May 23, 2011  |  lillian

How long have you worked with FullStop?

Since the start! I was there when we produced our first show as Full Stop Theater at NYC Fringe Festival, and I believe I made chicken and spaghetti at my apartment for our first “Let’s make a theater company” meeting in 2007.

What has been your favorite part of the rehearsal process so far?

I have had an amazing time working with Pat and Alexandra on the evolution of the music for Unville Brazil. Over the last six months we have collaborated to arrange and fill out these songs, explore characterizations and musical structure, transcribe it from ear to paper, and then bring it to life with the actors. I was there for the first reading of scene and song snippets in the summer of 2009, and to be part of the evolution of the story and music from then to now has been extraordinary.

What are you doing when you are not acting/directing/designing?

I’m writing a play of my own entitled Cause of Failure, which is being developed through FullStop’s new Development Series, and I’m getting ready to go to graduate school this fall at Arizona State’s MFA Directing program. I also recently discovered a love of cooking, and I’m now trying to cook my way through all my mother’s old recipes. And I can’t wait to get to Arizona, where I’m going to bike everywhere and go camping as much as possible, even in the middle of winter!

Why did you get into theater?

I loved theater since I could first walk and talk, but for many years I tried to find other things that were equally fulfilling. I went to college determined that I was going to move on to a “real” field like psychology, but two months in to my freshman year I was back at auditions. By junior year I realized I had taken so many theater electives that I was way behind on my required psych courses – at which point I accepted that theater is my heart and my world. Next thing I knew, I had switched majors, spent an incredible semester at the National Theater Institute with my future FullStop colleagues, moved to New York after graduation and started this company!

What is your vision of utopia?

A world where we live and act with profound respect for the impact of our present actions on people and places outside our personal spheres, and on the future sustainability of our world and its inhabitants.

Also, in my utopia, chocolate doesn’t have any calories, and I’m not allergic to cute animals or beautiful spring days.

If you were king/queen of the world, how would you solve our global warming crisis?

Something that saddens me about human nature is that we generally don’t change our behavior because it’s healthy or beneficial for other people or the world at large. Most of the time, we will change our behavior only if it benefits us personally and directly. We’re not likely to stop burning fossil fuels without an immediate, personal incentive. So, if I were queen of the world, I would phase out government subsidies of the oil industry and implement higher taxes on fossil fuel consumption. Fuel prices would go way up, fast, and people would hate me for a while, but since I’m queen I wouldn’t need to worry about the next election. I would apply those savings and income towards investments in green technology. There would be a massive shift in public energy consumption and a period of economic slump, but there would also be a massive boom in green industries. As consumer demand for green energy increased, thousands of new jobs would emerge, creating a demand for new green-energy training/education programs and, eventually, a collective cultural mindset shift towards sustainable green energy. I’d also make public education the absolute top budgetary priority, implement comprehensive school recycling and composting programs that kids would oversee, and make global sustainability a core piece of K-12 curriculum.

Along those lines, what else would you do as king/queen of the world?

I’d create a large-scale program of government subsidization for the arts!

Ever been to Brazil? How about Jacksonville?

Nope…nor Louisville, nor Nigeria…but in 2010 I did live in three different time zones. Does that count?