Julia Coffey '93, 'Well and Truly Bit' by NCS Theater

 

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Coffey: I often tell people my NCS résumé, because it gives people a very clear idea of the kind of school NCS was. In fourth grade, we did Shakespeare. I played Ophelia, and Jessica Hardesty played a wonderful Hamlet. That was fabulous, and I got to sing in that as well, which was an extra bonus. Everyone was in a Shakespeare, and everyone did such a beautiful job. I have vivid memories of that show.

 

Fifth grade, we did the Molière plays—one in French and one in English. I was in the French one—I think it was The Imaginary Invalid—and my French was not as good, so I had a very small role. However, I got to play the maid, and I got a great laugh on my one line.

 

And then sixth grade, we did the Greek tragedies. It was a very obscure Greek tragedy, and I played one of the Furies. I totally loved playing a Fury. I had actually burned my hand right before it and had a big blister on my hand, which meant that I had to have gauze, which went perfectly with my Fury costume. So I really got into it.

 

We also did a production, at the outdoor amphitheater by the Cathedral. So I have great memories of those first three years of the theater. And that was it: I was well and truly bit. After that, my parents became subscribers of the Folger, which is now the Shakespeare Theater at the Harman, Michael Kahn's company. And I started going to see every Shakespeare play I could, every season, which made the bite take.

 

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Coffey: In seventh grade, Lori Milstein cast me as the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland. I loved it and completely stole from the part in the Disney version, but nobody knew. I didn't do anything in eighth grade, but starting in ninth grade, I got to do the musical, The Pirates of Penzance. Catrin Davies and I were the only freshmen cast in the big musical. And about a week before opening, the director bumped up my part and let me be the Pirate King's girl. So I got to be in the front line.

 

Sophomore year I played Viola in Twelfth Night, and Britt Dionne played Olivia, and that was the beginning of our being the dynamic duo. I was also in Guys and Dolls. Eleventh grade, Britt and I were in The Man Who Came to Dinner, which was really fun, and the musical that year was Oklahoma. I played the dream Laurie. I did a lot of dancing back then, in the musicals.

 

Then senior year, I played Hodel in Fiddler on the Roof, and Britt and I did an independent project with Pat Witt, may she rest in peace. We did a scene from Crimes of the Heart, and a scene from a Sartre one-act, where one woman approaches the mistress of her husband, and one woman is a monologue, and for the other, she just listens the whole time. It's a very interesting little one-act.

 

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Coffey: It was nice to have Pat all to ourselves. We spent a lot of time hanging out in the dressing room at Trapier. I remember one time, one rehearsal, we were just going over the script for Crimes of the Heart. Pat grabbed this tub of peanut butter and some saltine crackers, and we were hungry, and we were just snacking on it, and she said, "While you're snacking, just run the lines." And we did, and the scene completely changed because we were not in our heads and we were just playing. We figured out the scene based on this little exercise that she gave us and this little snack that we had, hanging out at Trapier with her, and just shooting the breeze. She was really wonderful, really special. One of my fondest early-theater memories is being backstage for The Man Who Came to Dinner. I had my costume on, and I was about to make my entrance, so the lights were down and the music was on, and I finally understood in a visceral way what it means to be an actor. I just ... "dropped in" is what we call it now. I just let go and relaxed and felt the vibe of being in the space and the time period and who I was at that moment. It was an illuminating experience.

 

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Coffey: I took Mark [Bishop]'s acting class, and I still remember to this day the work that we did on Streetcar — combining the script analysis and our smarts as NCS girls with this visceral artistic desire. I remember watching him work with one student on a scene, and it was just, honestly, so wonderful watching him work with this young actress. I realized what it was about: You honor the craft, you honor the process, and that's what makes it fun. And also what makes it interesting and what teaches you. I learned a lot watching, as much as I did doing.

 

What Mark and Pat encouraged was to really focus on the role, to really focus on the details—not just your objectives as a character but also what you were doing—and make those elements more interesting than your own nervousness, or your own ego.