I dream of great theatre on a rainy Thursday morning...

So (by the end of October) fall is finally solidly here.  It's been hinting at coming round for about a month, but now it's lovely and stormy, rainy and grey, and when it's not, there's a beautiful light in the sky in the evenings.  Fall in Houston is something special.  You really feel like you've earned it, with about five months of relentless tropical summer behind you.

Last night as a Halloween special Stark Naked Theatre put on a reading of The War of the Worlds, on the 75th anniversary of its original broadcast by Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre on the Air.  I had such a blast.  It was a good challenge for me, being huge slabs of text I had to speak in an American accent, and I think I did it justice.  I also just had heaps of fun.  It was a pretty full house, and you could feel the audience hanging on the story.  The other four actors and I did our best to bring the play to life, and one of the best things about the way Philip had set it up was that we got to sit on stage and watch the whole thing when we weren't speaking.  A really fun night, an excellent play.
And it's only a week until the wonderful Antonia Lassar comes to town! Joel and Heidi (friends from Stone Soup in Melbourne) saw her show The God Box somewhere on the east coast when they were travelling the world last year and encouraged me to bring her out here to Houston when she announced her national living-room tour.  So we are! There's a show at our pastor Jenni's house on Sat 9th, a show at Zeteo on Sat 10th and a show at our house on the 12th.  I'm super excited to meet her in person and turn my lounge room into a theatre space! You can see a trailer of the show here and if you're in Houston. check out our event page on the Zeteo website and text me for my address.

Three awesome shows happening in Oct - Nov

Three awesome shows happening in Oct - Nov
Please check out the theatre awesomeness that is happening in my life by visiting the above link.

Upcoming Theatre funness

My darling sister asked me for the backstory of all my theatre bits and pieces at the moment, so here it is, with much love.

• Blithe Spirit is being put on by Texas Repertory Theatre, where earlier this year I was in Company.  I didn't audition for this one, but got a call to be in it after someone else dropped out.  Which meant that I joined them a week into the process, without having seen a script in advance.  I didn't fully realise I had an actor's *process* until I was in a show that didn't give me the time to go through it.  But I'm having a lot of fun, and it will be a hoot, and we open this week.  Best line: "Servants are awful, aren't they?"

• The War of the Worlds is another opportunity that was handed to me on a platter by the company's Artistic Director, or rather handed to me over drinks at Onion Creek.  This one is with Stark Naked Theatre, of Macbeth fame.  One rehearsal, one performance, and you better hope I get all that text out in the right accent.  

• Last year when our friends from Melbourne Joel and Heidi were travelling around the world, they came to visit us by way of [somewhere on the east coast], where they saw The God Box, by Antonia Lassar.  When Antonia announced her tour this year, Joel messaged me and suggested we bring her out here to Houston.  So we are.  

• Into the Woods I did audition for.  I am playing Cinderella's Stepmother and Jack's Mother! Andrew Ruthven, who directed Magic School Bus and was in Company with me, invited me to audition, very kindly gave me the low-down as to why I was called back for two roles that on first glance seem impossible to double and for which I am rather young, and then cast me.  We start rehearsal just before Christmas and open in January.

So there 'tis! I am so happy that I'm a part of the Houston theatre community.