Seasoned is an understatement when describing this actor/director/costumer who has a track record spanning over 25 years in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is a graduate of University of California, Irvine, where she studied theater, and first started directing during the two years she lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Wood has directed several productions at Exit Theater and has a longstanding partnership with Theatre Rhino, the only LGBTQ theatre in the country.
Describe yourself in a six-word sentence.
I am loved by amazing women.
What was the last thing you shared on social media?
“Then she [Francoise Gilot] told me how three-quarters of a century ago, during the occupation of Paris in the war, she had learned how to meditate at a friend’s house.
‘The first time I went over, she put a small plant on the table and we looked at it without saying a word for an hour. Every week was like that until a year had passed. Then she replaced the plant with a shell, in the third year with a stone, and in the fourth year with a tiny candle.’
I tried to imagine how much willpower it took to stare at a plant for hours without saying a word in the middle of occupied Paris and not break down in tears. For four years, she had meditated with her friend in this way and had learned to allow all fear, care, and daily hardships to fall away and to give herself over completely to the moment…. ‘The fifth year, Paris was liberated,’ I said. ‘Then you surely had other things to do than meditate.’
‘On the contrary. In the fifth year, we contemplated nothing.'”
– Malte Herwig, The Woman Who Says No: Francoise Gilot on her life with and without Picasso
What do you think is the main challenge facing LGBTQ people in your community?
Currently? The unpopular Elected President of the United States.
What is your favorite LGBTQ business where you live?
For theatre, Theatre Rhinoceros and New Conservatory Theatre Center. For bread, Jane, at 925 Larkin Street in San Francisco. And with bread and theatre, my life is pretty close to complete.
What advice do you have for people looking to be just like you?
Better to be just like yourself.
“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” – Oscar Wilde, De Profundis. Which may seem somewhat ironic for an actor to say, but I would argue that inhabiting other lives on stage has helped me to be myself when off it.
