__________________________________
Me and Edward Albee: Part I
By Stephanie Kemp






There is a two year period of my life that doesn’t get much airtime.

Probably because the years were so important.  

Probably because I wish they never ended.  

Probably because they still live as ghosts in my bones, informing my days and how I move through them.

When I was a tiny person I knew I wanted to live stories: write them, act them, sing them, tell them, share them, read them, listen to them, watch them, collect them.

I had the luxury of being a Witness early, as my older sister, Tracy, always carved the paths for me to follow in or leap from. I could observe and take notes and go off grid knowing that a trail had been laid for me to cross back to safety. (I also had the luxury of always having a built in audience in the form of my little sister, Ginny, who I should probably apologize to……again.)

I knew I could be funny. This was an excellent weapon in the arsenal for both offense and defense during the entirety of childhood.

I can still be funny. (This can become very tiring when you are a grow up, if you are not careful.)

But like any person living on the planet earth, my early dreams were derailed. (I blame my friend Katie for getting the lead in our 4th grade production of “The Prince and the Pauper,” and then whoever forgot to warn me that singing into a microphone while wearing massive headphones would alter my internal acoustics and make me biff my audition to be a baby Von Trapp in the high school production of “The Sound of Music.”)

And (speaking only for this person on the planet earth), for a long time I never got my dreams back on track.

I…

…continued to only play sports.
…aimed only at mid level grades.
…ate too many Hostess products or Stouffers french bread pizzas.

(At least I also watched a billion movies.)

I went to a gorgeous college and made the world’s best friends, but I sort of hated it and felt like I never landed there. For 35 years I have blamed the college (it was Denison), but on this day I  realize (and have to confess) that it was me, not Denison, that was the problem.

I chose Denison because it was so pretty and because my older sister (still Tracy) had applied there and didn’t get in. I knew from the very beginning (and used to joke about Denison) that “I wanted to date her, not marry her.”

Until right this very moment, I thought this was a pretty funny story to tell.  

But I didn’t know why I was there.

I was afraid to try theatre.
I never wrote anything beyond what was required for an assignment.
I kept saying I would pick up piano again so I wouldn’t have to actually do it.

I didn’t create…anything.

I just jumped into whatever academics came pretty easy to me and never challenged myself to do anything scary (until I went to France, which saved and changed me forever).

I somehow didn’t even declare a major until the end of my junior year (Communications/Mass Media) and then got my ass kicked by my advisor, Kevin C, who I still love to this day, for challenging me.

By senior year, armed with some mediocre French that sounded pretty good and made me feel falsely fearless (not to mention those really good friends and also being a senior), I was ready to audition for a play again.  This might not sound like a big deal, but it was massive. Black box theatre was still where my toes tingled and my heart stopped. It mattered so much to me.

My friend, Brad, was directing a depression era play called The Diviners, byJim Leonard, Jr., and said I should audition. “It wouldn’t be for the lead, because you’ve never acted before and I really want Susie for Jennie Mae, but you should come down. It will be fun.”  Little did Brad know that I was friends with Susie and knew that she had never acted before either (and that she wasn’t even sure she wanted to be in a play.)

Still, down I went. (In 1988, Denison’s theatre department/arts base was known simply as “down hill” ... This still intimidates me.)

I sat in the back of the theatre and watched for as long as I could without being noticed, not even sure if I was going to audition. I found every single second of it fascinating. Brad seemed to know exactly what he wanted his play to be before he’d even cast it, all of the actors were so funny and cool and (seemingly) confident, the very intense theatre department director, John F was sitting off to the side watching everything like a non-dancing Bob Fosse combined with a live action Anton Ego, who hadn’t even been invented yet.  Brad was the real deal, I had to acknowledge, even though I thought maybe he’d only gotten the gig because his dad played Mr. Willis on the Jeffersons.

I was wrong.

And the shorthand I was watching in this tiny space, with these people holding folded up scripts and playing with dialects unrelated to the monologues they were performing while nonchalantly talking about something called “blocking” was the best thing I had ever seen.

Brad could literally tell within two minutes (one? thirty seconds?) who he wanted for which part, even though official casting “wouldn’t be posted until Sunday.”

When it was Susie’s turn, the room shifted. I knew she was nervous (finally someone was nervous!), but could immediately see why Brad wanted her to be Jennie Mae.

Susie had long blond hair and big blue eyes with the most beautiful (wake up in the morning style) eye lashes. Her smile let you into her soul, which was already full grown, even amidst all the college aged chaos and assholery.

Brad and Susie worked on several scenes and I got a glimpse into the process in a way that I had been craving to see ever since Katie had first ruined my life all those years ago.

I was hooked.

And knew in the best part of my bones that I could (and would) do it.

So at the tail end of auditions, Brad had me come up and read for two parts - Norma and Goldie. I liked Goldie, the diner owner.  I can’t remember if she was funny on the page, but I made her funny.  (I don’t remember anything about Norma except that she was religious.)

Brad laughed.
The cool actors laughed.
Susie was happy she wasn’t alone.

Even Anton Fosse came up to me at the end of my audition and introduced himself and asked what year I was. When I said I was a senior, he said the greatest words ever spoken:

“Where have you been?”

I had never been so happy. Especially because Goldie (or Norma - who cares?!) was a pretty small part which meant I would be able to mostly watch and learn and listen and finally take my rightful place in the space I had always belonged but forever been wronged.

It was the best day of my life.
I just had to get to Sunday.

When it finally arrived, Susie and I ran down from our hill top dorms to see the posted casting.

There it was for all the world to see:

Jennie Mae: Susie S……….
Norma: I don’t remember…………..
Goldie: Someone Who Was Not Me
(The same Me that was listed Nowhere, as Anyone)

Oh no oh no oh no………I could feel my cheeks burning and my tongue filling up my mouth, as half of the people (there were thousands) hugged each other and laughed, slapping each others’ backs, while the other half (there were three: Susie, Brad and the real John F, now as a kind grown up knowing that a real college kid had just had her whole heart broken) tried to figure out what to say to me…

Susie said:  “I wish you could be Jennie Mae. You were so good. It would’ve been so much fun.”

Brad said:  “You were great. I just couldn’t have two people who have never done a play before.”

I managed not to cry my eyes out and reassemble a version of my former self as I headed out the door, ready to crawol back up the hill alone, when John F followed me out, tapped my shoulder and said:

“Don’t let this derail you.  You are really good.  I would’ve had you play a lead. Audition for the spring show.”

Obviously knowing that I couldn’t form words as my eyes started to spill out oceans of tears, he pointed at me and said again:

Don’t.
Let.
This.
Derail.
You.

“See you in the spring.”

Well, I didn’t see him in the spring.  (But I did recover enough to see The Diviners, which was very good, even Norma and Goldie and especially Susie.)

Then I put the lid on the acting box for several more years, until the monster busted out again and demanded to do a two year theatre program at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

(I got in with a monologue from The Diviners and a recommendation letter from the British filmmaker Michael Apted, my first real mentor after I started working in film after watching all those movies).

I bet you’re wondering when I’m going to get to the part about Me and Edward Albee or circle back to that two year period of time that - still - isn’t getting much airtime.

Me too.

I will.

(I will!)


cc: Rendon