One of the vital advantages of table work is to create a common understanding of the world in which the play exists and then create a shared vocabulary to describe it amongst the company. How many plays have you seen where you thought: “those actors don’t seem to be in the same world?” This can be a deliberate choice or it can be a common mistake that can be resolved with more discussion of the play and voicing of the opinions that individual actors bring to the room. I find that the time spent talking about the play allows me to feel more prepared to make bold choices in action and explore beyond the options discussed with the company. Of course, you also need a director who is willing to take the time to experiment on her feet and not just stick to choices discussed around the table.

I knew that my current director, Jessi Burgess, would allow time for both. As the founder of The Inkwell, a company dedicated to fostering playwrights and developing their new work, Jessi thrives in the stimulating environment of the rehearsal room. She is intelligent, intuitive, nurturing, demanding and eager to have fun. We are currently working together on James McManus’ play, Cherry Smoke, with the excellent Tim Getman, Cliff Williams and Jjana Valentiner as part of the Round House Kitchen.

Jessi fell in love with Jim’s work a few years ago when she produced his Underground as part of the Inkwell Festival.  Although the play has been produced in several cities, our company is very fortunate that Jessi and Jim have a productive working relationship to discuss and edit the play. They are in constant communication and Jim will be down from NY in a few weeks to watch a run and give feedback. Having that connection between the playwright and director and having a director that will use that relationship to not only help edit an already great play but also try to stage the best that play can be, is a stimulating and exciting process to be a part of.

I hope you can come see the play, and of course, give us some feedback

Cherry Smoke runs in the Round House Theatre at Silver Spring, MD August 27^th- September 5^th.

I first played Emily at Brown Ledge Camp as a fifteen year old camper. Last spring, I was thrilled to be cast in the role for this season and eager to tackle the character again, this time with a little more understanding of the craft. I must say, it has been more of a challenge than I expected, especially playing the young Emily in Act One.

For those of you unfamiliar with the play, Our Town chronicles the life of a small town in New Hampshire at the beginning of the twentieth century and follows the neighboring Gibbs and Webb families, and more specifically within those families, George and Emily. I do not remember the process of rehearsing the first two acts when I performed the play the first time, but remember well working on Emily’s famous “goodbye” speech in Act Three. Though my current director, Donald Hicken, and I have put much care and crafting into Act Three, it has been Act One this time around that has caught my attention and frustration.

The act is saturated with the “daily life” of the families and the challenge for the cast has been to bring detail, sincerity and humor to Wilder’s calculated scenes. I’m still playing with the moments each night on stage in performance with my scene partners, but the trick for me in the past few days has been to release my attention to the work and allow Emily to be more carefree about her young life.

This pays off when we arrive at Act Two, when the audience witnesses the moment that “Emily and George first knew that they were meant for one another”. Emily has taken herself a bit too seriously and her education is what endears you to her. I wont give away too much of Act Three, though my main lesson learned for this process has been to pull back the expression of emotion- to feel it just as much and just as powerfully- but to allow the emotion to simmer beneath. I have to thank Donald for his patience in teaching me this lesson. One I know I will continue to study.

I hope you’ll have the chance to see my work and give me feedback.

Our Town at Everyman Theatre in Baltimore runs until April 18th with eight shows a week, click here for tickets and more information. *Now extended due to popular demand until April 25th*

Since we closed in October I’ve been busy working as a standardized patient at George Washington University Medical School, where I get to utilize my acting and teaching skills helping medical students develop their communication and technical proficiency for when they work with real patients.

I’ve also had the opportunity to participate in several readings this fall, which have been a great way to work with new artists and further develop relationships with theatres in town. I performed in an evening of adapted Philip Roth by Derek Goldman at Theatre J, as an opening event for the 2009 DC Jewish Literary Festival. Also at Theatre J, I read as Rachel in End Days by Deborah Zoe Laufer, directed by Shirely Serotsky.

I was thankful for the chance to return to Arena Stage, my first employer in DC, to work with the wonderful Ellen McLaughlin for a day on her new musical in development, Inconnu, with music by Peter Foley. Up in Bethesda at Round House Theatre I participated in two readings, a new adapation of Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier by the acclaimed writer Jeffrey Hatcher, directed by Rick Corley, as well as Blake Robison’s new adaptation of Alice McDermott’s novel, Charming Billy, directed by Mark Ramont.

Hopefully some of these plays will be chosen to move into production in the 2010-2011 season. My most recent staged reading was part of Washington Shakespeare Company’s Tuesday Reading Series: a new work by local playwright, Stephen Spotswood, called Fire Burn, which was directed by Jessi Burgess. I really enjoy the reading format and opportunity to work with lots of wonderful artists in a condensed amount of time, hopefully I get to work with all of them on a longer project in the near future.

The edgy, funny and insightful writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa has exposed the subtext of Oscar Wilde’s novel by thrusting the characters into the sensational art scene of London in 1988- and thus enters the sex, drugs and rock n’ roll. This show has presented quite a few challenges for me, all of which have been exciting and fun to surmount. I play five different women, learned a few new accents and worked to make the others better, appear naked on stage for the first time (that’s the big one!), had input on a new play and gained the confidence to play “the most fabulous person in the room”, among other things. I need to thank my amazing company for creating a safe and supportive environment for me to feel vulnerable in- a necessity for this show- and in turn giving me the confidence to pull it all off.

The Picture of Dorian Gray, adapted by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (Big Love on HBO, Marvel Comics) directed by Blake Robison running at Round House Theatre Bethesda until October 4th. Hope you can make it!

Three months of commuting to Baltimore had put a strain on my social life and I felt disconnected from my good friends in DC. I was invited to two summer weddings, which I had planned not to attend due to Bruise Easy, but when the chance to attend them arose I was eager to do so. So I started turning down offers: offers to audition and an offer to perform. It felt somewhat liberating, and a little scary, to allow myself the time to control my own daily and summer schedule.

I am still a little dumbfounded at what people do with all these extra hours in the day, but it is relaxing and energizing to do so. I am going to attend both Vermont weddings (yeah!), visit and work with my parents at home in Maine for a week, train with Synetic and get in shape (there go quite a few nights!), and travel with my boyfriend in the Middle East for two weeks in July. Not a bad summer at all. Of course while still working my day jobs. And then Dorian Gray at Round House starts in August and the rest of my 2009-2010 season planning is in full swing. Life is good.

Our company, including several long-time Everyman company members, has grown to be a cohesive and responsive ensemble. I have great faith and trust in my fellow actors and am eager to see how the show will grow now that we are confident in the production and have the chace to play within the moments.

It is a haul driving to and from Baltimore every day, but luckily I’ve been carpooling with other DC actors in the show and we make it fun. Please do see the show if you have the chance. I think we have a funny, tragic and insightful production of a beautiful play to share and I hope to share it with you. Not only is the show poignant as our own gorgeous cherry trees bloom around the tidal basin, but also as friends and strangers deal with the loss of property and change in lifestyle.

I feel blessed to have worked on such wonderful productions and with such inspiring companies over the past year. A sense of camaraderie and mutual support makes me feel at home in this community. My non-theatre friends joke with me when I tell them that every new cast I work with is full of more wonderful new friends to be made and grow with. It’s true! I have not met an artist here that I don’t admire and enjoy and it is an honor to work with them and learn from them. I am eager to see what the new year brings; hopefully a chance to continue building relationships and create new ones, play roles that challenge and excite, and show an uncertain nation that art is necessary and alive.

The first day of rehearsal the entire company and staff joined together to introduce themselves and share memories of past CC seasons. Many of the cast members are reprising their roles, some going on their fifth year, and welcomed us newbies with open hearts. The veterans spoke of community, stability, family, artistic integrity and exploration. They shared what is means to return to this production every year as actors who have little pattern aside from change and as people returning home to friends. I already feel very much a part of them. I am eager to celebrate with audiences the sense of redemption, charity and forgiveness that Dicken’s so aptly penned and still remains so powerful today (ten times a week!).

Ford’s A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story of Christmas December 2nd-December 28th, ten shows a week at Shakespeare’s Lansburgh Theatre in downtown Washington DC (Ford’s Theatre re-opens after renovations in 2009). Tickets.

I hope you can see the show! We run until November 9th Thursdays through Saturdays 8pm and Sunday matinees at 3pm in the Rosslyn Spectrum in Virginia right across from the Key Bridge.

On Friday August 8th the Russian army invaded Georgia. When I returned to rehearsal on Wednesday our director, Paata, announced that the company would no longer be working on Caligari and they would now be remounting Host and Guest, a play the company previously staged based on a Georgian epic poem about the futility of war.

Quite quickly the fall changed for us artists involved. Not all the actors cast in Caligari were cast in Host and Guest and of course the process will be very different for those of us filling the shoes of roles already created. I will be working on the production and am eager to see what sort of response we will receive for this choice. What sort of impact does political theatre really have in the nation’s capitol? Will Senators and Congresspeople come to the show as Paata hopes? No matter the government attendance or audience response this was a necessary decision for our company’s leaders: to present an anti-war staged poem full of Synetic’s physical grace, power and unique storytelling, told by a company comprised of Russians, Georgians, Romanians and Americans. A company that demonstrates the power and beauty created by diverse collaboration rather than the oppression of it.