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Charly Van Den Bergh
On the night the first production of The Exiled was taped, Charly was sitting in the audience on the left hand side, and I have footage of her laughing- proof that even tough old German ladies smile. Tall and muscular, Charly was the most imposing figure I've ever directed, and she was fantastically overbearing as Herodias in Salome, even if she was also a little tough to costume (the final result, a mish-mosh of orange, gold, black and purple, was very colorful and strangely elegant). She joined our cast having just finished playing the White Witch in Arts For All's production of The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, and she had appeared in Tucson Parks & Rec's Macbeth with my housemate at the time, Michael Hendrix, thus firmly establishing herself as a mistress of the weird when it came to theater (though on the other hand, additional credits included Our Town, which is about as normal as it gets). The kind of lady who had been all around the world and had a thousand stories to tell, it wouldn't have surprised me if Charly turned out to be a real sorceress or queen, or at least a very successful pirate in retirement. She had a tattoo of a monkey on her shoulder and arm that we proudly allowed her to display onstage. It lent an exoticism to Herod's queen, and Charly was just glad to finally be in a role where she didn't have to spend an hour covering it with make-up. In fact, that may have been what she most liked about being in Salome.
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