|
|
Meet
R. Chris Reeder
Hometown: Madison, WI
Roles in RTSF 08:
Angelo in The
Comedy of Errors
Antigonus in The
Winter's Tale
How did you get involved in acting?
I grew up in a
small town near Seattle and had no exposure to theatre whatsoever. When
I was 18, my English class took a trip to Seattle Rep and saw The Tempest - the first time I'd
ever seen a play. I was hooked, and when I ended up at a college with a
great theatre department, I was roped into crewing a show my first
semester, and auditioned for a show a couple months later.
What was your first
acting experience?
My first year in college, I was in two classical shows in rep: Cymbeline by William Shakespeare,
and The Custom of the Country
by Massinger and Fletcher (an Elizabethan play that until then, as far
as we could tell, had never been done in North America before.)
What has been your
favorite role?
For roles that I've played, it's cliche - but Hamlet. For roles that I
have yet to play - Richard II. Or Edgar. Or Parolles. (It changes.)
What is your
favorite play?
King Lear -
it gets under your skin like nothing else. (Although if you asked me on
a different day, I'm just as likely to say Love's Labour's Lost, Measure for Measure,
Henvy V or Cymbeline.)
Who is your favoirte
Shakespeare character?
The one I'm currently playing. Or thinking about.
Why does performing
Shakespeare interest you?
There's nothing better. Every time I work on a Shakespeare play, in
every single performance of that play, I learn something new. Last
summer I was doing A Midsummer
Night's Dream, which was my sixth time doing the show, and
still, on closing night of that production, I hear a line, a scene, in
a way I'd never thought of before. The language, the ideas, the
characters, are so universal, so deep, so multi-faceted, that there's
never an end to what I can learn working on them.
Who are your heroes?
Harley Granville-Barker. William Poel. Johnny Cash.
|
|
|
