{"id":19727,"date":"2018-02-01T12:58:30","date_gmt":"2018-02-01T17:58:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=19727"},"modified":"2018-02-01T12:58:30","modified_gmt":"2018-02-01T17:58:30","slug":"female-avengers-start-to-assemble-for-temple-of-fame-centenary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/female-avengers-start-to-assemble-for-temple-of-fame-centenary\/","title":{"rendered":"Female avengers start to assemble for Temple of Fame centenary"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is hardly needful for me, Great Goddess, to tell thee who I am,\u201d said the Egyptian queen as she strode out before her public. \u201cI have ruled my world for three decades, becoming near the last of my kind. I speak a dozen languages and have studied with great scholars, have led battles, and influenced entire worlds with my beauty.
\n\u201cI have but to appear and the charms of all other women sink into nothingness. Their beauty becomes ugliness; their wit and wisdom become mere childish babbling. Dost thou not remember my magnificence in the old days of Egypt\u2019s glory?\u201d
\nIn short, Cleopatra is basically standing at the door of her favourite club asking the bouncer the age-old phrase so popular with inebriated actors and celebutantes: \u201cDon\u2019t you know who I am?\u201d
\n\u201cShe\u2019s like the original Kardashian,\u201d came the unlikely note from director Sara Moyle as Cerys Ford took the stage.
\nThe Grade 10 student from Aurora High School was one of scores of women of all ages who turned out last week for two open auditions hoping to score roles in this spring\u2019s production of The Temple of Fame, a project spearheaded by the Aurora Museum & Archives to mark the 100th anniversary of the last time this unique play was staged in Aurora \u2013 then to aid the war effort.
\nBrought up to date by writer Corie Clark, the centennial edition of The Temple of Fame will see leading figures from history, today\u2019s world stage, and popular fiction take the stage to make their best pitch to the Goddess on who is most worthy to join her pantheon.
\nAmong the contenders are Hypatia; Elizabeth I; Mary, Queen of Scots; Queen Victoria; Joan of Arc; War of 1812 heroine Laura Secord; artist Emily Carr; suffragist Frances Willard; Mother Teresa; Queen Isabella; English warrior queen Boudica; writer Pauline Johnson; nurse Edith Cavell; Marie Antoinette; Helen of Troy; Mother Goose; author Harriet Beecher Stowe; Irish pirate queen Grace O\u2019Malley; Elsie MacGill; Khutulun; and representations of a child, a mother, a \u201cwoman of the next century\u201d, and Canada.
\nAlso up for consideration: poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who was also one of the roles for which Cerys prepared.
\n\u201cThis year, we are starting to make our drama program bigger and we decided to enrol in the Sears Festival with our theme the Status of Women,\u201d Cerys told The Auroran on why she auditioned. \u201cThe Temple of Fame has such a big role in female empowerment and I love all the stuff that is going on with it. I am really passionate about that and it is a great play.\u201d
\nWhen Cerys hit the stage, she put herself in the shoes of Barrett Browning first, the director telling her that she\u2019s there to challenge the conventional attitudes of her time that poetry was the dominion of men. Cleopatra was up next.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re not going to let Cleopatra move too much,\u201d the director said. \u201cDoes she need to move? No. Everybody moves for her. She needs a drink and it is in her hand even before she looks. She\u2019s like the original Kardashian. To you, all of us in this room are gross, ugly ladies. We\u2019re the ones who didn\u2019t make it onto America\u2019s Next Top Model. Let\u2019s hear you feel really and truly superior \u2013 and that is hard for women. We all have trouble feeling really and truly superior. They are tall stilettos to fill for this character, but I really need to you to feel that you are superior to the rest of us.
\n\u201cCleopatra says these are the reasons why and then there\u2019s a sudden stop. She says, \u2018I want you to make a decision, lady. If your soul isn\u2019t large enough to comprehend the greatness of my gifts, okay, I\u2019m outta here, the limo\u2019s waiting, and they\u2019re lucky you even bothered showing up today. If you don\u2019t get this, y\u2019all don\u2019t deserve me.\u201d
\nEvidently, Moyle, Clark, and Shawna White, Curator of the Aurora Museum and Archives \u201cgot\u201d Cerys and she will be one of the many actresses taking the stage when The Temple of Fame opens once again, 100 years later \u2013 this time at Trinity Anglican Church on Mother\u2019s Day Weekend.
\nFor more, please see Aurora.ca\/museum.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt is hardly needful for me, Great Goddess, to tell thee who I am,\u201d said the Egyptian queen as she strode out before her public. \u201cI have ruled my world for three decades, becoming near the last of my kind. I speak a dozen languages and have studied with great scholars, have led battles, and influenced entire worlds with my beauty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":19694,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/2018-02-01-05.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-58b","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-11 19:28:38","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}