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.
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.
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