An Interview with Canterbury Tarot Actor Erin Buvala-Benites

Part of a series of artist interviews in Life and the Performing Arts

1. Hi Erin! You’re playing the Fool, the Fool adopting the stance of a Storyteller, the Querent and a Suitor in B3 Theater’s upcoming production of The Canterbury Tarot. How would you describe them?

The Querent is a bit of a nervous Nelly, worried about their future, and new to this whole Tarot thing, which also makes them super curious about the meaning behind all those mysterious cards. The Suitor is only there for but a brief moment, but the best way I can describe them just as as swiftly is to say the Suitor is an “Easy Lover”.

The Fool is the REALLY juicy role for me, and they are, as I have described them to other folks, part magnified personification of my own ADHD, a mish-mash of a kajillion comic weirdos ( such as: Lucille Ball, Robin Williams, Carol Burnette, Amy Poehler, Crusty the Clown, Jim Carey, Pee Wee Herman,Whoopi Goldberg, Steve Martin,Cree Summer,Miranda Sings, Ben Schwartz, Richard Iowade, Kim Coles, Dana Carvey, Mike Meyers Ellen DeGeneres, Judy Tenuta…) and they are also quite curious, perhaps too curious for their own good, ridiculously confident, also probably too much for their own good, and they love to have fun, and to make fun. Inside they have a lot of loving energy that they can’t quite reel…