Shows I’ve Acted In: The 3rd Act

My first show at Sacred Fools was Naked Holidays, an evening of one-acts. This is a shot of the cast of “Holiday Burn” by Donna Tina Charles. There is me with my hair artificially greyed because I was dying it to cover the grey for TV work (I was playing a grandmother), Noelle Potvin as my daughter, and Jessie M. as the daughter/granddaughter. Mayonnaise was featured in this short play but not shown here in the photo. Opportunities continued to arise with the Fools and I joined the company.

“Feet” by Padraic Duffy was my next show. The photo taken by the ‘TREE’ shows me and Tina Ballabio, I am a school Principal, she is a kid. I also built some costumes for the show (a cow suit, a chipmunk suit, a wig of grass). And next there I am as Emilia the Abbess in The Comedy of Errors trying to look as kindly as I possibly can.

These photos were taken in the dressing room at the Heliotrope theater. I played Ella and a member of a family of pig farmers who were also pigs.

Directed by Aaron F.

I am playing The Moon, the first of two celestial beings I portrayed on the Fools’ stage. I don’t have a photo of the other one but I will mention it when the time comes.

Directed by Mauri Bernstein and Padraic Duffy

This is all the audience ever saw of me in [sic]. I was an Upstairs Neighbor, one of the Airshaft Couple as stated in the script. While I am usually pacing off a bundle of nerves before a performance, I was never nervous before this show. My legs and feet were always calm and focused.

Directed by David LM Mcintyre

Directed by Phillip Wofford, this production was quite stylized, perhaps you can tell from the photos. It was great fun to do. I am Queen Margaret, King Ignatius is played by Steven Ruggles, and John Wuchte is Lord Chamberlain.

That is Brandon Clark on the left. Michael Kary is playing Prince Phillip, on the right is Adrienne Picard and Isobel. In the picture above I am wearing my Special Events crown, in this picture I am wearing my ‘inside’ or more casual crown. I still have it.

Directed by Philip Wofford

This play had many roles and most of the cast played multiple parts. I had a very nice scene as God, my 2nd as a Celestial Being but I have no photos of me in my white suit and sneakers. Sorry for the quality of the photo. I am not sure who is on the left but the others are Bruno Oliver, Brendan Hunt, Philip Newby, and Laura Sperrazza. Kimberly Atkinson in foreground as TV. While I enjoyed being God, the most fun was this ensemble scene.

Directed by Adam Bitterman

With Freda Nelson Evans. We are playing Bertha and Hilda.

Directed by Joe Jordan

At the very end I got to come down from my perch and actually speak face to face with another actor. Mark Bramhall as Keller.

Directed by Padraic Duffy

I was understudy for Kathy Bell Denton in the role of Queen Margaret. I played a weekend and it turned out that was enough. Here I am in the dressing room preparing to be unhappy and baleful once I am on stage.

Directed by Ben Rock

This was a fascinating and challenging experiment in randomly created narrative. Created by Padraic Duffy and Hans Gelpke. They provided a collection of characters and settings from which to choose; then writers working independently, created fragments or small scenes and snippets that were then put together randomly and performed on 3 Saturday nights, no scene being repeated. The hope was that a story would emerge – one that was dark, mysterious, and moving. We actors did not know which scenes we would be performing or the sequence until the show began. My character was The Fortune Teller. We did rehearse a little and could carry scripts, although by the final week we didn’t really need them.

Directed by Padraic Duffy

Sacred Fools Theater Company moved to a new space on Santa Monica Boulevard and this was the first play in that new space. Directed by Jeremy A. and with a wonderful cast: French S., Leon R., Josh Weber, and Julie Griswold. And me. In this play there was so much that my character, Delilah, didn’t say that I had almost an entire other script of things I said to myself or under my breath.

Below you see Delilah highly skeptical of her husband’s obsession with his new hobby of painting unicorns in support of his friend Lou, played by French S..

Another rehearsal photo but this is what happened in the play, just with different clothes. This might be my only on stage kiss, even considering Romeo and Juliet.

Past Time was the last full length play I did at Sacred Fools.

The pandemic hit. And the state legislators made some laws and rules without taking the community of actors and smaller theaters and theater companies into account which made doing theater extremely difficult. Basically a huge dam of Legislation Logs was erected that lets through the merest trickle of creative work. Big money theater is still at work, grassroots theater not so much. But before that happened, I did one more show, just not at Sacred Fools.