For the record, I never chose to be an actor. I was three years old, it was The Upstart Crow’s second season, and they needed a kid for Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale. I was the only kid anyone in the company knew and so I started doing Shakespeare at age three.
33 years, and 46 roles later, I guess, I have to admit, I like being an actor. In fact the last large role I did was in Frederico García Lorca’s Blood Wedding, another show we did in the second season.
Of course if you notice, Kathy Dubois Reed was in both those productions. And although that was my last large role, my next one will be in our first show of our 36th Season, Misalliance by George Bernard Shaw. In fact, Kathy’s going to be in it as well.
In the mean time, people love to ask me what it was like growing up in the theatre. I sometimes say, “I don’t know. It’s the only way I ever grew up.” But as we go through the history of the company, I’ll try to answer that question with a few more details.
Which brings us back to The Winter’s Tale and the bear. No not the famous stage direction for the play ‘Exit pursued by a bear’ but the small stuffed bear I was given to play with on stage. My parents idea was to give me a toy I was only allowed to play with during the play, to keep me from getting bored. It was the adults they didn’t take into account. One night one of the actors thought it would be fun to put a string on the bear. That night while Leontes was holding me giving a heart breaking speech, I kept hitting him in the face with the bear on a string.
I assure you, I have grown as an actor since then.