Hello all,

I was in NYC Monday night, March 17th to see Kate at the Classic Stage
Co reading of "Agamemnon". A quick report: All the actors were
wonderful and Kate of course was fabulous, very fierce as Klytimestra.
After Kate's performance you couldn't help liking Klytimestra even
though she's responsible for her husband, Agamemnon's death. Michael
Cumpsty, who played Lord Burleigh on Voyager, read Agamemnon. As he
explained at the beginning, it's a "first look" so all the actors only
had one chance at 2PM to do a read through of the script getting all
the language and pronunciation correct, before the performance that
night. Even with those time constraints they all had it down and the
words just flow from Kate's mouth. Better her than me. :-)

For those who haven't been to Classic Stage it's a very small theater
with seats on all three sides. I believe the performance was sold out
and I only saw a couple of empty seats. Since 'The Seagull' is
currently being performed there (Monday nights are dark), parts of
that show's set were still on the stage. There was a fireplace which
six of the actors (Michael Cumpstry-Agamenon, Kate
Mulgrew-Klytaimestra, Lorenzo Pisoni-Aigisthos, KK Moggie-Kassandra,
Dan Oreskes-Herald, David Costabile-Watchman) sat in front of, moving
out to the two lecterns when it was their turn to read. Sitting to the
side of the lecterns were the chorus which consisted of Terry Beaver,
Tom Bloom, and Yusef Bulos, two on one side and one on the other.

Since this was a reading the actors wore street clothes so I'm sure
some of you are interested in a fashion report. Kate had on black
suede boots with a very high, very skinny heel and very pointy toe;
long black skirt, black top, black sweater flung around her shoulders
and her hair up with a medium blue color band. Hope that description
suffices as I tried to take special notice and remember even though
fashion reporting is not my forte. As some of you can attest, usually
when I'm asked "what was Kate wearing?" my answer is a bit vague such
as "I think she had on black pants and a sweater or something". :-)

Even though the play's subject matter is very serious there's also
quite a bit of sly humor. There were quite a few laughs from the
audience, much of it in reaction to Kate's reading since Klytimestra
has some great lines. The reading was 90 min. long with no
intermission but there was a rousing round of applause at the end.

A wonderful evening and it would be great to see a full production of
the play. It was great to see a couple of you from the Totally Kate
list and if anyone else would like to write a report please do and
send it to me! I'm planning on putting the program info up on the site
and would love to include some reports from others.

Totally Kate Webmaster