10 Questions — Alexandra Linn | Washington Theatre Guide | TheatreWashington

10 Questions — Alexandra Linn

July 30, 2012 | by Manny Strauss

First show you saw:
The first one I can truly remember was a production of Aesop’s Fables at the Monmouth Theater in Monmouth, Maine, though I was a volunteer usher with the company every summer from the age of 5 so I’m sure there were a few Shakespearean comedies thrown into the early mix.

First involvement in a theatrical production:
I played a banquet guest in the Scottish play in first grade. The performance was cast from fifth and third grade, but with an older sister in the cast I had an “in”. I had a gorgeous period gown and held up a goblet full of apple juice to toast, “All hail Macbeth, long live Macbeth”. I really knew I was hooked though when I could recite the witches’ “Double, Double” chant by heart before opening night!

Favorite play / musical:
How to choose, how to choose? Favorite play most likely is Frozen by Bryony Lavery, the first show I saw in the Washington area, in fact, at Colonial Players in Annapolis. Favorite musical is the more difficult to answer. In The Heights and Sunday in the Park with George would definitely be at the top of the list, but I also have a soft spot for the oldie-but-goodies like South Pacific or even the Gershwins’ Rosalie.

Favorite playwright / composer:
Seriously, again, how to choose?! I don’t know if I’ve truly come across a favorite playwright as of yet. I devour scripts every chance I get, however, I’ve yet to really find one playwright who, based on their entire body of work, I can call a favorite. If I had to pick a few, Caryl Churchill, Kenneth Lonergan, and David Lindsay-Abaire would be top three. Composer, on the other hand, is an easy one. Sondheim and the Gershwins hands down. All three can do no wrong!

What you like most about Washington area theatre community:
There is something so incredibly magnanimous about this city’s theater community, from the benefactors to the young artists who make a point to get out and see one another’s shows. I grew up in very small towns in New England, and despite the big city amenities of D.C., there is still a small-town charm to the theater community here. You can pass a fellow artist on 14th or U or F and say hey. Though I just now am coming up on my D.C. debut, I already feel an immense support. I’ve never felt lonely in this new place.

Something others are often surprised to find out about you:
Oh so many things would not have made me an actor! I played every sport imaginable from elementary school through my first two years of college — throwing discus, javelin, and shot put for track and field, taking karate for a couple years, even playing a season of boy’s lacrosse because there wasn’t a girl’s team. And one more, I am a proud partner in a family business raising organic oysters on the coast of Maine.

Other than your significant other, who would be your dream date (living or dead)?
Donald O’Connor or Fred Astaire. I took up competitive ballroom dancing in college and had always been a huge fan of the classic movie musicals. I’d dance backwards in heels with either of those gentlemen crooning any day!

If not theatre, then what?
Anthropology via documentary filmmaking and journalism — my other degree from Colby College.

Why do you do what you do?
I wholeheartedly believe in the power of art and theater as a social and educational medium. Call it the anthropologist in me, the performance studies devotee. I am particularly enamored by hidden narratives, or stories otherwise untold brought to life 8 times a week. I feel a sense of responsibility to take care of those stories whether as an actor or facilitator or humble and engaged audience member.
There’s a Franco-American poem I discovered when working on a little family history that sums it up for me:

"Il faut mouiller la terre pour que le graine pousse.
Alors, laissez-moi pleurer dans le fleuve de mon passé où j’ai pris le chemin des émigrés avec mes souvenirs comme compagnons.
... Tant qu’à demain, la graine aura poussé dans une terre bien mouillée. Mais, ça sera à d’autres de pleurer."

(English translation)

"One has to wet the soil to make the seed sprout.
So, let me cry in the river of my past where I took the road of the emigrants with my memories as companions.
... As for tomorrow, the seed will have sprouted in a well-drenched soil. But, it will be up to others to cry."

*** La Graine Pousse (The Seed Sprouts), a poem by Normand Dubé (English translation also by Dubé) of Caribou, Maine, was performed during the 2004 Festival de Joie in Lewiston, Maine. The poem conveys ideas of survivance as well as the artistic impulses that strive to preserve that memory and culture.

Advice for an 8 year-old smitten by theatre / for a graduating MFA student:
I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. Are you listening?...Plastics! For you cynics, no not the plastic often paired with paper! Plastics as in plasticity, as in flexibility. If I have learned nothing else from diving headlong (and headstrong) into this business I have learned to remain flexible. For the 8 year-old, keep exploring. You never know when those two years of karate, that season of basketball, or those many stilted attempts to become a robotics or materials engineer will show up in tablework. And for the graduate (though I must say I’m working from undergraduate commencement memories only), plastics. Be diligent, patient, and pliant always!