Walking through the halls of Willow Valley Lakes, Candace O'Donnell gets some strange looks. Her fellow residents do a double take because O'Donnell is dressed like Queen Victoria, complete with a purple gown, white wig and crown. "We are not amused," O'Donnell remarks in a British accent. Then she breaks character. She explains that she's dressed this way for a photo shoot because she will be portraying Queen Victoria in an upcoming performance.

On Monday, Oct. 25, O'Donnell will present "Bringing the Ladies to Life - Queen Victoria, Mary Todd Lincoln and Sarah Bernhardt" at the Elizabeth Hughes Society meeting. The show is open to the public and will be held at St. Paul's Methodist Church, 398 N. Locust St., Elizabethtown, beginning at 7:30 p.m.

O'Donnell, a retired Elizabethtown College English professor, has been performing one-woman shows for years. She's played on stage at the Fulton Theatre, Ephrata Performing Arts Center and other venues. In March, she'll present her newest work, "Victoria's Secrets," performing as Queen Victoria, at the Ware Center in Lancaster.

For her performance at the Elizabeth Hughes Society meeting, she'll offer a taste of what audiences might see in her full-length shows, portraying each woman for about 10 minutes.

O'Donnell, 79, said she loves what she does, adding that she does all the research and writing for her shows. "I look for the crazy. What makes this person unusual?" she stated. "I also try to find something surprising that people don't know about this person."

For Queen Victoria, for example, she emphasizes that although the royal had a reputation for being uptight and prudish, she was anything but. "She was obsessed with Albert," O'Donnell explained, adding that she was first smitten by her future husband when she spotted him wearing tight white riding pants. "Everything she did was to impress him."

For her Sarah Bernhardt performance, O'Donnell focuses on the "femme fatale" aspect of the 19th-century French actress. "Sarah was an age defier," she stated. "She lied about her age constantly." O'Donnell said the actress was a fierce woman who continued to perform for a decade even after injuring her leg and having it amputated.

Although O'Donnell works hard to portray the humor of each woman, playing Mary Todd Lincoln makes this more difficult, she said. "She was an emotionally fragile person with unspeakable tragedy in her life," she commented, noting that Mary experienced increasing mental illness later in life. However, O'Donnell does find some funny moments in Mary's interactions with her husband and in her reputation for being a shopaholic.

Being in the spotlight comes naturally to O'Donnell, who added, "I've been a ham all my life." The mother of four and grandmother of eight said she loves performing not just because she's in front of an audience, but also because her shows give her the chance to showcase incredible women from history. "I want to bring these women to life," she stated. "I want to understand, to the best of my ability, what makes them tick. I don't want these to be caricatures. These women are compelling to me. I fall in love with them despite their faults, sometimes because of their faults."

Tickets are not required for the Elizabeth Hughes Society performance. For more information, call Marilyn Muston at 717-808-1249.