Welcome to the Cast of Starling

It is official, we had our first script reading on Sunday night with the complete cast of Starling. Please join us in welcoming these talented, intelligent performers.

Starling is a drama set during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. It follows a Polish nurse, Halina, who has the war brought to her doorstep in an urgent and immediate fashion, pushing her out of the protective shell she has built for herself and bringing her face to face with the cost of war and the price of freedom.

Although it is, believe it or not, entirely coincidental that all three of our big annual shows thus far have revolved around central women characters (Catherine in Proof and Lainie in Two Rooms), it is very gratifying to continue the trend with our casting of Katherine Jett as Halina in Starling. Katherine is a Tennessee native who has done everything from Shakespeare festivals to big musicals and a little bit of everything in between. Most recently she was involved with the traditional Christmas pantomime at Federal Way's Centerstage for her second year running. She is also a writer and performer on the webseries Imaginary Friends. Halina covers a lot of emotional ground in this play, and Katherine brings the necessary mix of fire and ice, strength and fragility to portray this complex, haunted character. Additionally, Katherine is fascinated by the smaller, less well-known aspects and stories of World War Two, and we always value additional facets of connection with a project.

Danika Golombek has a unique connection to the material of Starling in that she is of Polish descent. She will be playing Klara, Halina's younger half-sister, and we discovered that she was engaging and capable as soon as she entered the room. She began acting at the age of 10 and started training as a classical soprano at the age of 11. Another character describes Klara, who is a photographer for the resistance, as "leaving a trail of fire" behind her, and Danika brings that kind of presence to the role, allowing her to encompass Klara's mixture of naivete and passion.

Tom Stewart is coming off his run as the ruthlessly evil Iago in Ghost Light's punk rock Othello, Black Vengeance. He has been a regular at Seattle Theater Readers, and we were glad to see him again after he had a strong audition for Two Rooms. He will play Otto, someone who appears straightforward, but who raises a lot of questions and who doesn't always have a clear or obvious motivation. Tom's handle on portraying this ambiguity was immediate, and his easy portrayal of nervous energy will be essential as well.

Henryk was a role we knew could prove a challenge. He is referred to as an animal in the script more than once, and he needs to have a menace to him that remains close to the surface throughout. Admittedly, that is something we could teach or develop with a performer, but in this case, it was easier to find one who had that attribute down cold. Stefan Hajek asked to audition specifically for Henryk, but he wasn't available the weekend of our auditions. He was, however, willing to film an audition for us, and his extensive experience in film acting clearly helped him in this regard. He nailed the potential threat that Henryk is, and at callbacks showed us he could handle the rest of Henryk's range as well. This is not his first rodeo with World War Two history, either, as he produced and featured in a short film, Decimation, set during the same period.

Last year David Klein was seen as Block in New Century's The Trial and as Gertrude in Ghost Light's gender-flipped Hamlet. We're very pleased to have him join our cast as Jozef, the professor turned wartime leader. He has a high position in the Bureau, the body that governs the Polish underground and resistance. He brings a gravitas and presence that is essential to portraying such a character. He also started his audition by asking questions and he hasn't stopped since, which we love. David performed in Poland in 1971 with a theater group from Boston, when the tragic memory of World War Two, and the Uprising in particular, were much fresher in the minds of the public, and we will definitely take advantage of that knowledge and experience.

Why We Act

We're still recovering after a very active weekend of casting, with two days of auditions for Starling. As food for thought, we'll have some meditations on that and more info on the show coming up soon, but in the mean time, we went to the source and asked some actor friends of ours why they put themselves through the potential rejection of auditions, the strenuous time commitments, and all the other hard work that goes into acting. In short, why do they do it and why do they keep at it?

Katherine Kuntz

I act because it keeps me active. Every time I do some form of acting, something is always a little different every time--no matter how many times you rehearse it. It forces you to adapt and change in a space where not always succeeding is not only acceptable--it's encouraged. It's fun and you meet people whom you would never have met otherwise.

Tiffani Pike Schmidt

When I was 9 years old I wrote a story about a girl who wrote stories. She would go hide inside of the worlds she made. She would pretend to be whoever she wanted there and whenever she got into trouble she would just pretend to be someone else. My favorite uncle was a historian at a museum in Washington State, and the History channel was making a documentary on the Oregon Trail and using the museum as a shooting location. The child actor they had needed to be replaced. My uncle recalled my storytelling and insisted I audition. I got the part.

I act to connect dots and to connect with people. I want to be heard and believed. I often find this difficult in my own life. The offer to put on someone else’s skin and jump into a story is absolutely provocative and irresistible. Moreover, when stepping onto the stage and feeling the energy between me and the other players, there is a gratification that comes from balancing that energy, much like the arm of a record player moving along the grooves of an LP. I continue acting because I can’t see where my own story begins and ends. Jumping into someone else’s skin and walking around in a new world with clarity, determination and purpose, that is an experience worth repeating.


Andi Norris

I started acting when I was five in the local children's theater and I knew from the first rehearsal that this was what I wanted to do with my life. At the time, it was primarily the attention, the feeling of acceptance, the thrill of the performance and probably also the flowers and milkshakes afterward that got me. What's kept me is the connection between people: the bonding of cast and crew; the challenge, acceptance and ultimately the cathartic embrace of the audience; the stories told for years later, rehashing memories, emotions, thoughts.

I always joke that I'm an actor because there were too many careers I wanted to do and this way I have an opportunity to try them all, and that's certainly part of it. But ultimately it's because of the connectivity.


Jason Hay

Acting is life. It would be difficult to provide a more dramatic answer to the question, “Why do
you act?” than that, but ever since I walked through the doors of a little community theatre in Coos Bay, Oregon, in early 1997, it really has been true for me. The funny thing is, I had never acted in anything before that, no plays, no classes, no training, and I entered the theatre in response to the audition notice for The Dining Room they had posted in the window. I remember feeling rather whimsical when I introduced myself and asked what an audition might entail and if I might try it. The director had me read the sides, and before I really knew what was happening, he offered me a role in the play. Actually, he offered me six. I know – deep end, right? Somehow, I found myself accepting the roles, and…I really don’t recall anything else that happened that day. I think, though, that perhaps that’s the reason I still do it. As we travel through this existence, we slip into a role and a routine, often playing it safe, attempting to structure and plan each facet of the days and days we make the same. Acting is different. It is a place where anything can happen, where we have the opportunity to bring forth something terribly beautiful from inside ourselves, to populate the mirror, and to share it with others. In the best theatre there’s this collaborative explosion in which all the joy, the pain, the love, the rage, the everything, rains…sprays...splatters onto an ephemeral world-canvas. And to be a part of that is…well… Acting is life.


Amberlee Williams

I originally decided to pursue acting because whenever I was working on a character, in rehearsals, in a class, or in a show, I was happy. Ultimately, I decided that I wanted to pursue what made me feel happy and fulfilled in life, and that let me to acting. I act because I want to be a part of something much bigger than myself. I want to tell stories that can hold the power to relay messages to audience members. I also love being a part of a world that allows people to transport themselves to a new place. They can allow themselves to scoff, to cry, to gasp, to laugh, to love, without the conventional pressures of keeping it together. They can truly respond and react in the moment, they can feel. They allow themselves to believe in anything, to believe that anything can happen, even for just two and a half hours.

I'm not sure exactly when it happens, but at some point children stop letting their imaginations run wild and become these people called grown-ups. I want to inspire these grown-ups to start believing again and inspire those children to never stop.

I'm also in it for the laughter. Nothing feels as good as making a room full of people laugh. Infinite wisdom? All-mighty strength? Invisibility cloaks? All the beauty in the world? None of them will ever be as powerful as the sound of laughter. When they asked me in grade school what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said, "funny." I don't know if I'm completely grown up yet or not (when exactly does that happen?), but I think I still have a chance of becoming funny.

As for why I still do it? I feel like you're asking me why I love my husband on his bad days or while he's going through something difficult: Because I love him and I always will. (Admittedly I don't have a husband, but I feel like this analogy can still work). I still act because I still love it, even on the bad days or even when I feel like I'm really struggling. I can't imagine doing anything else with my life. It's a rollercoaster trip of a life, and you have to embrace the moments you're on top of the world and the moments where you're at the bottom struggling to pull through. My favorite acting professor told me, "Embrace the struggle. It is beautiful. It lets you know that you're alive."

I have some empowering days where I think, "This is awesome, I am called to be an actor!" and then some days where I go home, cry, pull out my hair, curse the day I chose such a challenging lifestyle, and then eat a bunch of chocolate...Ok, you got me. I eat the chocolate on the good days too


Sofia Rybin

I act, because when theatre works, when film works, when art works, it expands our idea of what it means to be human. It makes us more compassionate. It grows our minds to imagine lives and worlds in which we are merely visitors - and it makes those places real for us. And suddenly we are not all so different. There is no such concept as race, sex, social or economic background, faith, or even imagination, that cannot be transcended and translated through good art. So I persevere in the undying quest, as I shall until I am no more. Because we always have something more to learn about ourselves as a species and as a force in this world. Because we are much more than we imagine ourselves to be, and because the quest can be endless. We are not looking for answers, but rather, for feelings and yearnings. Art is a job for the soul, not just the mind. It is harder to grow, but more rewarding.