Queens at ACT

• CHRIS BENNION
• Bouchard as Elizabeth

At the post-play discussion of Mary Stuart this weekend (see my review here), one of the leads made a memorable comment. This show was spearheaded by the two female leads, Anne Allgood and Suzanne Bouchard, who loved the script so much they cast themselves and then found a director and a playhouse (it’s usually the other way around, right?). Both have long been in Seattle’s theater scene (Allgood for over a decade, Bouchard for nearly three), and Bouchard, who played Queen Elizabeth I, said she relished the opportunity to finally play an equal—a superior, actually—to the male actors she’s played alongside all these years. “I’ve been their wife, their daughter, their courtesan,” she said with a laugh. Now she got to be their queen.

P.S. Thank you so very much, ACT, for graciously and politely late-seating at least 50 people (including me) who were stuck in the crazy Obama-visit-related traffic that exploded right before the show. I understood that the show had to start pretty much on time because it’s long and there was an evening show, too, but for those of us who’d been within a mile or two of the theater for over an hour slowly losing our minds, your calm flexibility and professionalism was an oasis in the desert of craziness. And the play was so good I got lost in it right away. Thanks again!