Spotlight: Andrea M. Spillman '07

1) What is your assessment of Harvard’s dramatic community and culture?

Unlike the drama scene at a lot of other colleges, where you have to actually major in theater to take part in shows, here everyone can be as involved as they want. This is a great opportunity for people like me who don’t necessarily want to pursue acting professionally but are still passionate about theatre.

2) What do you find rewarding about performing? What inspires you, as a busy college student, to continue to participate in an art that requires such intense training?

As cliché as it sounds, that moment on opening night when everything suddenly falls into place makes it worth all the effort: the lights and sound and costumes and set come together with the hours of rehearsal to create something truly magical. Also, being out in front of an audience, hearing their reactions and knowing that you’re connecting with and somehow affecting them is always a huge rush. There really is a relationship between the actor and audience that can be exhilarating. I also love the whole process of taking on a character and finding a way to make her real, to lift her off the pages of the script and bring her to life.

3) Briefly describe your creative process in preparing for a performance.

I don’t really have any particular traditions of my own. In fact, I’ve been known to walk under ladders and utter the name of that Scottish Shakespearean tragedy backstage, so I guess I’m not particularly superstitious either.

4) What has been your most fulfilling artistic experience?

I spent a summer acting at Princeton University, and I really got to “stretch my acting muscle” during that time through playing a wide spectrum of characters. As one part, I played Pegora the Witch in a children’s show of the same name. This character was a sweet, wholesome witch-in-training who has trouble pegging the role of the wicked witch because she is too nice. My other character, Ruth in The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds was this very disturbed, manipulative girl who on one hand was extremely scared and vulnerable, but on the other hand took a perverse joy in emotionally injuring people. In start contrast to Pegora, she was also prone to nightmares and seizures, so I got to scream my lungs out and have convulsions on stage- Fun times. Since we performed both shows at the same time, I’d basically go from being this lovable witch in the afternoon to a very troubled teenager that night. It was certainly challenging, but thrilling to have that opportunity.

5) How has Harvard been a home to you? Has being here changed you?

I think it’s impossible to go from living at home to living on your own at college without changing. Life is so much different that it’s impossible not to. As far as Harvard being a home to me, it’s a little bit like I have two homes now, my “real” home and school, both of which I love at times and need a break from at other times. I’m lucky in that I have wonderful roommates and a great entryway, so that’s definitely helped Harvard feel like home. As far as acting is concerned, working with new people in new spaces can’t help but teach me more about my craft and myself as a performer.

6) Where do you imagine yourself next year and in ten years?

I’ll still be here next year, so I see myself continuing to act and trying to take advantage of at least one millionth of what Harvard has to offer (there’s so much here it’s overwhelming, not just in the arts, but in general). In ten years, perhaps I will be starting a theater company of penguins in Antarctica or something. Seriously, I really have no idea. Whatever I do probably won’t be in acting because it’s so hard to find work. Besides, I’d rather keep that part of myself separate from my work, and save acting as something I can do for fun but not need to rely on to put food on the table.

7) Which do you prefer: performing a student’s work or producing a work by a famous, off-campus playwright? Do you feel at all drained after performing?

Producing a student’s work is fun in that it’s always interesting working directly with the creator of the work, and you can often have more freedom, but famous playwrights generally tend to write tighter plays. How drained I feel after a performance depends on the show. Definitely all shows leave you a little tired, but some more so than other. The Effect of Gamma Rays for example was quite draining, physically involving a lot of screaming and running across stage and  having convulsions and mentally requiring me to get inside the mind of a seriously disturbed girl for eighteen performances! Musicals and children’s shows are also physically extremely exhausting, involving lots of “huge,” exaggerated movements, but they’re emotionally pretty easy. No matter what, though, I’m usually energized, and not drained, after a good performance—the exhaustion usually hits later!

8) Do you have any entertaining performance/production stories?

There was the time we were auditioning dogs for Toto and one of them peed while I was holding it—all over my costume! I thought it was pretty funny, but I’m not sure the costume designer agreed with me. There are plenty of stories of set pieces getting stuck or breaking in the middle of a show, calling for some major improvising—but that’s half the fun of live theatre!