“Other Desert Cities” Q&A with Actor Bernadette Cheyne
Welcome to another installment of Q&A featuring the cast and crew of Redwood Curtain’s production of?Other Desert Cities by Jon?Robin Baitz.
About?Other Desert Cities
Brooke Wyeth returns home to Palm Springs after a six-year absence to celebrate Christmas with her parents, her brother, and her aunt.? Brooke announces that she is about to publish a memoir dredging up a pivotal and tragic event in the family’s history – a wound they don’t want reopened.? In effect, she draws a line in the sand and dares them to cross it.
Purchase tickets to?Other Desert Cities?running at Redwood Curtain October 30 – November?22
Bernadette Cheyne
Q: When were you last on the RCT stage?
I was on the RCT stage last in 2002 with Amy’s View. Actually, that was my last time on stage. I directed Don Juan in Chicago in 2004. For a number of years I have been inactive because of the nature of the job I was involved. The scheduling didn’t allow for the schedule you have to accommodate for a show. I’m just delighted to be back.
Q:?What character do you play in?Other Desert Cities??Tell us about her?
Polly is mother of Brooke and Trip, sister of Silda?and wife?of Lyman. She and her husband live in Plam Springs. We’ve?been very?involved in the Hollywood set of the Republican Party. Now we’re in a more retired mode, but still very active in fund raisers and such.
Q:?What attracted you to do this show?
Peggy contacted me and gave me the script. I read it and thought, “Wow. What a fascinating, challenging role.” Let’s just say the mindset and politics of this character don’t quite coincide with my own. The whole circumstance of the play and how it unfolds is fascinated. I was very attracted to the concept of the play and the challenge of the character. Then I heard who was in the cast and I said “sign me up.”
Q:?What do you hope audiences come away with at the end of the show?
I hope they come away really being moved, being thoughtful in terms of the choices that were made and why they were made. What might they do under the circumstances? Maybe even connect it to their own lives when they’ve found themselves in really difficult situations and how they dealt with it along with what might be learned from the choices of these characters.