When theater actually works, it has the power to change your life, according to Ellen McLaughlin, author of "Iphigenia and Other Daughters," which opens at The University of Memphis MainStage next week.
McLaughlin and actress Kathleen Chalfant spoke Thursday at the theater department's bi-weekly meeting of the Lunchbox Theater and will host three workshops for students and members of the community.
McLaughlin saw "Waiting for Godot" when she was in high school and from that point on knew she wanted to devote herself to the theater.
"I was never a very good waitress," she said. "I got fired within an hour and a half from one job."
McLaughlin started going to the theater with her parents as young as six. She said she always weaved back and forth from playwright to actor, never able to choose between loves.
McLaughlin graduated from Yale where, after changing her major seven times, she finally found theater studies.
When she went into the dean's office the spring of her senior year, he slapped an already completed form in front of her and said, "I filled this out your freshman year. I'm glad you finally made it."McLaughlin graduated and moved to New York where she began the strict diet of a starving artist.
She met Kathleen Chalfant for the first time at a play Chalfant was performing in at a playhouse in Denver, Colo. The two started talking at a workshop and formed a bond they both cherish.
"It's a mutual admiration," McLaughlin said of her close friend.Chalfant has appeared on several television shows, including "Law and Order," but said she prefers the theater.
"In the theater, everybody has to come together and build this thing," she said. "Every single person on the stage is responsible for the whole thing."
"When the theater works, there's nothing more powerful," Chalfant said. "Nothing."
Chalfant and McLaughlin worked together in "Angels in America" from 1987 to 1994. The two left the show because they felt they had reached the finish line of their marathon run with the show.
Chalfant graduated from University of California, Berkeley in 1966 with a classics degree. On her way back from Mexico with her now husband, Henry, she decided to skip graduate school and embark on what would be a 40-year voyage through the theater that has yet to land."I had a whole series of lives in the theater," Chalfant said. "I kept thinking I'd gotten as far as I could and then something amazing happens and you start again."
The ability of Chalfant and McLaughlin to thrive in the theater business is the primary reason The Fred Mertz Association at The U of M decided to bring them here, according to Lindsey Stanfill, president of the organization. Stanfill, a senior theater performance major, worked with the Student Activities Council to fund the four-day workshop with the two women.
"She is a woman playwright who is doing well for herself," Stanfill said. "They know what it's like to 'make it.'
"If you're an actor your aspiration is to be on Broadway and they have been there," she said.
Chalfant and McLaughlin openly shared their knowledge of theater.
"Find people who inspire you and stick to them," McLaughlin said. "Stand next to them, just be in the room with people who matter to you."
Chalfant studied under several prominent coaches and has learned what to expect.
"The best teachers aren't people who tell you what to do, they tell you what you are doing," Chalfant said.
The two said that a well-rounded background is essential to a theater performer. Without knowledge of various subjects students are building a "hollow shell," a façade of culture that will not take them to the heights a real education would.
"If you don't have passion outside the theater, you don't have much to talk about," McLaughlin said.
McLaughlin and Chalfant will share more of their knowledge of playwriting today from 1 to 4 p.m., and hold a symposium at 7 p.m. From 3 to 6 p.m. they will critique performances in an acting master class.
"I'm honored that they are here," said Kevin Murphy, sophomore theater performance major.
