Actor-director John Rensenhouse answers our first Stage questionnaire

Credit the perfect home for getting John Rensenhouse back in our midst. The KC native’s career has included national Broadway tours, getting killed on TV, meeting fans on the street. Part of the core company of Kansas City Actors Theatre, he has become a familiar local presence as both an actor and a director. While readying the play Almost, Maine at UMKC Theatre (running November 29–December 8), he answered The Pitch‘s questions by e-mail.

Name: John Rensenhouse

Theater occupation: Actor, director and now managing director of Kansas City Actors Theatre

What experience lit your theater spark, and how old were you?

In first grade, playing Frosty the Snowman in a school pageant, my Frosty pants fell down. The audience laughed and laughed. Afterward, my mom said I was the star of the show. I asked, “What’s a star?” And I was hooked.

How and when did you make the leap and decide on a life in theater?

When I was a freshman at Grinnell College, I played on the golf team. Then I got cast in the spring play in the theater department, only to later discover that the dates of the play conflicted with the conference golf tournament. I quit the play. As a sophomore, the same thing happened: playing on the golf team and then getting cast in a play that conflicted. This time around, I quit the golf team. Big sea change there.

What has drawn you into directing?

The larger scope of creativity that must be used. A chance to envision the entire experience and then lead the collaboration required to produce it. Plus, as I get older, it’s getting harder and harder to learn the lines as an actor. When you’re the director, you don’t have to learn the lines!

If you had a stage name, what would it be?

Rover Conway. First pet + mother’s maiden name. Classic formula.

Where did you get your theater training?

I majored in theater at Grinnell College, then went on to get an MFA in acting from the Professional Theatre Training Program at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. This training program, one of the best in the country, is now located at the University of Delaware, where I go back occasionally to teach and perform.

What brought you to KC, and what has kept you here?

I turned 40 and felt an overriding urge to own a house. I’m a Taurus. I crave routine and stability, two things that don’t often come included with the actor’s life. I’d been living in New York City and Los Angeles, two places where I couldn’t even come close to being able to afford buying a house. I’d been doing a few plays in St. Louis and I spent some time looking for a house there. Didn’t find one. Then I came to KC one summer, in 1997, to perform at the Shakespeare Festival, drove down a street and saw the perfect house with a for-sale sign in the yard. Bought it. And said, “Guess I’m moving to Kansas City!”

I grew up here, out at Lake Quivira, so it feels like a natural place for me to be. I still have family here, and it is very important for me to stay with my father, who has been so good to me, until the end of his life. And I lucked into finding the most fantastic boyfriend ever. We’ve been together for 14 years, and he has a good job here.

What’s one of your favorite roles?

Dracula. What’s not to like? I got to play him twice, once here at the Kansas City Rep and then again at the St. Louis Rep. The other characters talk about you, build you up, and then you get to swoop in and be all sexy and stuff. Nice work if you can get it.

What’s it like to be out there onstage, in front of an audience?

For the most part, terrifying. Especially when you can see the audience. Usually the lights are bright enough so you can’t really see them, but when you can, oh lord, it scares the bejesus out of me. I’ve never really gotten over that. And that pisses me off. Because it is so much more fun when you can just forget about the people out there and fly with the words.

What’s one of your favorite shows?

As You Like It is my favorite Shakespeare play. So glad I got to be in the excellent production of it last summer at the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival. Desdemona, a Play About a Handkerchief is my favorite thing I’ve directed. I rearranged it a bit and added lots of music and movement stuff. But Noises Off is hands-down my favorite show. I did the Broadway national tour of it back in the day, 1984–85, and then directed it here at UMKC in 2007. Funniest damn thing ever. And I love it that the movie version bombed. That play is a real testament to the wonders and beauty of live performance.

[page]

How did you come to direct Noises Off at UMKC?

At a Kansas City Actors Theatre meeting, Tom Mardikes — the chairman of UMKC Theatre and one of the original founders of KCAT — mentioned that UMKC was going to do it, and I told him about my history with the play and how much I loved it. He asked if I wanted to direct it. I wish all jobs were that simple to get.

What was the seed for KCAT’s collaborations with UMKC Theatre?

They’re the brainchild of Tom Mardikes. It was his idea to combine forces. We started using UMKC student designers to design our productions, and the collaboration grew from there. The first full collaboration was Oh, What a Lovely War, in 2011, which we performed at the National World War I Museum. Now, UMKC works with many theaters in town.

How is working with students different from more experienced actors?

Working with the students is great fun. Not that working with professionals isn’t fun, mind you, but the students bring a refreshing energy and enthusiasm to the work. It is a welcome reminder of the original passion that got me hooked on theater many years ago.

You’ve done both drama and comedy – how do you approach each, as a performer and as a director?

In exactly the same way: looking for the truth of the characters in the given situations.

How are you affected by the audience?

Audience laughter during a comedy, or any play really, relaxes you and gives you a guide for how to proceed. The play becomes a conversation with them. And during the silences of a drama, you listen for the silence of the audience. It, too, is a real sign of the connection that is happening.

What’s the best thing that has happened during a performance?

I lit the queen of the fairies on fire! In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Oberon and Titania, king and queen of the fairies, meet up and have this big fight. In one production, playing Oberon, I was given a device that I held in my palm, and it would shoot wads of fire paper, fireballs, at my command. So I was pelting Titania and her band of fairies with my fury, and one of the fireballs doesn’t expire in midair but lands on the train of her dress, and it starts flaming. She didn’t notice because she’s being all haughty and shit, and so I have to go over and stomp on her dress and put the fire out. Hilarious. Oh, wait a minute, maybe that’s a bad thing.

What’s the worst thing?

The really worst thing is forgetting lines. They call it “going up,” and it is an out-of-body experience as you all of a sudden have no idea where you are, who you are, and why is everything so silent?! Five seconds of not knowing your lines can seem like 10 hours.

What’s a favorite fan moment?

During my early days in New York City, in the 1980s, I had the good fortune to be a regular on a soap opera, The Edge of Night. My character was named Hector Wilson, and he was a bad guy and eventually got killed off. So, shortly after that demise, I was walking down 42nd Street — this was before they cleaned up Times Square — and I see this hooker coming toward me and I prepare to get propositioned. She starts to get out the usual line, “Baby, you need a date?” but all of a sudden she backs up and starts screaming, “I am so MAD they killed you off! So mad! You was my favorite!” She goes on to tell me that Edge of Night was her show because it came on right when she got up, 3:30 in the afternoon, and how she loves all the characters and the story and I was her very favorite and she was pissed. I confessed I was a bit sad as well because it meant I was out of a job. She told me not to worry. “You was good, honey, and they’ll be puttin’ you in somethin’ else.” She told me her name was Destin, short for Destiny.

What’s the hardest thing you’ve worked on?

Directing Long Day’s Journey Into Night for KCAT this past summer was a real challenge. Needing to live inside the story of that family’s pain and addiction for three months while preparing for and then rehearsing it certainly took its toll. I would get home at night and just sit and stare. And drink.

The most rewarding?

Financially? Playing Scar on the Broadway national tour of The Lion King. I did that for four years, and it has set me up relatively well. Emotionally? Probably that very same Long Day’s Journey Into Night. To get to tangle with such a giant of a play and to learn its lessons has brought me to my knees in humble appreciation.

[page]

When will we see you next onstage?

Next up actingwise for me is Journey’s End, the final show of KCAT’s ninth season and a co-production with UMKC that is being presented at the National World War I Museum. It is a really good play about life in the trenches for a British squadron during WWI. I play a colonel who sends the young guys off to fight in no-man’s land. It opens in February.

Or if you are in need of some very large holiday spirit, I will be narrating the Christmas pageant at the Church of the Resurrection, at 137th Street and Roe. Both the church and the show are gigantic!

What directing project is in the works?

Right now I’m working on a sweet little play called Almost, Maine, produced by UMKC in Room 116 of the Performing Arts Center on campus. It is an intimate black-box space — such a treat to work in — and the actors are the second-year graduate students from the UMKC Department of Theatre. They are a fantastically talented bunch, and the play is going to be a funny, heartwarming gem that everyone should go see. It opens the day after Thanksgiving and runs through December 8.