1. How would you describe your character and in what ways do you identify with her?
This version of Belle (along with the play as a whole) is a contemporary take on the more archetypal fairytale version—so, although she is still very much the "Bringer of Light, Life, and Love" in the story, there are necessarily more shadows, uncertainties, and ambiguities in her. She's a very youthful person, with all that entails—including a decidedly impetuousness streak. She's also an artist in her own right, and has built much of her existence around her work. She's definitely a glass-half-full person. I certainly identify with her determination to see beauty, light, and wonder in life, and the struggle that this insistence can sometimes be. Her desire to use her art to bring this light is definitely something we share, what I aspire to do with my own [art]...
2. In the play you interact mostly with projections. Were the projections part of rehearsals from the beginning or were they added later?
Much later! Because my first show with this production was on tour, the stage and all the equipment had been sent ahead far in advance by ship, and I only got onto the stage with the projections in tech week! Thankfully for me, our intrepid assistant director knows the minutia of the virtuals inside out, and had me as prepared for what I'd be encountering onstage as I could be. But this late introduction gave me moments of being taken away by the magic of the show in that week—something that doesn't always happen in tech!
