Patricia Gray's play is the only authorized version of The Hobbit. It's the fantastical tale of "Bilbo Baggins," a Hobbit, and a group of dwarfs who journey to recover stolen treasure from a great dragon. Along the way, "Bilbo" finds a magic ring that becomes the catalyst for the widely popular sequel trilogy of books (and movies), The Lord of the Rings.

The ring that "Bilbo" finds belongs to "Gollum," a former Hobbit who has been living alone in a deep cave, kept alive (for 500 years), deformed and driven mad by the power of the ring. "Gollum" is an incredibly popular character in literature and popular culture — a very tragic figure that you can pity and despise at the same time.

An important part of "Gollum's" personality is that, out of his madness and loneliness, he has developed a distinctive split personality. I'm far from an expert on the character but I chose to make the two sides as different as possible; one side became the master who intimidates and the other was the slave who cowers and serves in fear. I worked to develop distinctive physicality & traits as well as unique voices for each side.

I also stayed in a squatted position (on the balls of my feet) while onstage and worked on scampering about on all fours. It was a physical challenge that was quite difficult/uncomfortable at times but I think it was worth it.

The creation of my costume proved to be as interesting a challenge as the character's personality. The script suggested that someone playing the role wear goggles and a black diving wetsuit smeared in vaseline. Uh, no. That idea was neither practical nor appealing in the least. With the director's blessing, I decided roughly what I wanted to look like and just went for it.

Starting with a full-body, light gray unitard, I asked my friend & artist Maximillion Batong (who I had met during South Pacific) to help me paint the suit. Because it was a spandex suit, I had to be wearing the suit while Max painted it. After seven hours of Max's patience, talent and experimentation (with squirt bottles of watered-down acrylic paint), we came up with a really unique piece of art/costume — a suit that looked like pale skin (under the blue stage lights) with light anatomical shading, covered with dirt and clay. It was unlike anything either of us had ever seen before.

From there, I attached long false finger & toenails, tuffs of stringy hair to the head, armpits & feet and stuffed areas with cotton to give the impression of bulging bones. I also created a ragged loin cloth for my torso and developed some really interesting makeup to match. Quite honestly, It was all a grizzly sight but perfectly appropriate for the character.