"Take a seat please..."

                  -Arvo Hex (from the gypsybird speaks)

Artemis Wolfe & Philena (picknick scene) 

This year I was fortunate to be a participant in a play written and directed by Derek Mitchell. The play is title "The Gypsybird speaks".

The set for the play was truly incredible, and it was an engineering feat I would say in getting in put together. I was able to help with some odds and ends but the true showcase of artistic elitism goes to Amelia Redmond and the director Derek Mitchell. They put in many long and strenuous hours to get the set completed in time for the performance and in the end it was definitely a success. 

The character who's role I played, was Artemas Wolfe. Artemas was a character I was particularly drawn to because of his complex history. It is never fully stated in the script what exactly Artemas has been through, but it is certain that whatever it was, it had turned him into a monster, at least in his eyes. It was a challenging role for me to play because it was so difficult for me to become a character that I knew so little about. In the end, with help from the director, I was able to come up with my own story of how Artemas came to be who he is today, a "Genesis of the Wolf" you might say. This strategy helped me better connect with Artemas and soon I found I was having little troubling getting into character. This character allowed me to experiment with some new acting techniques. Because some of the scenes were set in a dream like fantasy world created by the mind of the main character Philena, I got to explore the different ways of transforming myself into something that wasn't exactly real. Exploring the use of voice control and focusing on creating abnormal contrasts in my personality helped me to accentuate the unworldly essence of my character. This was a very difficult task. Artemas' final scene is in fact the best representation of the character himself as it is presumably the only one where he is not just a memory twisted and manipulated by another character's mind. The final scene was very rewarding as it allowed me to take what I had explored earlier, regarding the history of my character, and really transmit those ideas and emotions to the audience.