Heidi Eurich as Simone

The part of Simone is played by Heidi Eurich, a senior theatre major from Florida. For Eurich, the rehearsal process has been an intriguing journey of discovering the world of the play and the character of Simone.

On Approaching the Play

Eurich has enjoyed the process of delving into this very poetic script. The more she read it, the more she began to discover about the play and her character. One point of connection for her was the rich use of imagery in Alchemy/Blues. She explains, "Caridad uses lots of repetition. She talks a lot about the elements ­ air, fire, earth, and water. A lot of that has to do with who Simone is as a person and what she uses to release herself." Eurich found that the more she contemplated many of these images, the more deeply she began to understand their multiple layers of meaning. She was particularly intrigued by the line, "It's quite possible that we're made of air." She came to understand that line as expressing something about the nature of life as well as something about the process of dying.

On Working with the Playwright

This is the first time Eurich has worked on a production where the playwright was directly involved in rehearsals. The actor appreciated the insight that Svich shared about the character and the performance of particular moments. They spent some time discussing Simone's fishing scene. Eurich recalls "when Miranda walks in I had always ignored her and kept losing myself in the water with this 'mask of grief.' Caridad said yes she is in grief, but there's too much of that. This is your first contact with someone in the show. You want to acknowledge her and play with her. Still be involved in your task and at the same time acknowledge her and be involved with her."

The playwright also helped her understand those "sharp turns" in which a character quickly shifts from one experience to another very different kind of experience. For example, Simone begins the play with a monologue in which she shares her disbelief at the ludicrous amount of fried chicken that mourners brought to her husband's funeral. Suddenly she shifts to a very heartfelt contemplation of her loss. The challenge for the actor is to follow the script's quick shift from one topic to the next without indulging in a lengthy transition. For Eurich, these sharp turns are connected to some of the comedy in the play as Svich has created a world in which "you can be laughing at one moment and crying the next."

On Discovering Simone

When Eurich first read the script, her main vision of Simone was of a woman in mourning who "is on the verge of killing herself. Doesn't want to be in this world anymore. Wants nothing more than to be with her husband and is burning with the memory of that." But the actor quickly discovered "there's a lot more to her than that. She really is a strong individual and she's really feisty. And she doesn't let herself fall into deep depression. She's a fighter. Very powerful, very strong." So in addition to discovering Simone's grief, she also had to discover "the strength and the power that she has and the sassiness and the rebel that's in her."

Late in the rehearsal process, director Juanita Rockwell asked her to add one more layer to her character: preacher. The actor recalls, "She asked me in the first scene and the last scene to kind of throw on the element of the preacher as the wise woman who now knows all." Eurich was very excited by this new image as she feels it allowed her to demonstrate "Simone's knowledge and her growth in the world and throughout the play."