Stage Q&A: Actor Charles Fugate subbed vocal pipes for the plumbing kind, and we’re the better for it
Charles Fugate has seriously followed his bliss. How else to explain moving across the career continuum, from mechanical engineer to actor.
Who knew that this performer had worked for Burns & McDonnell in the ’90s, “doing support work for their water and wastewater treatment division, metal plating and finishing facilities, and process chemicals division,” he writes in an e-mail. “Which sounds a lot more impressive than the actual work of laying out plumbing piping and selecting fans.” But then he turned avocation into vocation after landing in a musical production at UMKC.
Fugate has become a familiar presence onstage, having appeared in Carousel, Our Town, A Christmas Carol, A Little Night Music, Shipwrecked! An Entertainment, Journey’s End, The Mousetrap, The Real Inspector Hound, Cabaret … and on. In the Rep’s recent production of Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park With George, he portrayed a rival artist to Georges Seurat, and beginning next week, he co-stars in Jeffrey Hatcher’s two-person adaptation of The Turn of the Screw, Henry James’ 1898 ghost story, being staged, in time for Halloween, by Spinning Tree Theatre. A busy guy. But he took time out to answer our questions.
The Pitch: Where’s home?
Fugate: Kansas City — well, Overland Park (by way of a childhood in Jefferson City, Missouri).
What brought you to KC or kept you here?
My degree and early adult career was in engineering. A job brought me here right out of college. When I dedicated myself to theater full time, the vibrant work and community of theaters and actors — as well as the fact that one could make a really happy life in KC — told me that I was already in the right spot.
What originally lit the theater spark?
In third grade, I saw George M! at the local high school and I was enthralled. That summer, my parents took me to audition for a children’s show (The Lion Who Wouldn’t) at the city community theater. Sometime after being cast, they threatened to withdraw me from the show. I had a meltdown: crying, begging, pounding the floor. To this day, I couldn’t tell you how I knew that it would be so important to me. But I knew.
How and when did you decide on a life in theater?
Acting and watching theater was always a passion of mine, but as a hobby. After leaving engineering, I was casting about for what was next and found myself in a musical at UMKC. One sunny Saturday afternoon, stuck in a rehearsal hall for eight hours, I looked around this unattractive, stale-smelling room with torn mirror curtains and worn-bare floorboards and thought, “This is it! Of all the more pleasant places I could be today, I’ve never felt more fulfilled than right here. This is where I want to be.”
What’s the best part about what you do?
Creating fullness and life from the written word — getting to know and flesh out the characters as fully realized people with pasts and loves and needs and defeats and successes. The moments when you are looking into the eyes of another actor and communicating so completely, both as the characters and as the actors, life feels electric in those moments. That, and they clap for you at the end …
What’s the hardest part?
Schedule. My husband works “normal” daytime hours. When I’m in performances (sometimes rehearsals, too), we get only one night a week at home together. I try to be a little selective these days about too many projects too close together, and we make the very most of the time I do have off.
What’s the worst thing that has happened during a performance?
I fell off the stage. Shakespeare Festival 2001, The Tempest — water on the deck, sand pit in the middle, oversized galoshes on, my Grandpa had passed away that morning, and I gave myself an extra burst of energy to overcome it all as I ran to place at the front of the stage. I overshot my mark and somersaulted 3 feet down right into the audience.
What’s the best thing?
I was doing Quixote in Man of la Mancha, and a friend whose personal life was in a dark, abusive place came to see it. She was in tears meeting me after: The metaphor that you can rise above and escape the dungeon that is your life — the message she needed most to hear — had landed squarely on her.
How are you affected by the audience?
They are everything. It’s the energy that passes between actor/ensemble and audience that makes live theater what it is. You can feel it in the air when they’re with you — and when they’re not!
What’s the hardest thing you’ve worked on?
Shipwrecked! An Entertainment — The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougemont (As Told By Himself) was 90 minutes of pure physical storytelling, and such a journey (of decades) and arc for the character in each performance. It was both the hardest and one of the most fulfilling.
Where did you train?
Acting and scene study with Richard Alan Nichols’ Actors Craft Studio. Voice with Molly Jessup and Jeanne Tomelleri (sadly, both deceased).
Who’s your inspiration?
From a distance, the greats: Meryl Streep, et al. But also people I’ve had the good fortune to work with here: Mark Robbins, Gary Neal Johnson, many others. Seeing working actors of such talent and stature, sometimes over the course of many performances if I’m in there with them, standing on such great technique yet continuing to grow and learn and change — that’s inspiration right there.
What’s one of your all-time favorite shows?
War Horse. Terrific story, coupled with breathtaking puppetry and stagecraft, create theater exactly as theater is meant to be. It was magic.
When will we see you next?
The Turn of The Screw for Spinning Tree (at Just Off Broadway Theatre October 15–November 1). It’s a gothic horror tale, in an adaptation for only two actors. Very dark, very eerie, very disturbing. It’ll be quite a journey.
