Meet My Guests! Laura Stratford

I am thrilled and delighted to welcome Ms. Laura Stratford of Grind: the Musical to the Sunday August 8th show of Rachel Teagle Believes in Ghosts. I had the privilege of working with Laura a whole bunch while we were at Carleton, and I am SOOOO EFFING EXCITED to have her back, even briefly in my life.




In honor of her guest spot, I present a Laura Stratford/Rachel Teagle Collaboration Retrospective, courtesy of production stills I've stolen from Facebook.










When I was a sophomore I co-directed "Into the Woods" for the Student Musical Theater group (or SMuT because Carls love dirty acronyms)

I cast a baby Laura as The Baker's Wife. Here she is holding a fake baby and acting maternal as the character is wont to do.

Later, she would go on to star in a 24 Hour Play that Ben Egerman and I wrote entitled: "Flashenstein!"



She played simple village seamstress Charity Prudence Twatplucker, who befriended the Dr. Flashenstein's mostly-man, part-horse monster and got to kiss a lady at the end.










Good play.


I also had the distinct privilege of working with Laura on my Senior Comprehensive Exercise play The Love of the Nightingale.

Laura played Niobe, the old servant woman. She spent most of the play being sleepy and grumpy, then delivered a heart wrenching, gut punching monologue. The play has a super intense knife to the gut moment, and her character twists the knife.





The way we played her, Niobe was in an entirely different play than everyone else, and it's a tough and emotionally demanding role, and Laura fought through with lady balls of steel. I was so happy to have her on my team.

Now she's on the Midwest Fringe Circuit with a freaking musical she co-wrote. She is a big beautiful ball of talent and I can't wait for you all to find this out for yourself.

So, come to the Rarig Xperimental space on Sunday August 8th at 10:00 and catch the lovely Ms. Stratford doing something totally sweet. She's got some good ghosty stories and I can't wait to see what she's bringing you.