Tony Award winner Betty Buckley plays a controversial celebrity psychic in director and writer Aaron Mark's The Vanishing Negative, available on Audible beginning May 20.
The 85-minute production, recorded remotely during the pandemic, concerns eccentric psychic-medium Celeste Fox, whose reputation takes a significant blow after a public appearance results in a tragic death. To defend herself against wild accusations and sensational media coverage, Celeste books a recording studio in Manhattan, where she aims to take control of her own narrative by recording an episode of a new podcast.
The Vanishing Negative is the latest in Mark's ongoing series of macabre, full-length monologue plays, following Another Medea with Tom Hewitt, Squeamish with Alison Fraser, and Empanada Loca with Daphne Rubin-Vega; the latter subsequently became the Spotify podcast The Horror of Dolores Roach.
An Audible Theater Emerging Playwrights Commission,The Vanishing Negative features audio production and sound design by Darren Vermaas. It is produced by Emilia LaPenta, associate produced by Phaedra Scott, and engineered by Geoff Rockwell and Aaron Kennedy.
Texas native Buckley, seen in an acclaimed performance as Dolly Gallagher Levi in the national tour of the Tony-winning revival of Hello, Dolly!, won her Tony Award for her performance as Grizabella in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats, later earning another nomination for her work in the musical Triumph of Love. She starred in both the London and New York productions of Sunset Boulevard, earning an Olivier nomination for her take on the ill-fated silent-screen star Norma Desmond. London audiences have also enjoyed Buckley's work in Promises, Promises and Dear World, and her other Broadway credits include Carrie, Song & Dance, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, 1776, and Promises, Promises.
