Rehearsal Process

It seems we were talking about Henry's Wives forever!  this is a project what Akia had wanted to do for quite some time and yet other projects always took priority.  Now we find ourselves one day away from the first reading of the first draft script of "Henry's Wives."  This is the kind of play I can sink my teeth into.  I love the research and the immersion into the world of 16th Century Tudor life.

In fact, there is nothing like sitting in the middle of a crowded subway rattling through Manhattan, home of millions of frantic people racing from one place to another, yet I am 500 years away.  My world around me shrinks to a pinpoint of manipulation, backstabbing, scheming, betrayal and lust. All within the confines of the Royal Tudor Court. It's what I think Wall Street may have learned their cunning, "rules are for suckers" way of doing business.  Because in Tudor time, it was all about how to get closer to the circle of power that was Henry.  Not much has changed in 500 years!

So after months of rehearsals, workshops, improving, writing and re-writing, Rising Sun finally will show what all this work led to.  I will be playing Katherine of Aragon, a woman I would have loved to have met, yet would have scared the crap out of me.  She was beautiful, incredibly smart, savvy in the ways of the Court, loyal and devoutly Catholic. She was a formidable foe to have and yet a women whose charitbale ways were remembered for centuries.

We will meet Anne Boleyn, probably the most (in)famous of the six wives.  Anne, the wily, cunning, intelligent daughter of the powerful Thomas Boleyn. Anne was a seducer yet did not become Henry's lover until the very end.

There are the four wives, Jane who bore Henry a son, Anne of Cleves who left with her head intact, money, castles and Henry's devotion, Katherine Howard, the Teen Queen who could not keep her legs shut and finally Katherine Parr, the last wife, the one who outlived Henry.

Join us at the Space on White, Sat. June 16 at 6pm and go back 500 years with Rising Sun and Henry's Wives!