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Dana Faris
There are certain people in your life who you can only love,
and certain people who are loved by everybody in their life:
Dana Faris is one of these. The model for Imogen in The Exiled,
who she originated in its premiere production with Quicksilver,
Dana was part of my theater career from the very beginning,
making her stage debut with Lysistrata, as the leader of the
women’s chorus, and going on to appear in Arms And The
Man, The Butler Did It! and my productions of The Oresteia and
Faust Part One, as well as The Apple Switch with Old Pueblo
Playwrights and Dracula with Tucson Parks & Rec. Part of
the gang who put together I Laughed, I Cried, I Shot The Person
Next To Me, she originated two more Stuart Bousel roles during
that festival, Vanessa in Men and Women and Tia in The Vampire
Sorority Babes vs. The Inter-Galactic Frat Zombies: A Ballet,
in which she did some lovely dancing opposite Josh Galyen, particularly
excelling at the death scene which closed “The Dance of
War.” My best experience with her came during Edward II,
which was her one and only Horror Unspeakable Show, but if ever
there was a show to be a part of it was that one and Dana couldn’t
have been more welcome. Cast as the tragic queen Isabel, she
was the perfect female compliment to Jim Driscoll-MacEachron
in the title role, his physical size and energy contrasting
sharply with her slight build and elegant pallor. Dana was stunningly
regal to behold, graceful as she slunk through the shadowy stage,
beginning the show in shrouds of black and then transforming
over the course of the play until she emerged in the final scenes
in a red ballgown, glamorous and yet achingly cold. For an actress
who previously had excelled in ingénue parts, the sweeter
the better, she pulled off a magnificent ice queen her collaboration
with Young Mortimer to murder her husband was one of the show’s
most chilling moments- not bad for a girl whose real life education
was in molecular micro-biology. After Tucson Dana made a brief
go at professional acting, moving to Los Angeles and appearing
in a few student films, then a Train video for “Drops
of Jupiter” and as an extra in American Pie 2. These days
she’s doing what she does best, traveling the world as
part of an environmental research group and romancing her boyfriend
Johnny, whose one of the luckiest guys I know. The thing is,
Dana would tell you that she’s the lucky one, and that
kind of graciousness is exactly what makes her so fabulous to
work with and to know, let alone chat with on the phone whenever
I’m lucky enough to get a call from her. Truly Imogen
to the bone, her spirit is a bright and shining constellation,
a guiding star, and my most favorite muse.
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