One of the very fun things about doing Voyeur is that you never know what you're gonna get. I love love love the first day of rehearsal - specifically first read-throughs - because no one knows who they will be playing in the show, or even what the show is yet. So, it was a fun surprise to discover I would be playing a man, Rep. Carl Dwimmer. 
I didn't know a thing about Carl Wimmer before working on this show and so I dived into the research process. I am very lucky because unlike my fellow cast mates playing Founding Fathers (and Mothers), I have the pleasure of playing someone who is currently alive, and very active on Facebook! Thus, I promptly became "friends" with Rep. Wimmer and read everything I could find along with obsessively watching YouTube videos of him. I even had the luck of attending a city meeting and meeting him in REAL LIFE! Honestly, I felt like I was meeting a celebrity and even recognized him from the back of his head! He was cooly sitting in his chair on the front row with one arm draped over the chair next to him. After the meeting I told him I was "huge fan" (which is true) and got a couple photos with him. Now, I have always been awed and inspired by the talent and smarts of Al Nevins and Nancy Borgenicht, but I have to say that seeing this guy speak in real life and looking at the lines I say in the show, Al and Nancy are DEAD ON. He was literally saying things that were lines of mine in the show.
So after doing all of this research and meeting him in real life, I felt I had a great place to start with for Dwimmer. It was interesting though because on one of our first days Cynthia basically said to me, "Kelsie, I think from doing all this research about Carl Wimmer, he has kind of left a bad taste in your mouth. But you have to love him. You ARE him." She was right! (Of course, she was, she's brilliant - I want to BE HER!) It completely changed everything for me. I DO need to love Carl Wimmer! From that moment I fell more and more in love with him. I absolutely LOVE this role.
It is so fun to play someone that is so opposite of me - liberating even! I get to say and do the MOST ridiculous things. I am one lucky girl. guy. whatever...there has been a lot of gender confusion for me this summer. ;) Playing a man is so much fun. But, playing a rock star is even better. I loved figuring out my voice (which is part inspiration from David Putty from Seinfeld) and my walk. I love that we have the video of the actual Patrick Henry Caucus - so many fun things to copy and play with. And of course, the costume helps enormously. I've always been very affected by my costumes (and particularly shoes). It really helps me come into my character. I actually feel like a man. There is this sense of power I feel - and oddly though I do feel like I'm a man, I do know I'm actually a woman, and that makes me feel even more powerful! Ha! We joke in the dressing room that I'm just like Victor/Victoria (the musical). I also think it's very progressive of SLAC to cast a woman as a man. It's been very popular for men to play women for quite some time now, but not very cool for women to play men. I always felt like that was so unfair, even back to the fact that originally women weren't even allowed to be on stage - and men played women's roles in Shakespeare's works. I remember in high school that football players would frequently dress up as cheerleaders and "dance" and everyone would die laughing, but cheerleaders would never have been caught dead dressing up as football players and "playing football". I feel very proud and honored to take part in this cultural change, even if by popular standard it's still not widely accepted.
It has been so funny too to see the amazing photos taken by Thom Gourley. It was so surprising to me! Even though I was internally feeling like a man and getting into my walk and voice etc. it wasn't until I saw, with my own eyes, myself on camera that I really got it. It actually shocked me! And then worried me. I had to ask my fellow cast mate Shannon Musgrave in all sincerity if I really looked like that. Was I just a hideous girl? Because that picture LOOKS LIKE A MAN. She laughed so hard and said, "no of course not! It's a total transformation." Whew. So once I got over my momentary vain fears I then LOVED the fact that I looked like a man. And now my goal is that the audience won't know that I'm a girl (although the soprano singing might throw them). I've even started to think my mustache and man eyebrows look good. Who knows...by the end of the summer maybe I'll just actually be a man?
SATURDAY'S VOYEUR runs throughout the summer. Tickets available online or by calling the Box Office: 801.363.7522.
