2024

September

I’ve officially been in Nashville for two months though I’m still learning my way around.  I’ve stumbled into a few consistent gigs that have made this town feel do-able in terms of staying on top of bills as well as being able to work on the chunk of student debt I’ve got from two MFAs!  I’ve been working as a Simulated / Standardized Patient at Belmont University – acting as a patient experiencing various medical scenarios in order to facilitate students’ learning.  While I’ve only done cases for the School of Medicine thus far, the SP program also intersects with their Social Work, Nursing and Pharmacy schools, among others, relying on actors to provide students with interpersonal experience before faced with real humans instead of theoretical scenarios outside of a school environment. 

I’ve also been fortunate to be on 3 film sets since landing in Tennessee!  I’ve not done any on-camera work in any of my training, but I loved being on set in the limited capacity I was, and I look forward to expanding my storytelling endeavors in this area as the film industry seems to be thriving here in Nashville!

JuLY

After a whirlwind of the two fully produced shows going up for Endstation Theatre Company, I ended up going on for one of my understudy tracks, as the Sea Captain/ Fabian in Twelfth Night, directed by Alaina Shefelton, for one performance on a make-up rain date that the principal actor could not make.   It was such a joy to continue the work I began in my MFA thesis on understudying from the other side of the coin, how I would prepare to take on a role, not prep my work to share with someone taking on a role I was the principal cast member for.  The actor playing the Sea Captain/ Fabian in Endstation’s production actually gave me something that I had never considered that I will absolutely work on providing to my future understudyies as well –  a shorthand cheatsheet of entrances and exits  on  a laminated paper no bigger than my palm!  It was so helpful to have that to jump into a new show where the entrances and exits for our outdoor performance space were not as typical as a “upstage left” or “house right” explanation.   My performance went fairly well – I only called “prithee” (or “line” for those of you not versed in Shakespearean era practices) for my lines once, which, considering I memorized the week of,  I feel fairly good about!

June

I graduated in May and moved!  I will miss Staunton terribly, but what a month it’s been here at  Endstation Theatre Company in Lynchburg, VA!  It was such a joy to work on two new full-length staged readings as part of their Playwrights’ Initiative program, presenting those  new stories to the public after rehearsal time with directors and the playwrights.  I played Beth in The Good Birth by Patrick Earl, a mother trying her best to break a cycle of trauma in her family amidst the rise of Eugenics in Central Virginia, as well as Maggie in Jim McManus’s Dry Bones, jumping back in forth through the timeline of a little girl and woman she grows into adrift in a sea of loss, alcoholism and hard choices when the world has always had her back against a wall.  The casts I got to work with were superb, as were our directors, and I am so grateful to have been able to provide my work as part of the development of these stories.

March

We rounded out Meadowlark Shakespeare Players’ season with Thomas Middleton’s The Witch, a wild romp through courtly tensions and witchy vibes, with a plot packed with punches (and a sword fight to boot).  It was a delight to not only delve into this final production with my MFA cohort in a Renaissance-style process (no director, one week of rehearsal and working with era cue-scripts which only included the  scripted lines and actions of each of our characters and whatever cue those lines or actions began on, like the final three words of another character’s line that prompted ours, or an entrance or exit of another character), but also to take on the role of Hecate, titular witch.  Hecate herself is motherly and wild, wise and sharp-toothed, and I felt such a kinship to her in all of those facets.

February

Hang on to your hobby-horses, folks, The Knight of the Burning Pestle is ready to ride!  Meadowlark Shakespeare Players’ Blackfriar’s Show, guest directed by Constance Swain, opens mid-February.  This early modern romp has turned out to be aligning with  the reasons we chose it for our season – it’s truly a love letter to the audience, and proof that anyone, no matter their experience or background, can take the stage if they have the courage and imagination.

We’re still touring as well!  We’ve taken A Midsummer Night‘s Dream to area middle and high schools, and it has been really exciting to see the students react to the storyline and characters.  Henry VIII also toured to an area school, and in our workshop with the students afterwards, it was incredible to see how they followed the story so clearly, even told by only 5 actors and full of historical and confusing names!  

We’re also in prep for Thomas Middleton’s The Witch, which will be our Renaissance-style, Actor-directed show.  We’ll only have a week to throw this show together, so I’m going to be throwing myself all-in to my lines once tech for Pestle wraps.

2023

DECEmber

This semester has flown by in a whirlwind!

It’s only been a few months, but The Meadowlark Shakespeare Players  have already opened (count ’em) FIVE SHOWS!  What a wild ride – I’ve been a part of three as a primary cast member – Oh, So Tender,  A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Henry VIII or All Is True – as well as serving as an understudy swing for a fourth – Devlin Ford’s  Theatre for Young Audiences adaptation of A Winter’s Tale for an on-location performance at the Staunton Downtown Development Association’s “Saturday’s in December” Holiday event.  We got some great audiences of kiddos out with their families!

Midsummer  has already toured to two area middle schools after our on-campus production at the outdoor Rose Theatre at Mary Baldwin University, and it has been wonderful to hear and see these students engage in Shakespeare’s work. Henry VIII also performed in a very special venue – the Blackfriars Playhouse, home of the American Shakespeare Center.  What a joy to do this show which mentions the Blackfriars by name in the text!

While we’re off to our holiday break now, we will quickly spring back into working on our final two shows of the season starting in January, and I am so excited for what’s to come!

I’m spending some time over the break updating my website, working on my MFA thesis (more info on that in the spring!) and starting to send out auditions for future work for after I graduate, which is all very daunting, but still exciting!

September

Classes have officially begun for my final year at Mary Baldwin University in the Shakespeare & Performance Program!  

As an Acting Concentration within our MFA company, Meadowlark Shakespeare Players, I will be taking on a number of acting roles in shows our company is producing, but I am also working on several committees during the season, including Publicity and Marketing as a graphic designer (with Johnny Williams III as my co-designer), as well as our Touring Committee when we begin to tour our Education and Small-scale shows to area schools and other venues.  In the Spring I will also be working on the Festival Committee, which organizes our week-long festival where we bring back shows from our season for back-to-back performances (so catch us them if you miss us this fall!)

This fall my two acting tracks are as Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream for one of our Education touring shows, and then Norfolk and a bunch of other characters in Henry VIII as a small-scale genre, where no more than 6 actors play all the characters of a play.  Both roles are exciting and I’m ready for the learning curve and challenging growth I’ll find in each.

AUgust

After a month of physical training intensive, delving into the techniques of Viewpoints and Suzuki actor training, the Meadowlark Shakespeare Players are off to the races!  

We spent half our time during August-term  in intense physical training, 3 hours every morning building muscles, mental awareness and connection with our own bodies and those in the rest of the company.  The afternoons were spent devising, creating physical vignettes and pieces that grew into our season opener show, Oh So Tender.  A film noir inspired physical theatre piece, Oh So Tender followed the Larks as a series of character archetypes through a murder mystery at a club, with twists and turns galore.

April/May

We’ve done it, folks!  We have a company!  Meet a member of the newly-minted Meadowlark Shakespeare Players, the MFA Company in residence at Mary Baldwin University’s Shakespeare & Performance Program.  In a 3-week slam into our MFA year during May-term that included both company building and dramaturgy, we created a mission statement, chose a season of 7 plays, assigned production and committee roles and ironed out the first details of our season to come!  Keep your eyes peeled for more details to come!

FebruarY

Another show in the books on the Blackfriars Stage at American Shakespeare Center.  I was lucky enough to act in a staged reading directed by Hailey Pearce of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus  as part of our Second Year Showcase at Mary Baldwin Shakespeare & Performance playing both the Second Scholar and the Knight for a late night spooky “drag Faustus to Hell as the clock chimes twelve”!

February

After a month and a half of rehearsals, we finally opened our Second Year Showcase double header of The Rover and The Spanish Tragedy at Mary Baldwin Shakespeare & Performance.  I played Valeria in the Rover, directed by Alaina Smith, as well as helping out with costumes as well as designing the Saloon doors we used in our Gold Rush setting of this production.

2022

August

Wands at the ready!  I’m so excited to be joining the cast of Puffs, or Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic at Silverline Theatre Exchange. We start rehearsals mid August and perform during the Queen City Mischief and Magic Festival in September! I’ll be donning my robes as Megan Jones, self-proclaimed least-Puff-iest-Puff, and channeling my inner teenage rebellion to do so.

Check your calendars!  I will be reading for Patricia in Sing It Out Loud for the Women+ In Theatre Conference, hosted by Rep Stage and Howard Community College on August 20th!  It’s all on Zoom, so feel free to sit back and watch me from the comfort of your own home!  Register to attend the conference here.

JULY

After a quick email conversation with the playwright, I’m pleased to say I’ll be reprising my role as Patricia in Sing It Out Loud in another new play festival in August!  More details to come!

April