Sunday, August 17, 2008
A+E, In this Issue..., Theater

The Spotlight Awards

SP's annual roundup of the very best of local theater

Supporting Actress: TESS MALIS KINCAID

Photo: Jason Mallory

...in "The Last Schwartz" (Jewish Theatre of the South), "The Missionary Position" (Horizon), and "All’s Well That Ends Well," "The Merchant of Venice" and "Richard III" (Georgia Shakespeare)
 
During 20 years on the Atlanta theater scene, Tess Malis Kincaid has proven equally adept at comedy and drama, in contemporary pieces and the classics. Just look at her range of roles this season—from Shakespearean nobility, both stately ("All’s Well That Ends Well") and haunted ("Richard III"), to a stern Jewish mother figure ("The Last Schwartz") and a gaudy right-wing politico ("The Missionary Position"). "I’ve been extremely fortunate, not only to be getting a lot of work, but to be getting a lot of varied work," she concedes. "Too many actors aren’t given that opportunity, so I’m lucky in the sense that I’ve never been pigeonholed."
 
Which makes it all the more intriguing that, at 44, the actress might be embarking on a new phase of her career—as a musical performer. In one unexpected moment in "The Merchant of Venice," Kincaid (as a lady-in-waiting) effectively stopped the show with a brief, lyrical interlude that gave local audiences their first sound of her lovely singing voice. Who knew?
 
"My father started out as an opera singer, and my brother is one. I grew up singing a lot of choral music, but the last time I actually sang on a stage was probably back in high school," Kincaid explains. "It was really nice being able to go there again, with just that little scene in ‘Merchant,’ and it was neat that it seemed to take so many people by surprise." Among them was the Gainesville Theatre Alliance’s Jim Hammond, who promptly cast her in "Thoroughly Modern Millie," which will mark her debut in a full-blown musical later this year.
 
Georgia-born and raised (in LaGrange), Kincaid earned her theater degree from Wake Forest and initially moved here in 1986 for the Alliance’s acting internship program. (Other future luminaries in her class that year included Chris Ekholm, Vicki Ellis Gray and Marguerite Hannah.) She spent the early ’90s in New York, and then relocated back to Atlanta in 1994 with her husband, actor Mark Kincaid. (Although frequent co-stars at the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival, the last time the couple shared a local stage was in 2001’s "The Fourposter" at Georgia Ensemble, where she works her day job as its marketing director.)
 
Concurrently with "Merchant," Kincaid played straight woman to Chris Ensweiler’s clown in this summer’s comic "All’s Well," while in last fall’s tragic "Richard III," she created a ghostly presence as Queen Margaret, whose appearances gradually transformed the stage into a hanging garden of tattered umbrellas. "All three shows were a blast," she says. Even the "broad brush strokes" of her "Missionary Position" character were "a lot of fun."
 
But most significant was the experience of working on "Schwartz," which brought down the curtain on Mira Hirsch’s JTS (after 13 seasons). "There was an incredibly bittersweet feeling about doing that show, and it was such appropriate material under the circumstances, all about traditions and carrying on from one generation to the next," the actress observes.
 
"We knew it meant a lot to Mira, and we wanted to make it something wonderful and powerful—mainly for her sake at first, but by the end it became very special for all of us."—Bert Osborne
 
UP NEXT: Georgia Ensemble’s "Lying in State"; "Thoroughly Modern Millie."  

 HONORABLE MENTION:

CAROLYN COOK in "The Clean House" (Horizon)
KATE DONADIO in "Rabbit Hole" (Theatre in the Square)
MARIANNE FRAULO in "Pure Confidence" (Theatrical Outfit) and "Rabbit Hole" (Theatre in the Square)
MARGUERITE HANNAH in "A Song for Coretta" (7 Stages) and "The Amen Corner" (True Colors)
SHONTELLE THRASH in "Gee’s Bend" (Theatrical Outfit)