Actress Jennifer Lanier Is Standing on Ceremony

 So there was there wedding cake at the show?
Oh,
my gosh, yes! The most amazing three-tier cake baked by Laura of Pastry
Girl here in Portland. I ended up helping to cut and serve the cake.
Well, actually, I weaseled my way into that job as I have a well-known
addiction to pastries and knew this was a sneaky way to procure more
frosting.



 Tell me which plays you performed in.
This Flight Tonight by Wendy MacLeod, Oppression & Pearls by Jenny Lyn Bader, On Facebook by Doug Wright, Pablo and Andrew at the Altar of Words
by Jose Rivera. They were so much fun. I read and loved each piece. The
writing was varied in style and all the works were strong. 


 Wow,
that’s four different plays in one night. Your theater was one of only
two theaters in Oregon; the Majestic Theater in Corvallis also performed
it. Were you surprised it wasn’t performed more there?

Honestly, I was surprised more didn’t perform it. Portland is a hotbed of queer activity, admittedly.

A portion of each ticket got donated to marriage equality organizations, right?
We had nearly a full house and the money went to Basic Rights Oregon.



 You got married a few years ago. Does being married to a woman impact how you inhabited your roles in Standing on Ceremony?
Yes.
Dustina and I had our wedding ceremony two years ago here in Portland,
and our legal marriage in Massachusetts about a year ago. Being married
to a woman let me bring a particular set of circumstances to the roles
that came from my life, as opposed to having to make it up purely from
imagination and observation. Usually, when I play straight roles, I have
to do lots of research. I spend time in malls and at the ladies’ nights
at clubs observing straight girls in their natural habitat, paying
particular attention to the physical aspects of their mating rituals — you
know, how they flip their hair and accept drinks that guys buy — so I can
appear more realistic. Sometimes I bring a straight friend along to
translate the more complex parts of their culture.