Cast Interview: Victoria Boucher-Hille

You are in for a treat this afternoon. Meet Victoria Boucher-Hille another wonderful member of the H.M.S. Pinafore chorus!!
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What's your role in H.M.S Pinafore?
Aunt Propriety, who hovers over Aunt Sobriety in her wheelchair.

What's your favorite part of the show?
It's hard to choose, but perhaps the place I have the hardest time keeping a straight face is the scene in which Buttercup makes her awful confession. The musical introduction, reminiscent of Schubert's dark Der Erlkonig, is so melodramatic that the mock-innocent term "baby farming" forms an irresistibly comic contrast. 

Why is operetta important to you?
VLOC opened the delightful world of operetta to me. I've sung in choruses before, with an occasional selection from light opera, but knew Gilbert and Sullivan only by reputation. 

When Mary Gigliotti, nee Mitchell, told me about Haddon Hall it occurred to me that a ticket to this operetta would make the perfect birthday present for my older brother, John Vernon. He had undertaken family genealogy and discovered our connection with Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall. We attended together on his birthday and were enchanted. With uncharacteristic chutzpah I managed to get backstage with him and introduced him to the cast as "the scion of the Vernon family." The interest shown in him made his birthday special. Then when I found out that Mary was to have a lead in Ruddigore I decided to return. It was such a wonderful experience that I came a second time, treating two friends with birthdays in June. I was out of town when Gypsy Baron was performed but came to Robin Hood with my younger brother as a birthday present.

So obviously VLOC has become the solution to providing birthday gifts to those who have everything else they need.

Now as part of the chorus, I've discovered a pleasure I haven't known since long-ago days of childhood make-believe--and that only playing with friends. I wasn't in any school plays, and my theatrical experience was limited to a church Christmas pageant in which I was chosen to play a candle played a candle because I had red hair.

When you're not performing in community theatre, what do you do? (job, hobby, family, etc.)
I belong to the Prince George's Choral Society and to the St. Jerome's Choir. I still play piano for my own amusement but have mostly given up flute and violin--I was good enough at one time to play in the George Washington University Orchestra. I'm retired from the Library of Congress and am married to another biblioholic--yes, we spend a lot of time reading to each other. Part time I work as office manager for a dentist and I also write a somewhat zany but reliably informative gardening advice column for the monthly Hyattsville Life & Times. [If you're curious, it's online at http://hyattsvillelife.com/category/columns/miss-floribunda/]

Of course I love gardening and am current president of the Hyattsville Horticultural Society. That was why, when Kate asked if I could enter onstage on my hands and knees, Mary retorted that I was an avid gardener and spent a lot of time just that way.

H.M.S. Pinafore opens in 2 weeks at the Fitzgerald! Get your tickets today. Call the F. Scott Fitzgerald Theatre box office at 240-314-8690 for your tickets or go online HERE. 

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