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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us February 10, 2005 An actor's inspiration By Cindy Blankenship Tidings Correspondent For actor Kate Sullivan, inspiration has come through great actors, directors, and many other teachers, children not the least of them. Children and acting in its purest sense both strike an important refrain in Sullivan's work: truth. "My nieces and nephews are my biggest inspiration. They teach me the important things - love and being truthful," says Sullivan. The actor is happy in her new role as director of the Oregon Stage Works Acting Academy for Youth. "I do love it every time I go to acting class on Saturday morning. I'm so rejuvenated when I see the young actors on stage." Ideas for a youth academy had been percolating for a long time, she says, adding it was a long time dream of one of her mentors, OSW Producing Artistic Director Peter Alzado. Finally, the time was right. "Eve (Eve Smythe of the Hamazons) was ready to teach, and I was ready to promote. And we had a brand new theater to do it in," she says. Watching Smythe teach the children and teens improvisation, helping them to bring out their stories and validating them, reminds Sullivan of the value of improvisation to actors. "It wasn't until my first improv class that I got my fears under control," says Sullivan who took her first improvisation class early in her career, at age 20. "I learned there are no mistakes, only happy accidents." After studying to be a speech pathologist, an acting class convinced Sullivan to change her major. "I found that cohort acting and directing students were so about the work - not about ego, but about making the work better, so pure and so true. And I fell in love with the people," recalls Sullivan. Favorite roles she's played include Lil Bit in "How I learned to Drive" by Paula Vogel, directed by Caroline Shaffer; and "Park Your Car Harvard Yard" by Israel Horovitz and directed by Mel Shaffer; produced by Actors Theatre; and Emily Dickinson in "The Bell of Amherst," directed by Peter Alzado at OSW. Asked what defined a favorite role for her, Sullivan says among a few other things, "intelligent directors" and "rich human stories," the latter being a story that "delves into our perfect/imperfectness. And like with Emily, the wonderful dichotomies�the depth of feeling and talent in this person who was barely able to go outside, yet communicated so beautifully in words." As stage manager for OSW's current production, "Our Town," by Thornton Wilder and directed by Doug Rowe, Sullivan, who is new to this work, says she's gaining a new found appreciation for directors. "It makes me appreciate the simplicity of just being an actor," she says, adding that she already had a deep appreciation for directors like Rowe, a "true teacher" and "child at heart." Talking about her all-time favorite actor, Montgomery Clift, Sullivan says that the work Alzado teaches is the work of Clift's teacher Mira Rostova, a method that is very script oriented, "serving the playwright with pure interpretation." Sullivan has lived in Ashland for 16 years "off and on, mostly on" where she's worked with the young, professional theatre Oregon Stage Works and prior to that the former Actors Theatre. DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Deep Muscle Stimulator Ceramic Piggy Banks FREE Entertainment Guide Women's & Men's Slippers Accelerate Weightloss Products Backpacks Online Pharmacy Vegas Travel Guide Search Engine Optimization Student Loans Hotel & Airline Reservations Hammocks Water Filter Helzberg Diamonds Online Casinos Community Bonus Casino Mortgage Calculator Security Systems Mailing Lists Click Here Advertisement .:Advertisements:. Site Search: RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams