Life Upon the Wicked Stage

Posted by Lexi Langs
My name is Lexi Langs (pictured to the left in the white shirt, with fellow cast members Eric Evans, Erin Kate Bradner and Katy Burke, photo by Jill Bari Steinberg), and I’m currently working on The Member of the Wedding at Barksdale Theatre. I've been living in Virginia with my mom in company housing provided by Barksdale for the past three weeks, but my home is in Orlando, Florida.

This isn’t the first time I’ve spent time away from home…I spent the last fourteen months working at the American Girl Place in New York City. I saw auditions listed on the American Girl website early last year and decided to go for it. Over six hundred girls showed up in March of 2006, and they cast eleven new actresses – I was lucky to be one of them. I was cast as the American Girls Molly McIntire and Kaya. I started rehearsing that August at Chelsea Studios and over the next few months was able to ice skate at Rockefeller Center, see some amazing Broadway shows, drink lots of Starbuck’s, and master the subway system.

As my contract was ending, I saw the audition for Frankie Addams at Barksdale. I decided not to re-sign with American Girl, and went to the audition in Virginia on August 6. After meeting our director, Scott Wichmann, I knew I wanted to be a part of this show.

Rehearsals began a week after I started school in Florida, so I had to meet all of my new teachers and let them know that I would be gone for the next nine weeks – they were a bit surprised, but have been great about it. So far, rehearsals have been so much fun, and the cast is awesome! We’re currently in the middle of tech-week…so costumes, wigs, and props have just been added into the mix, and everything is really taking shape.

The Member of the Wedding is a three-act play by Carson McCullers about a tomboy named Frankie Addams who wants to grow up and is trying to find where she fits in the world. The housekeeper Berenice and her cousin John Henry are with her on the journey and the way they interact with each other will at times make you laugh, and at other times make you cry.

Katherine Louis (Berenice), Eric Evans (John Henry), and I are very excited about opening night this Friday and can’t wait to have a live audience to share our story. Hope to see you there!

--Lexi Langs