WHO ARE YOU?
I’m Sara Barker and I’m playing Lord/Lady Orlando

WHERE ARE YOU FROM?
I spent my childhood in Ewing, NJ, my teenage-hood in Springfield, VA, my young adulthood in Annapolis, DC, Paris, NYC, and now I’m “settled” into not-so-young adulthood with dog, husband, baby, home in Arlington.

WHY ARE YOU HERE IN THE DC AREA DOING THIS PLAY, IN THIS PRESENT MOMENT?  Virginia Woolf. Sarah Ruhl. What else can I say?

Okay, so I can say some more: I found the email I sent Christopher Henley (who was WSC Artistic Director before Tom Prewitt) back in November 2011. In it I stated: “I would love it if we tackled Sarah Ruhl’s adaptation of the Virginia Woolf novel Orlando. I won’t attempt false modesty – I would love to be seriously considered to play the title role.” So, after bugging Christopher and then Tom and after a very successful staged reading last April (thanks to director Amber Jackson), the dream of Orlando is coming to life. So very very thrilled.

THE MOST FEMININE ASPECT OF MY PERSONALITY IS:  Well, I’m quiet a lot – used to be even quieter. Quiet people are often perceived as demure, which is traditionally a feminine aspect of personality. However, I would not describe myself as demure, just quiet. Hmm, that’s not a very straightforward answer.

THE MOST MASCULINE ASPECT OF MY PERSONALITY IS:  I have a large appetite. I grew up with three older brothers and always ate as much as they did at the dinner table.

WHAT ARE YOU ENJOYING MOST ABOUT ORLANDO?  I love playing with gender and age. I love that I get to explore Orlando, this would-be poet, as a boy, a teenage boy, a young man, a woman in her young thirties, and a woman in her upper thirties. I love observing gender and age in other people: some people at the physical age of 60 seem 20; others at the physical age of 20 seem 60; some people who happen to be men seem far more feminine than, say, me; and some people who happen to be women seem far more masculine than, say, my husband. There is so much wonderful fluidity!

WHAT DOES THIS PLAY HAVE TO SAY TO US IN 2014?  Virgina Woolf and Sarah Ruhl had/has the courage to write about the wonderful diversity of gender (and age) within all of us. These traits (as opposed to their physical counterparts for the majority of humans) are fluid. We humans have always known about this internal diversity but have tampered it down to a certain extent (some points in history more than others). It is so exciting that in 2014 we are starting to move toward an age when gender – both feminine and masculine – is being freed up a bit from its physical counterpart. This play celebrates that fluidity.