy in need of any kind of lopping, and yet from time to time I have found myself on the receiving end of those metaphorical garden shears.  Not outright, mind you, they’re Minnesota garden shears, after all.  They’re, you know, covered in nice.  The kind of nice that makes you want to recoil and grow a nasty set of thorns for protection.

The way I see it is this:  you and I are not in competition with each other and we never will be.  Because even though we may be the same “type” and go out for the same roles, you and I will never, ever bring the same thing to a role.  And so if the director hired you, then he obviously wanted your skills/personality/looks/voice for this job.  And not mine.  That’s not a competition, that’s a best-fit.  And I can’t wait to see what you’ll do with the part, because I’m looking to learn.  I’m looking for inspiration.

Dammit, this community needs all the tall poppies it can get!  We should encourage each other to grow tall.  Intellectually, artistically feed one another. We need to encourage and support and collaborate and benefit and love.  Because, in the words of Paul Wellstone, “we all do better when we all do better.”

But be warned, I’m not going to support you if your tallness turns you into a dick.  In that case, I might even take an extra moment of consideration in front of the Round-Up.  No tall dick-poppies allowed.

***

Casa Cushman Northrop Auditorium, University of Minnesota Friday, December 10 - 7pm Saturday, December 11 - 3pm

Bon Voyage

There is a swirling fog of sadness and loss that sometimes accompanies the delicate act of disentangling from a character. Miss Evelyn Marsden, the nurse aboard the Titanic, provided leagues of inspiration and provoked endless curiosity about the ship, her business aboard it, and her all-too-short life thereafter. While it was my duty to portray her in interactions with museum visitors as part of Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition at the Science Museum of Minnesota, I did so only in name, dialect, and in recounting of daily shipboard life. I learned from more than two hundred hours of research and beautiful letters written by her cabin-mate Miss May Sloan, and Evelyn’s husband, Dr. William Abel James, that she was kind, sensitive, grateful, and beloved. After six months and hundreds of thousands of visitors, I only wish I have given her the portrayal she deserved.

The ship officially sunk Sunday night and will stay that way. Bon voyage, dear Titanic. Goodnight, dear crew. Rest in sweet peace Evelyn Marsden.  Thank you for lending me your story.

2009 In Review

Oh dearest 2009, how I neglected to give you a proper adieu. But because I always need to have the last word, your shenanigans shall not go untouted nor unscathed. This here is my farewell parting shot: The past year brought a load of work, a load of appreciation for the work I was getting, and one giant, lazy attitude toward writing about it.  Of particular note, midway through 2009 I was able to make a return to performing for a living.  “What?  What do you mean?    Actresses in the Twin Cities aren’t filthy stinking rich and famous?!”  Surprisingly, no, not so much.  See, periodically a girl like me is obliged to suck it up and take a part-time “day job” to keep some steady cash rolling in while filling in the rest with voice-overs and stage work.  What is this world coming to?

What happened was this: in June I was cast as Nurse and First-Class Stewardess Evelyn Marsden in Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition at the Science Museum of Minnesota, as well as joined the museum’s Science Live Theater cast. When at the museum, but not in 1912 costume, I bust out my mad knowledge of nanoscience to thwart an Evil Scientist From The Future, as well as demonstrate the important properties of surface area by blowing giant fireballs and discussing chemical reactivity.  It has been a joy to perform regularly for the (what by now must be) thousands of audience members taking an interest in science.  Additionally, I am responsible for coordinating and moderating public forums for adults about nanoscale science on behalf of NISE Net (Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network).  Moreover, it’s less than part-time, and voice-overs and stage work really ARE filling in the rest.  Even in this wretchedly hobbled economy.  My stars are indeed lucky.  And I thank them regularly.

So here, for posterity, are my performance highlights of 2009:

January Marketplace Events spots - Ty Pennington (that dude from Extreme Makeover: Home Edition) and me on TV and radio urging you to attend particular home shows here and there in the U.S.  TV commercials aired on HGTV and ABC and their affiliates.  Read more about my sister's hilarious request.

February Nothing of note - sometimes that’s a good thing.  Looks like I was in rehearsal.  Not always a good thing.

March

• Performances of Adam Szymcowicz’s The Captivity Plays at the Bryant Lake Bowl
• After 18 months of pain in the form of oral torture, treatment was completed and my braces were removed.  I was rewarded with awesomely perfect teeth and new-found confidence.  Join me in reliving my happy dance.
• Supervalu spots - radio spots for grocery stores around the U.S. - Albertson’s, Lucky, Supervalu, Shaw’s/Star Market, Cub Foods, Jewel-Osco, Kroger, Hornbacher’s, etc.

April Nexxus spots - I don’t believe these were ever aired - just voice-overs for a concept by the ad agency for the client.  If it was approved by the client, the agency would then film the spots.  Since I almost never watch commercial TV, I have no idea if these ever made it though the pipeline...my guess is no.

May

• Played Nerve 123080 in full-length feature film, The System, with Voices Media, Inc. - the same folks who brought you the award-winning web-series Chasing Windmills.  Devilish early morning feats trumpeted here.
• Joined Twin Cities AFTRA Board.

June

• Caroline or Change, The Homosexuals’ Guide to the Universe, Tiny Kushner - now these didn’t involve me at all, save for my presence in the audience.  But I found the first two to be incredibly moving, incredibly powerful pieces of work.  And I was thrilled that Minneapolis was able to honor such a fantastic playwright in this way, and that such a fantastic playwright got to workshop a brand-new play in our fine city.
• Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition opens at the Science Museum of Minnesota.  This is my new “day job” wherein I get to spend part of my weekdays engaging with the general public and informing them about Miss Evelyn Marsden’s life and the hospitals aboard the ship in a darling English accent. Personal ship preparation stories here.
• United Health Care spots - my first political spots, something about calling your congresspeople somewhere in New England. Connecticut maybe? Urging you to take a particular stand on some kind of health care legislation.  Don’t remember the particulars, but got to work with the guys at Shout.  And I absolutely adore Mark Benninghofen, so it was a joy.

July Joined the Science Museum of Minnesota to work on NISE Net (Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network) projects - both performing live stage plays and demonstrations that deal directly with nanoscale science, as well as coordinating and facilitating adult public forums about nanoscale science.  This is only 10 hours per week, and I love it.  And it makes me feel a little closer to my scientific heroes of audio over at RadioLab.  And to paraphrase the words of my delightfully brilliant colleague Michael Ritchie: I realize that my day job can never be bad, because I work in a place with musical stairs.

August

• Fringe Festival fail - this was hard.  This was very, very hard.  The Ministry of Cultural Warfare, the company I have both figuratively and literally sweat and bled for since 2000, planned to do a show.  Due to a Perfect Storm of really crappy circumstances, I had to remove myself from the process, and we ultimately had to back out of the festival at a late date.  It was heartbreaking, and the fallout was equally heartbreaking.
• Marketplace Events radio and TV spots - the plus side of August was that Ty Pennington had some more home shows to promote, so it was back into the studio to add my special female aural sparkle.
• The Minnesota State Fair - I spent an afternoon as host of the Labor Pavilion at “The Great Minnesota Get-Together.”  They gave me a wireless mic, put me in a Green building and the adjacent pavilion, and let me loose amongst the various Labor kiosks and the throngs of fair-goers.  There was trivia, there were hand-crafted on-the-spot copper roses, there were nurses and flight attendants and machinists and steel workers and everything in between.  At the end of my shift, they snapped a photo which made its way into the national AFTRA magazine.

September I spent nearly half the month on the road, traveling to Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco - this was for my work with the Science Museum of Minnesota on behalf of the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network (NISE Net), and it was incredibly inspiring.  It did indeed involve some performing, but it also involved meeting with social scientists to consider the social, political, and ethical implications of nanoscale science, and how to get audiences considering these aspects, as well.  We also met for the purpose of setting goals for years 6-10 of NISE Net’s grant funded by the National Science Foundation, and it involved learning how other organizations engage audiences in learning about nanoscale science.  Inspiring, and the locations were fantastic.  I love the Pacific Northwest.

October Lead role of Hannah in Table Salt Productions' inaugural show, Burned at the Gremlin Theatre.  Nothing like spending an hour before each performance putting glue on my face, letting it dry and manipulating it and coloring it to make it look like nasty scar tissue.  While it was a serio-comic post-apocalyptic tale, it was a joy to make a foray back into dramatic work.  Read a little more about it.

November

• Workshop and public reading of Dog and Wolf - an incredibly well-crafted, powerful,  and riveting play about a Bosnian refugee by Catherine Filloux, in which I played the lead, Jasmina.  This play is being produced Off-Broadway this February.
• My first public nanoscience forum about privacy, civil liberties, and nanotechnology.  It was a small group of about 15 people, but helped me get my feet wet.  Now that I’ve done something in the accepted mold, I can hack it and make it more interesting, accessible, and engaging.  Watchout Twin Cities - you’re about to get schooled in nano.

December

• more Marketplace Events spots - this time for home shows around the U.S. in 2010.
• Caribou Coffee spots - The tone and delivery in these spots makes me feel like we’re sitting on a front porch swing, lazing the day away.  And they’re all about handcrafted oatmeal.  And I got to spend some good time with my friends over at Babble-On Recording studios.  I love those engineers.
• General Mills spots for Tuesday Taco Night - you know you’ve made it when your VOs keep getting interrupted by a mariachi band.  Plus more time at Babble-On!  Whee!

Plenty to share for January already - but it’s a new year, so it gets a new post.  Here’s looking forward to a peaceful, prosperous 2010.  And I'll actually work on getting all of these 2009 (and future) voice-over spots posted for your listening pleasure.  It's not as hard as I make it sound, and yet here we are.  Soon, I promise.

Update Schmupdate

Yes, yes, I am indeed alive.  Barely.  Just got back from a 12-day whirlwind tour of the Pacific Northwest chock full of performances and meetings and nanotechnology conferences and sea water and dear friends from my past.  More on all of that to come.  Soon.  I promise. In the interim, I give you my general Titanic schedule until Thanksgiving:

Sundays through Thursdays, 9 am to 12 noon.

But if you're hellbent on seeing me, rather than one of our other incredible performers (Melanie and I are up to about 150 hours of research these days), be sure to contact me first - we Titanactors are highly adept at schedule-juggling, and tend to swap hours with astounding regularity.  Regardless of who is present for your experience, it will be, as our dear Junior Marconi Operator Harold McBride says, "another day, another doomed ship."

Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition

Last month Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition officially launched at the Science Museum of Minnesota, for which I am portraying Miss Evelyn Marsden, First Class Stewardess and Nurse for the First Class passengers.

Our preparation included regular improv rehearsals (it’s not as much of an oxymoron as it sounds) in addition to an obscene amount of hours researching on our own.  We were expected to spend at least 20 hours with our noses in books; and I’m nearly certain I, and everyone else on the crew, have easily topped 80 hours.  Piles of books, a 10-inch stack of homemade flashcards, online “Titaniac” forums, constant fretting over discrepancies between sources...the list goes on.

80 hours of mind-numbing minutiae and yet I still catch myself periodically weeping as I read or write about the events that unfolded in the middle of the North Atlantic the night of April 14th, 1912.  There is always some new discovery or some particularly moving imagery that strikes me, re-humanizing that night, re-humanizing the roughly 700 people who survived, and the more than 1,500 who did not.  They are not numbers, they are not historical factoids, they are people – each and every one of them – many of whom were the sole bread-winners for their families - concentric circles moving outward from a drop in the water.  An amalgamation of beautiful devastation.

If you’re interested in seeing the exhibition, we highly recommend reservations via phone or online.  Starting July 23, my schedule will generally be: Mondays: 3-8 p Tuesdays: 8-11a Wednesdays: 8-11a Thursdays: 1-5p ...but is subject to change, so if you’re dying to see me in particular, give me a holler first.  I can assure you, however, that you’ll have a great experience, whichever actors are in the room.

Specially-Built and Special Boundaries

Friday morning I had my first costume fitting for Titanic – I love, LOVE when costumes are built specially for moi.  The shoes and the corset are pre-fab, but the shoes are crazy comfortable (SWEET) and the corset is hilariously pointy yet surprisingly comfortable.  The rest of the dress is fantastically utilitarian, yet still within the fashion-confines of the era.  I love the snug bodice and high-waisted skirt. I shall temporarily abstain from passing judgment on the sleeves. Another mark in The Column of All Things Cool is that I was given the shoes to take home and start breaking in.  I’m sure we can all remember my, um, “issues” with costume shoes.  Seriously – a month in advance - how often does that happen?!  I wore them this morning while I did the dishes.  I love our costumer.

As for things I don’t love - I do not love how harrowing the research can be.  I was reading A Night to Remember in bed Sunday night and couldn't keep from sobbing - one chapter in particular just pushed me right over the edge, and it was a two-handkerchief ordeal from that point forward.  Accidentally woke my mate.  I have heretofore resolved to banish any and all Titanic research from the reading-at-bedtime ritual.  Jane Austen prevails.

A Big, Big Boat

A few months back I joined the staff of the Science Museum of Minnesota in preparation for their upcoming Titanic exhibit, for which I and nine other actors will portray actual crew members of the famed, fated ship. We are split up amongst those who survived and those who drowned (and before you even get smart about it, no, there are no zombies - the ones who perished just don’t make it on to a separate part of the exhibit ; there will be no gnashing of teeth nor clamoring for brains). While I find this whole process and the extensive research involved incredibly intriguing, I find it difficult to talk about this role in terms of a “character.”  Evelyn Marsden, whom I have chosen to study and portray, was a real woman with a real history and a real future and a real experience.  Yet at the same time artistic liberty is a necessity, as the information available about her is scant and the unexpected questions from visitors will be endless.  I think this lands squarely in the camp of Historical Fiction...a new venture for me.

We start rehearsals a week from today and I’ll admit I’m a little nervous.  I have a great understanding of the overall picture…it’s just that my retention of the details is not so hot at present.

That and my Australian accent needs some serious work; “CRIKEY!” will only get a girl so far.

Missed/Missing

I have turned down four gig offers since January due to schedule conflicts.I have been turned down for one gig due to schedule conflicts. I hate turn-downs, self-initiated or imposed, due to schedule conflicts. I want it all.

On the other hand, since last writing here I participated in a two-performance run of Adam Symkowicz’ Captivity Plays, did eleven voice-overs for the Supervalu chain of grocery stores (Albertson’s, Cub, Jewel/Osco, Bigg’s, Shaw’s & Star Market, Hornbacher’s, etc., which should be playing all over the U.S. right now), recorded a tv demo for Nexxus hair care products, formalized my involvement in this year's Fringe Festival, and started research for my role in the upcoming Titanic exhibition at the Science Museum of Minnesota.

And yet I still feel like it’s not enough; like I’m missing out on something. I'm ravenous. Insatiable.

Perchance this means it's time to cut the excuses and dedicate myself to my craft; no more coasting.

Kids! Tune in next week to see how long this particular brand of inspiration lasts!