Who’s Next

EMERGiNG THEATERARTiSTS iN NORTHEASTOHiO

By Bob Abelman

The most popular and prevailing myth about life in the theater is the one perpetuated by the 1933 musical “42nd Street,” in which a near-invisible chorus girl goes on in place of the leading lady and becomes a star.

Few aspiring actors or theater artisans would confess to being naive enough to believe this fantasy. But none would deny that the prospect of instantaneous success on or behind the professional stage had crossed their mind, despite the odds of earning any kind of sustainable success in this highly competitive industry. Pre-pandemic statistics reported that only 38% of the 51,000 professional actors and stage managers who make up the membership of the Actors’ Equity Association work at any given time. There are even fewer jobs for other types of stage technicians and designers.

And yet, there is no shortage of impassioned, emerging local talent with their sights set on making it in Northeast Ohio’s vibrant theater scene and beyond. Canvas profiles three of them here.

ALEXANDRA BAXTER - STAGE MANAGER

Age: 21 • Born: Canton • Home: Kent Education: Rising senior in the BFA program in theater design, technology and production at Kent State University

Alexandra Baxter didn’t go through life marking random fl oors with glow tape, calling light cues when friends entered a room or yelling “15 minutes” before a family dinner. “But I’m certainly a Type-A personality,” she says, “always organizing and scheduling. I have a color-coded binder and planner for everything.” And so, it was only a matter of time before she found her way to stage management. It happened while studying to be a dancer and actor in her Jackson High School’s arts program, near Massillon, fi rst as a freshman member of the run-crew for the spring production of “Harvey,” and later as student director/stage manager for “The Diary of Anne Frank,” “Arsenic and Old Lace” and “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.”

“But I missed being on stage,” recalls Baxter, “so when I enrolled at Kent State University it was in the general theater studies program.”

After her fi rst year of courses and having had the opportunity to work backstage for a KSU production under the mentorship and advising of faculty member Tom Humes, she realized stage management was the best fi t for her interests and talents. And she has not looked back since.

“Rarely do you see a young stage manager so passionate, investigative, thoughtful and forward-thinking at this point in their artistic career,” Humes says. “Alexandra has and always will inspire her collaborators to lead with kindness, fi nd joy within all moments of the process and work to the best of their potential.”

Despite a di cult job market at a particularly challenging, pandemic-disrupted time, her family has been very supportive of her career path. “Which is wonderful since it’s clear just from looking at me that there is nothing else I would rather do,” she says.

“I love technical theater, which is very much an art form,” she says. “There’s something extremely fulfi lling about seeing a show go from the very fi rst production meeting all the way through to the fi nal strike. And stage managers are at the center of everything. They need to be fl uent in all the di erent languages that make theater happen since they are handed maintenance of the show once it’s on its feet.”

At Porthouse Theatre, KSU’s summer professional theater in Cuyahoga Falls, Baxter has served as assistant stage manager in this season’s productions of “West Side Story,” “Godspell” and “Little Shop of Horrors.” Last season, she worked the productions of “Altar Boyz,” “BKLYN” and “Quilters.” All this, under the supervision of artistic director and KSU musical theater coordinator Terri Kent, has led to her fi rst professional solo venture as stage manager this fall for “La Siempreviva” at Cleveland’s LatinUS Theater Company. The director will be Fabio Polanco, who is also on KSU’s faculty.

Baxter is still almost a year away from graduation. But she has no doubts that after walking across the commencement stage, she’ll be walking into a stage manager’s booth somewhere. Alexandra Baxter working the booth at Kent State University. Photo / Tom Humes

WHAT’S NEXT

• “La Siempreviva” by Miguel Torres at LatinUS Theater Company from Sept. 16 through Oct. 9, located at 2937 W. 25th St. in Cleveland. Call 216-369-7158 or visit latinustheater.com.

“Alexandra’s work at Porthouse Theatre and in the School of Theatre & Dance has been vital in preparing her for the transition into the industry. In both venues, she has been immersed in professional practice. As a result, a highly disciplined and effective process is part of her DNA. I trust Alexandra implicitly. She is a real partner and support in the production process. She is not only going to be an asset to me and LatinUS, but to every theater she works with in her career.” Fabio Polanco, associate professor of acting and directing, Kent State University

CASEY VENEMA - INTIMACY CHOREOGRAPHER

Age: 26 • Home & Creative Space: Cleveland Heights • Education: BA in theater/film and media studies from Bucknell University

Flying in the face of the fantasy perpetuated by the musical “42nd Street” is the reality that sexual misconduct has long been part of the entertainment industry. One of the most infamous examples was on the set of the 1972 movie “Last Tango in Paris,” where a nude, simulated sex act was reportedly unscripted and occurred without consent from then-19year-old actress Maria Schneider.

It wasn’t until the #MeToo movement that concerns about discomfort and mistreatment in scenes of intimacy have been voiced and listened to on a larger scale, resulting in more ethical practices and a greater sensitivity regarding how sex and sexual violence are staged.

This also gave rise to a new role on the creative team of a theatrical production, titled intimacy choreographer, of which Casey Venema is a local practitioner. She has recently worked productions at Blank Canvas Theatre (“Spring Awakening”), Cain Park (“School of Rock”), Karamu House (“Hoodoo Love”), Chagrin Valley Little Theatre (“A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder”), Playwrights Local (“This is Not Ramona’s Fault”) and Seat of the Pants (“Our Country’s Good”), among others.

Her training began as an actor in college, while portraying a sex worker in a 2017 production of “Les Liaisons Dangereuses.” The director brought in Laura Rikard, a respected stage movement specialist and theater intimacy educator who has worked in film, television and national tours of theatrical productions. Venema applied what she learned on stage and in workshops to her senior thesis project – a production of Lauren Gunderson’s “Émilie: La Marquise Du Chatelet Defends Her Life Tonight,” in which the title character and her sometime lover, Voltaire, play out in their passionate romantic battles by, among other things, taking other lovers.

After college, she landed a 2018/2019 artistic directing internship at Dobama Theatre in Cleveland Heights, a playhouse o ering regional premieres of important new and often risque o -Broadway plays. Venema stepped in as intimacy choreographer and is currently on sta .

She defines her job as a two-pronged activity that involves advocacy and craft. First and foremost, she ensures actors are respected throughout the process of staging intimacy, that theaters uphold standards of consent and that there is a high level of comfort in moments that require personal vulnerability between actors in theatrical performances.

“So much of the job,” she says, “is identifying each actor’s boundaries and translating them to the creative team.”

“Safe portrayal of physical intimacy requires communication and trust. Casey embodies both of these with aplomb,” says actor Abraham McNeil Adams, who worked with Venema in a recent Dobama production of “This.” “And her process is never pedantic or overbearing. Her manner is warm and thoughtful.”

Craig Joseph, artistic director of Canton’s Seat of the Pants, says “Casey is always clear and articulate in the rehearsal room. She lets actors know exactly what’s coming at them and creates a safe space in which they can explore the intimacy of a script and the story they want to tell.”

The other aspect of the job is learning the director, designer and fight choreographer’s creative vision for the show and helping to translate that vision into intimate movement for the actors.

She also coordinates pre-performance intimacy calls, so actors can review and mark their timing, maintain the established level of comfort and, says Venema, “make sure that mouth wash is part of the equation.” Andrew Gorell and Nicole Sumlin in the 2022 Dobama Theatre production of “Life Sucks.” Photo / Steve Wagner Photography

Bringing in an intimacy choreographer is gaining acceptance and momentum in the industry, but Venema – who is also an actor, director, dramaturg and model represented by the Docherty Talent Agency – is well prepared for a variable and unpredictable job market. She is also the co-founder and co-executive director of Nightbloom Theatre Co., a Cleveland-based ensemble dedicated to producing both new and canonical plays that bolster the voices of marginalized persons and provide artistic opportunities to emerging artists. The company was the recipient of a 2019 Awesome Foundation grant, intended to support projects and programs that “bring maximum awesomeness to Cleveland,” according to its mission statement.

Venema seems to be bringing that to everything she – with consent – touches.

WHAT’S NEXT

• “The Other Place,” by Sharr White at Dobama Theatre, 2340 Lee Road in Cleveland Heights, from March 10 through April 2, 2023. Directed by Nathan Motta, with Casey Venema as intimacy choreographer. Call 216-932-3396 or visit dobama.org/tickets-index. • “What We Look Like” by B.J. Tindal at Dobama Theatre from April 21 through May 14, 2023. Directed by Darius Stubbs, with Casey Venema as intimacy choreographer. Call 216-932-3396 or go to dobama.org/tickets-index.

“Having an intimacy choreographer on any production is important, but it becomes imperative when you produce the type of work that Dobama does. Her work on our production of ‘This’ by Melissa James Gibson was a perfect example of handling a challenging moment of intimacy. In that play, there is a scene that involves a woman who is grieving the death of her husband, who in her grief sleeps with her best friend’s husband. Onstage, the story is told through a series of kissing and holding in a hallway that leads into the doorway of an apartment. Casey did an admirable job of choreographing this extended moment in a way that kept the actors safe, effectively told the story and that looked both convincing and elegant onstage. (It’s) no easy feat.” Nathan Motta, artistic director, Dobama Theatre

MARCUS MARTIN - ACTOR

Age: 25 • Born: Akron • Home & Creative Space: New York City • Education: BA in musical theater from Baldwin Wallace University

Marcus Martin is living the “42nd Street” fantasy. After graduating from Baldwin Wallace University in Berea in 2020 and riding out the pandemic, he hit the ground running by landing the role of Genie in the re-imagined North American tour of Disney’s “Aladdin,” to be launched in October. He knew he was made for the stage after what he calls “epic fails” at sports. A mental light switch turned on at the age of 6 while attending a theater camp at Weathervane Playhouse in Akron’s Merriman Valley. Years later, after seeing the musical “Aladdin,” Martin realized that his dream role was the Genie. And when he saw on television “fellow plus-sized actor” James Monroe Iglehart win the 2014 Tony for his Broadway portrayal, he says he knew playing that role was a possibility.

Later that year, when he had an opportunity to talk at length to Baldwin Wallace student Kyle Jean-Baptiste – who would soon go on to be the youngest and fi rst Black actor to play the role of Jean Valjean in “Les Misérables” on Broadway – Martin knew BW’s musical theater program was the place to attend for his training.

“Kyle was the personifi cation of everything I wanted to be,” Martin says.

While a junior at Copley High School, Martin applied for and was accepted into Baldwin Wallace ’s highly competitive Overture program. There, he spent a week on campus taking private voice lessons, daily workshops and monologue and dance classes, all while working with the program’s legendary director Vicky Bussert.

As if that wasn’t enough to put the nationally-renowned BW on his radar, Martin recalls “my family had a season subscription to the Broadway series at Playhouse Square and, as I read through the playbill bios of actors show after show, so many were BW alums. When I did the college audition circuit, I already knew that BW was the place for me.”

When Martin was accepted into the program, he was the fi rst recipient of the Kyle Jean-Baptiste Memorial Scholarship, created after the actor died in an accident two days after his fi nal performance as Valjean and just before starting rehearsals for the Broadway revival of the musical “The Color Purple.”

During his senior year at BW, Martin earned his equity card performing as Marcellus Washburn in “The Music Man” at Great Lakes Theater, which was directed by Bussert. Upon graduation, he prepared to move to New York City, but what came next was the COVID-19 pandemic. From his home in Akron, “I did a lot of virtual work, including gala performances for theaters I’ve worked at previously.

“But Vicky always recommended that we prepare for an audition of a show we know we are right for, so that we are ready and ‘director proof’ if it actually happens,” Martin says. “I worked on the material for my then-imaginary audition for Genie.”

And then it was announced there would be a new national tour of “Aladdin.”

“So, when my agent set up an appointment for an audition in February of this year, I was more than ready for it,” he says. “In school I learned that you don’t try to book the role during an audition, you just try to win the room.”

Which he did. Martin was then invited back to do a work session with the associate creative team. He was brought back to dance and perform new material before additional moversand-shakers. And then there was a fi nal audition in March, where they brought in other actors to play against.

“By the end of the month, I had the job,” he says.

Martin is back in Akron learning the show’s music and building his stamina in the gym. “There’s one crazy long number that is an endurance test,” he says, “and I need to be ready for it.”

It matters little that Martin’s “42nd Street” journey does not take him to Broadway.

“While I wouldn’t have turned my nose up at Broadway, I always wanted to book a tour and do one of my favorite things besides sing and dance, which is travel,” he says.

Marcus Martin, center, in the 2020 Beck Center for the Arts production of “The Scottsboro Boys.” Photo / Roger Mastroianni Photography

WHAT’S NEXT

• North American Tour of Disney’s “Aladdin” at Playhouse Square in Cleveland, with Marcus Martin as Genie, from March 8-12, 2023. Call 216-241-6000 or visit playhousesquare.com

“When I fi rst met Marcus, I think the fi rst thing I said to him was that he should be the Genie in ‘Aladdin.’ He was not only loaded with an incredible amount of talent, his joy and enthusiasm literally fi lled the room. Marcus always demanded 100% from himself – a quality instilled by his amazing mother, Angela Thorpe-Martin. He constantly wanted the best for his fellow students and fellow performers. Landing the lead in a national tour at the age of 24 is certainly a rare occurrence, but when it comes to Marcus, it is absolutely not surprising.” Vicky Bussert, director of music theater program and professor of theater, Baldwin Wallace University