Creative Producer and Actor
Role: May
“Under Andy Hayworth’s direction, the collection of character studies and conflicts in this inaugural McQueen & Company production play out as per the stage direction “relentlessly without a break.” As Eddie, Ladue has broadened his range, growing increasingly believable as the crippling vulnerabilities beneath a whip-lean bully’s thin skin emerge. McQueen explored the fatigue of a lengthy emotional battle and the double bind that simultaneously repels and attracts May to Eddie.” – Review from our friends at The Indy.
Original Press Release
“Though rising local actor Diana Cameron McQueen wanted to start a new company, she’s less interested in directing than most. When McQueen & Company stages its inaugural production, Sam Shepard’s Obie-winning Fool for Love, McQueen will indeed be onstage, exploring her character’s magnetic, dysfunctional relationship with an itinerant rodeo rider in a Mojave Desert motel room that seems lifted from the world of David Lynch. But the show bears the marks of her desire to change the region’s theatrical landscape less as an actor or director than as a producer, a role many local theatrical productions lack.
As a result, two innovations are already apparent. One is promotional photography whose glossy design suggests a full-page magazine spread about an edgy new cable series. The other is offering viewers the choice of a live performance in Research Triangle Park or a live stream on their smart TVs, laptops, or tablets (June 17).” – The Indy write up on McQueen & Company.
“McQueen was equally convincing in May’s internal struggle of whether to give Eddie another chance as her heart urges, or throw the bum out for good as her brain says.” –Review from our friends at CVNC.
“Director Andy Hayworth, who also served as welcoming speaker, was masterful in using this small space in imaginative ways and navigating a great deal of frenetic energy within that room. Several events were also cleverly portrayed in two locales outside the scope of the set, which amplified and enhanced the geography. If Fool for Love is an example of the quality of the productions that are to come from McQueen & Company, then they certainly will have a very long and successful run in our community.” – Review from our friends at CVNC.