Kyra Baker – 6630 Productions

Traveling Light closed last night, and finally I can post the photos that would contain the most devious spoilers. As always, all photos by Kyle Cassidy. Kyra Baker as W.P.C. Foster, Terence Gleeson as Officer MacDonald, Doug Greene as Joe Orton and Bob Stineman as Brian Epstein. Click on the images to view them full size.

Sad to see this opportunity go, but I’m deeply grateful for the good audiences who joined us, and the hard work, love, talent and skill of the entire cast and production team. Now, on to the next project: I’ve got two feature-length scripts to write this semester, and the writing elves are threatening a strike.

Oh, one more thing:

Not only is Liam Castellan a warrior prince and a scholar, but he’s the most casually photogenic person I know.

This production of Traveling Light has a really special set. I haven’t mentioned the crunchiest part yet, but Jessica Foley does in her review for Phindie.

” I could report to you an intoxicating intimacy between Epstien and Orton built around a silk shirt and a deliberate tug at a belt buckle, or you can run up to the very top of the Adrienne and see it for yourself. To quote Joe (Orton): “Print is less effective than the spoken word because the blast is greater.”

L-R: Officer MacDonald (Terence Gleeson) drills WPC Foster (Kyra Baker) on police procedure, as Joe (Doug Greene) and Brian (Bob Stineman, not pictured) keep out of sight, but are they out of earshot? Set design by Kevin Jordan, lighting by Andrew Cowles, photo by Kyle Cassidy.

Director and producer Liam Castellan assembled a team of crack shot designers who connected deeply with this piece. Set designer Kevin Jordan spent many years in the military and in England, and knows the science of sneaking up on people. Costume designer John Hodges loves period costuming and clever details, he brought form, function, fashion and fun together for maximum effect. Lighting designer Andrew Cowles knows “too late to be night and too early to be morning,” and the subtle changes that time period has.

Come join us. You have six more chances to see this show. Click here for information about dates and times.

Mark Cofta followed up his CityPaper feature piece with a review that makes my heart grow three sizes.

An incisive script builds on an intriguing what-if.

“WE THINK: Friel’s incisive script builds on an intriguing what-if: not-so-closeted bad boy Orton (Doug Greene) and very closeted Epstein (Bob Stineman) certainly met when Orton wrote his never-produced Beatles movie, so were they friends, maybe even lovers? Were their tragic deaths somehow related? In Traveling Light, they clash in a moonlit cemetery (set by Kevin Jordan, lighting by Andrew Cowles), and the adversaries — Epstein had just rejected Orton’s lurid work as “unsuitable” for “my boys” — soon realize they have much in common.

Friel and director Liam Castellan turn the play’s farcical absurdities, including the intrusions by two cops (Kyra Baker, Terence Gleeson) and the boys’ trading clothes (Epstein’s tailored Italian suit for Orton’s leather jacket and jeans), into affecting moments of discovery. As in Orton’s plays, the silly events are meaningful, and vice-versa.

Baker’s sincere performance reveals the challenges of women invading the man’s world of police work, an effective parallel for the struggles of closeted gay men. The world was changing fast in 1967 for women and homosexuals, and establishment men (as represented by Gleeson’s hilarious yet brutal dictionary-quoting constable), feeling threatened, lashed out. These relationships may never have happened, but Traveling Light makes them feel real.”

You have eight more changes to see this show, so don’t let it get away.

Kyle’s photos have so much depth and detail that I can’t put them up full size; you’ll have to click on them for a full view. There are a lot of beautiful pictures which I’m hesitant to post, because even though they’re so good, they’ll spoil the story. So, if you’re thinking about coming to see it, and you look at these pictures and you’re still on the fence (I know what it’s like), know that everything you see here is EVEN BETTER when it’s live, 3D and streaming in real time in your face. Much more than this is going to happen, so come join us.

All photos below: Bob Stineman as Brian Epstein, Doug Greene as Joe Orton, Kyra Baker as W.P.C. Foster, Terence Gleeson as Officer MacDonald.