Actress spends time with drama class at alma mater

by Carolyn Kaberline

Although Laura Kirk said she “didn’t fit in” when she was a student in high school, students in Lola Ward’s Drama I class, never would have guessed that to be true.

Kirk, a 1984 Perry-Lecompton High School graduate currently in Kansas to star in the Kevin Willmott production Bunker Hill, seemed perfectly at home when she returned to her alma mater and spoke to students about her career and acting in general.

Kirk, who grew up on a farm in Lecompton, earned a creative arts scholarship to the University of Kansas after high school.

“Jane Lucas [PLHS drama teacher] helped me apply and wrote my letter of recommendation for the scholarship to KU,” Kirk said. “I met a lot more people like me at KU, but they had more experience than I did.”

Following graduation from KU, Kirk interned at a theater in Connecticut, performing in such productions as The Tempest. She soon made her way to New York City.

“I really didn’t know what to expect,” Kirk said, as she told of heading to New York with only $100 in her pocket. Upon her arrival there she did house sitting, worked in an office, and held a variety of other jobs.

“I was really naïve,” she said. “After working for two weeks, I had earned $700, enough to sublet an apartment. I had signed leases before while going to college, so I didn’t think this would be any different. But when I went to move in, I found there were 10 other people who had done the same thing. I lost all of my money and still had no place to live.”

However, Kirk found a place to stay and continued a variety of jobs, but she said there were several times that she wanted to call it quits.

“The hardest part was making several big moves—to KU, to Connecticut, then to New York. There were always lots more experienced people there,” Kirk said. “So many times I wanted to quit and to stop skimping to get a slice of pizza at Ray’s Pizza. But something would always come through.”

Soon she began to get some theater roles and then a job in a theater company performing some off-off-Broadway productions. Kirk also did some work in children’s theater as well as some teaching.

“I was a founding teacher for the Dreamyard Drama Project, a nonprofit organization that brings drama and art to schools without those programs,” Kirk said. “Dreamyard has been so successful that they are opening their own school in the Bronx this fall.”

Next Kirk began auditioning for commercials and for small film jobs. Later came the role of Lisa Picard, for which she is best known.

“I started writing and making fun of myself,” she said. “Mira Sorvino looked at it when about 30 pages were done and thought it might work, so I went on and completed it with Nat DeWolf. We later started readings in the living room.

“Somehow we knew someone who lived next to Melissa Gilbert who gave her the script and then she [Gilbert] called to say she liked it,” Kirk said. “I was in Los Angeles and drove an extra copy of the script to her manager’s office the minute I heard. Melissa worked for minimum scale payment.”

The film Lisa Picard Is Famous, which not only starred Kirk, DeWolf and Gilbert, but included such notables as Charlie Sheen, Sandra Bullock, and Sorvino as well, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2000. After picking up a distributor, the film received some good reviews.

“Big films have distributors; independent films are independently produced and have no distributors,” Kirk explained. “These films go to festivals where the distributors bid on them.”

Although Kirk has done a “number of things,” including guest starring roles on television, commercials, and roles in numerous films, she says that her favorite role is that of Lisa Picard.

“There are few decent roles for women out there, so rather than complain, I decided to do something about it,” she said.

She also said that it’s somewhat autobiographical.

“Nat just got cut from a film, and we say ‘it’s a Lisa Picard moment,’ ” she added with a chuckle, referring to an incident in the film where the main character’s role—one that could have made her a big star—is cut. Kirk said her second favorite role is the one she’s doing now.

“I play Hallie in Bunker Hill,” she explained. “I’m a woman from Nortonville, who goes to New York, comes back and converts to fundamental Christianity. I’m dating the big rancher, so there’s a conflict between him and the husband I left. The film is being shot in Nortonville and Coffeyville, and there are a couple of shots in Lawrence. There’s a really nice arc with the characters.”

Plans call for the film to be completed in early 2007.

In answering student questions, Kirk says she went into theater because she “loved to make people laugh.”

She pointed out that theater, film and television all have different audiences.

“I love theater,” she said. “It’s very immediate. In theater you really do it. Film may take four takes for a scene, but I don’t have any control over which they’ll use. The down side is there is no record of your theater work, but a film record lasts forever.”

Kirk also said that “in theater you rehearse the whole thing, but film you do in bits.” Kirk says she has developed her own “theater rehearsal technique”—even for films.

“I reread the script from beginning to end,” she said. “Then I look at the script, take a deep breath, then just say it out. I might do that a hundred times.”

Kirk also said, “One technique of going over lines or rehearsing them is to do them angry, sad, comedic, logical, etc. just to see if you find anything different. It provides a rehearsal/exploration period that you don’t have in film usually.”

She also said she does a lot of research for a role. For the part she plays in Bunker Hill “I went to my pastor to talk about conversion to fundamental Christianity and found that conversion can be fast. I also did research on the Apocalypse since there are lots of references to it in the film.”

Kirk also explained the casting process to students.

“I’ve never found an actor who likes the audition process,” she said. “My agent calls the night before if there’s something he thinks I’ll be interested in.”

She says she gets the directions as to the type of role, then when she arrives, she signs in, and then it’s “just you and the camera.”

“First calls for commercials and film are usually the casting director and a camera in the room,” she explained in more detail. “Callbacks include the director and others usually, such as producers, writers, etc. depending on the size of the project. If there is a big budget, there are more people involved in the decision making, whether it is theater or on camera work.”

When students asked if she were rich, Kirk chuckled. “Only two per cent of Screen Actors Guild members make a living in acting."

However, Kirk explained that “a lot of the compensation for actors comes from residuals, and the longer you work, the more you have in rotation trickling in. I am not a big budget ‘name,’ but I do get by. It is the only job I do now. I work as much as I would like to, especially having children. I have always hoped to be a character actor and work regularly but not be ‘famous.’ That’s easier for men.”

When asked what her children, Nina, 8, and Alexander, 6, thought of her career, she said they just look at it as her job. Her children have been with her for part of the time she’s been filming Bunker Hill.

“Right now my son likes it, because the makeup artist put a fake cut on his arm.”

Kirk has been married to her husband, Nicholas, for 11 years.

“He’s a consultant in the area of digital rights management. Right now he’s developing a company based on privacy rights so he understands big projects and making your own work.”

Kirk says her husband has always believed in her and her talent, but he “gets frustrated with the business that I’m in.”

Since they’re both self-employed, Kirk says they never go on vacation, “but we do have exciting and challenging work that takes us a lot of places. We’ve met a lot of interesting people along the way.”

Right now Kirk is glad that she can work in Kansas.

“It’s wonderful to be home and have my family experience more of what I grew up with.”

In looking back, Kirk says, “I’m so glad Jane Lucas, my PLHS drama teacher, asked me to audition for my first play as a freshman and continued to encourage me through all the ups and downs of my time at PLHS. She helped me find where I fit in which is sometimes pretty hard at that age.”

Kirk is also thankful for her Kansas roots.

“I credit growing up in a farming community for my work ethic. I never expected things to come easy to me. You shouldn’t go into farming or acting to make money. . .”

Carolyn Kaberline is a freelance writer. She teaches English and journalism at Perry-Lecompton High School.