Open Rehearsal: The Court Theatre Blog
March 24, 2010
Fathers and their Actors I
In The Illusion, an old man visits a magician in the hope that he will help him locate his estranged son, the son he disowned fifteen years earlier. I asked members of the cast of Illusion to talk about their own fathers, and how they felt about their chosen profession. Here’s just a peek at some of their responses:
“My father is an international businessman. He was not too keen on the idea of me studying theatre in college so he made it quite clear that if he was going to be footing the bill, I would have a double major of some kind. I chose Communication with a focus on journalism and that worked for him. As my third year was coming to a close I was finding myself struggling to carry two majors that required a great deal of out-of-classroom work and projects. Luckily, my parents, who came and supported all my acting endeavors in school and beyond, saw a show my third year that really had an impact on my father. As my mother recalls it: they returned to their hotel room that night and he looked at her and said, “I think she can really do this….did you see how she was affecting everyone around us?” Within a month he was escorting me to the dean to change communication from a major to a minor. He has been an advocate of my vocation ever since.”
“My father is an accountant. He is also an amateur actor, singer, poet, drummer, and part-time Santa Claus. He gave me my first guitar and taught me to play “Stairway to Heaven.” My earliest memories are of sitting in the crying room of a darkened church, listening to my mom and dad practice with the schola. At three I could recite all of “The Music Man” after repeated viewings of a local production starring my mom as Marion and my dad as the quartet tenor.
“In high school, my dad was an all-star football and baseball player. He always loved to throw a ball around with me on a summer day, and I thought it would break his heart when I quit the team, but he never showed a hint of disappointment. He sold popcorn at every performance of every high school play I ever did. He and my mom still make the drive from Minnesota to see me in everything I do. He never stops letting me know he’s proud of me.
“Because more than being an accountant, expert griller, and Monty Python fanatic, my dad is an amazing dad.
“And every performance is dedicated to him.”
“My father was a small-town businessman. He owned a clothing store. But he also had a creative side. He wrote stories and had a long-standing, unfulfilled dream to own a circus. He loved animals, clowns, sawdust and show people. In fact, my parents met and fell in love doing a Ripon College production of “Death Takes a Holiday.” He was very proud that his acting professor once told him that he was just as good as Spencer Tracy (another Ripon alum). So my interest in acting was always encouraged. He was very supportive when I was accepted to Northwestern and majored in theatre. Unfortunately, he passed away from cancer while I was still in college, so he never saw me act professionally.”
The Illusion runs Wednesday through Sundays at Court Theatre until April 11.
(Make sure to visit this blog next week, where we’ll post even more anecdotes from the cast!)
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