Monday is Tarot Day: Desiree Armfeldt and the Queen of Wands. And me.

I rarely use significators IN a reading.  I always keep them in the deck so that they might be pulled for any card position in a spread.  But I do have a significator, who I meditate upon from time to time.  She is the Queen of Wands and She.  Is.  Awesome.

And I'm basically portraying her in a musical at this moment.

I've written about her before.  But I'm going to take the liberty of doing so again, under the rosy-sensual lens of the character I'm playing in "A Little Night Music."  Because, although my character and I don't have THAT much in common, we're still alike in some ways.  Only in some.  I'm certainly not as flighty as she, and I have but one love, but when I'm playing full-out, I know we share the same Queen of Wands attributes of independence and sense of play.

I'm Desiree Armfeldt: actress, mother, daughter.  Lover to many, but love to only one.  Sometimes not someone you can trust your husband to. Doing character work for Desiree, I've decided she's a glass of champagne.  She's flighty, like the wind.  She's a whisper, a child, rambunctious and fanciful.  And she's happiest when bubbling, even when she works that bubble into a slow simmer.  She likes to indulge herself, likes to touch, to sip, to sniff.  She's fire, buoyed on by all that airiness, energetic and creative: much like the Queen of Wands.

But remember what I said about not trusting her around your husband?  Yes, that's there, but she's extricating herself out of that world - and thanks heavens for that!  She's wielding her magic Wand, creating a new life for herself.  Okay, so she's manipulating things to her advantage, but that's what she's learned in order to survive.  But she's realizing she's grown beyond that and she wishes to create a "coherent existence" for herself and her daughter - and for the man she loves.

Thanks for letting me share a little about Desiree and her twin soul, the Queen of Hearts.  If you're interested in seeing the production I'm in, it runs Oct. 19 through Nov. 10, 2012 at the small-but-mighty Village Theatre Guild in Glen Ellyn, IL.  http://www.villagetheatreguild.org/

Monday is Tarot Day: I auditioned for "A Little Night Music" - and can't figure out which character I like best ...

... or which one I can delve most deeply into. Or which one I'd most want to commiserate with, gossip with, have tea and butter cookies with, get tipsy with. Or who's the moodiest.  Or which one I'm moodier than.

The play is all about romance and unrequited (and requited) love.  It's a waltz in twilight.  It's sensual and emotional.  And I often play funny ladies who pull funny faces.

So on the audition form, I wrote I'd like to be the funny lady most (dry, droll, kinda bitchy - but most of that comes from covering up and coping with emotional pain).  And I'd never done that before - actually specified a role preference like that on an audition form.  It felt presumptuous, but it also felt presumptuous to put the larger role first as I have some schedule conflicts.  Thing is, I like them both - they're spectacular and complicated and wear frilly dresses, or maybe even floor-length velvet (which is a big thing for me).

Anyway - then I read for the less-than-funny lady, the larger role  Actually, I sang her main song.  The big song.  And I cried.  And I can't remember ever crying during an audition before (I can remember crying sometimes after), but cry I did.

I'm not entirely sure where this post is going, other than I entered the worlds of two women this evening who have very different agendas, needs, and wants.  And I ended up liking them both equally.  And I felt their pain.  And excitement.  And desires.  And souls.

And that rarely happens during an audition for a show.  And what I'm realizing right now is that not only am I embodying the emotional, watery nature of The Queen of Cups, but the characters I read for show the full gamut of aspects (both upright and reversed) of this marvelous Queen: sensual, nurturing, caring, sensitive, a little crazy-in-love, a little too nervous, jealous, a little manic even.  Entirely desperate and incalculably strong.

And I've never had that happen to me before; to see so clearly how a tarot card can act as the significator for not only myself, but two fictional characters.  All in the course of one twilit night.