Finding home away from home goes with territory for traveling stage actors

View larger image Betsy Blauvelt, left, of Front Royal, sits on her porch with Wayside Theatre actress Faith Potts, of Alexandria. Potts stays with Blauvelt and her husband, David ,when she’s performing at Wayside Theatre in Middletown. Rich Cooley /Daily Recommend This Print This Get E-mail News Alerts Buy Photos/Page Reprints * Breaking News If local news is breaking and you know about it: * Call Us: 800-296-5137 * E-mail Us * Upload Your Photos

By Josette Keelor-jkeelor@nvdaily.com

MIDDLETOWN-Every year, every time she performs at Wayside Theatre in Middletown, Faith Potts of Alexandria stays with Betsy Blauvelt and her family in Front Royal.

On a recent morning she climbed the stairs to the second floor to show off the guest room she calls her princess room in the Victorian-style country house the Blauvelts built 21 years ago.

"As you can see, they really make me feel at home," Potts said.

Blauvelt was general manager of Wayside when Potts first came to stay with her as part of "friend of the theater" housing. Potts, who also narrates books for the Library of Congress and teaches piano, performs on stage about once a year, usually at Wayside.

She stayed with the Costello family in Front Royal for four years in a row before staying with Blauvelt.

"It's a friendly place, it really is," Potts said. "I've been coming here for five years and it's like 'Oh good, your room's all ready.'"

Now 70 years old, Potts said every year she thinks it will be her last at Wayside ... until another play attracts her interest, and she again heads to the valley.

"It is like a second home," she said.

"It's a unique situation, it's not for everybody," said Wayside's artistic director Warner Crocker, who helps out-of-town actors find housing in the area.

Host homes should have a guest room and bathroom available for guests, who stay about six or seven weeks for each play, Blauvelt said.

"We're not supposed to feed them, but I've never followed that rule," she said.
She and other hosts do it because they love the theater.

"It was never difficult to find a place, a nice place for the folks to stay," she said. "They belong to us."

Blauvelt left Wayside in 2005, and though it was easier in her time to place actors in homes, times are changing.

"There's a lot that's a mystery [about] how all this comes together," Crocker said, putting on a play is very much about money -- finding the right actors, figuring out how many the theater can afford to hire and if the theater can find them housing.

"It is extremely difficult," Crocker said. The theater has two properties for staff residency -- the building across the street where permanent staff live, and a building up the street that houses interns.

"It's how we're able to get such talented people," Crocker said. By union contract, actors must have a place to stay before accepting a role.

Local hotels also sponsor the theater by offering rooms to actors from out of town. This season the Fairfield Inn in Strasburg is donating a room to Wayside for each play.
"And that's worked out really, really, really well," Crocker said.

Working as a professional actor is a lot like working with a temp agency. You might not know when or where your next job will be, but you always are on the lookout for opportunities.

"There's an old axiom in the business that it is all about who you know," Crocker said. It's an adage that actors at the theater echo.

"In this business, there is no corporate ladder, there is no 'if that, then this,'" said William Diggle, director of Wayside's production of "Steel Magnolias," which begins today.

"Networking is hugely important," Crocker said. "They're building a network."
It's how Emelie Faith Thompson scored her first role at Wayside.

"We knew each other because we had toured together before," said Dana Colagiovanni, an intern at the theater.

"Dana recommended me for this job," Thompson said. "So the theater world really is small."

Potts agreed, "You're not an unknown quantity."

"I got on Broadway through a recommendation," said Tracey Copeland Halter, of Knoxville, Tenn., who plays Truvy in Wayside's current production of "Steel Magnolias."

Those on the outside tend to define success in the business by people they see on TV or in movies, Halter said, but "The best actors or actresses define success for themselves."

Though networking helps actors get to where they want to be, it also saves directors a lot of time searching for the right people.

"Having someone with talent," Crocker said, "having someone come with a recommendation ... is a huge shortcut in the process, because you're not guessing."

Wayside attracts a lot of talent because of its reputation, but it's the intimacy of the community theater that keeps actors coming back year after year.

Potts has been in at least 11 plays at Wayside.

Returning for "Magnolias" allowed her more than a homecoming with the Blauvelt family. It also has allowed her to work with Ilona Dulaski, of Annapolis, Md., for the first time, though the two have been friends for more than 20 years.

Dulaski performed in this summer's "The Nerd" at Wayside, and currently is staying with C.J. Borden of Strasburg.

"It's really lovely staying with people in this area because it makes the theater more personable," Dulaski said.

Thompson has the entire third floor of a downtown Winchester mansion to herself for the duration of "Magnolias." A former Culpeper resident, Thompson calls herself a regional theater gypsy since she never stays in one place for long.

Colagiovanni, of Plantation, Fla., agreed.

"Not really lived in the same place for [longer than] a year or so," she said, this year excluded. She's living in Wayside's intern house through next May for her yearlong internship, her first since graduating from the University of Mississippi.

"I love it," she said. "It's been wonderful as a young actress."

Unlike many other interns in the business, the 26-year-old already has toured as a professional, but she chose an internship because of the opportunities it would afford her.
"I've [been] given ample time to focus on my stage work which is a rarity in the theater business," she said. "I was offered major roles, so that's why I took this job."

Halter, who's staying at the Fairfield Inn, contacted Wayside when she needed someplace to perform as part of her requirements as a theater professor at the University of Tennessee.

"There is just something really, really special about this space," she said. "I attribute it to Wayside and Warner and the staff at Wayside."

It was fitting that Wayside's next play happened to be "Steel Magnolias," in which she performed years ago, and she jumped at the chance to do again.

"I've done a lot of theater in a lot of places and there's something very, very special about Wayside."