Friday, January 30, 2009

Photos from "Inherit the Wind" Play

I recently had the incredible opportunity to participate in a local community production of "Inherit the Wind". It's an amazing story and really makes you think, which is the whole premise of the story. It discusses evolution versus creation. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I'd do something like this, but the opportunity came along and I grabbed it!! It has been a wild and thrilling ride. We began rehearsals before Thanksgiving, and the show didn't open until January 16th. It's been a long process, but definitely worth the trouble to be fully prepared. I've always thought I'd have stage fright, but on opening night I was surprisingly calm, which probably can be attributed to the numerous rehearsals. This has been an opportunity to meet so many gifted people and make some wonderful new friendships. Our community, though not large, is so blessed to have some incredibly talented people, and I feel honored to have had the opportunity to work with them. I also had the pleasure of working with one of my fellow co-workers, Lisa Fountain, and although we were already pretty close friends, doing this play together has brought us much closer.



Portrait photo from the playbill.









Keep in mind the era was supposed to be 1925, which accounts for the drab apparel. I actually made my dress because the costume selection was very limited.

"Mrs. Loomis" (me) telling Mr. Dunlap that "the minute Brady gets here, people are gonna pour in. Town's gonna fill up like a.....a rain barrel in a flood !"





Me consoling my "daughter" after she was scared by the Reverend talking about Henry Drummond being the "devil".










An amazing actor and dear friend, Patrick Williams, as "E.K. Hornbeck", a newspaper man from the Baltimore Herald.





Another wonderful actor and good friend, John Fowler (right) as Tom Davenport, the local Circuit District Attorney, interviewing prospective juror Jesse H. Dunlap (left), played by Dave Engleman.







Courtroom scene where I'm a spectator sitting behind the defendant, Chris Bowman as Bert Cates (right) and his attorney, Henry Drummond (left), played by Russ Snow, another truly gifted actor.







Lisa with her stage husband, Matthew Harrison Brady, played by a brilliant actor, Rich Herzog. In this scene, he's having a breakdown and she's consoling him. She sings to him a little bit of the hymn "It is Well With My Soul", and to put it in the words of the director, she sings "like an angel".




Backstage "waiting in the wings" with Lisa, one of my dearest friends, co-workers, and now also a fellow thespian.