Melisa Pereyra in the Huntington Theatre Company’s production of Stand Up If You’re Here Tonight. Photo by Nile Hawver

Theatre

For CFA’s Head of Acting, Huntington Role Required Discretion, Listening

Melisa Pereyra says her love of regional theater drives her

Anytime a new play opens, the theater hosting the production usually wants as much publicity as it can get, especially reviews and profiles of the cast members that might help attract audiences. But when the Huntington Theatre Company’s production of Stand Up If You’re Here Tonight opened at the Huntington Theatre in Boston earlier this year, veteran stage actor Jim Ortlieb was highlighted everywhere, while there was not a peep about the second, and only other, cast member, Melisa Pereyra.

It was no accident or oversight. Her role is hard to explain unless you were lucky enough to catch the show in person (it’s live run ended March 23, but it’s streaming through April 20). Playing a man desperate for human connection, Ortlieb commands the stage by himself for nearly the entire performance, engaging with the audience and inviting their participation. But only toward the very end, when he starts talking with a particular, and extremely reluctant, audience member and calls her up on stage, does it become apparent that she might not be just a random theatergoer, but the second cast member.

Pereyra, who is Argentinian, is a veteran performer at regional stages across the country. She is also the head of acting at Boston University’s College of Fine Arts, as well as an assistant professor of acting and cochair of performance. She could not talk about the Huntington show, do interviews, or say anything on social media until now because keeping her role secret was essential to the audience experience and to maintaining the surprise factor.

But now that the show has pivoted from an in-person performance to a digital streaming show, Pereyra is free to talk about the uniqueness of the role, what’s next in her acting career, and her work at BU, which she joined in summer 2021. (Watch a CFA video of her talking about her career here.)

Below are excerpts from our conversation with her. 

Searching for the right part

This is a really unique process. I was away from campus on Broadway for the semester. I came back in the fall. I knew that part of my research at BU is to continue to be a working artist. The difference between a designer versus being an actor is that our contracts are usually longer. It’s hard to find the perfect acting job that works with the demands of a full teaching load and other responsibilities. My goals were to continue investing in the BU community and be home and sleep in my own bed. There were specific things that needed to fall into place for me to make this effort worthwhile: the length of the show, the rehearsal time, the collaborators. We rehearsed only three days in Boston. The Broadway understudy experience was a great bedrock for me, because it allowed me to execute a performance in a high-pressure environment in a short amount of time.  

选拔赛

亨廷顿从之前我和艺术总监洛蕾塔·格列柯的读书会得知我在城里。我的《单口相声》试镜是在Zoom上进行的，还有复试。这很有趣，因为这个特别的游戏很大程度上依赖于“现场”体验。我记得约翰·科尔文巴赫（John Kolvenbach，剧作家兼导演）说过，我是如何坐在离屏幕这么近的地方，他想知道他是否在相机上看到了变焦。他不知道这能否转化为空间中的现场体验。

我演过很多现场的、户外的、没有麦克风的戏剧，我知道我能行。但在疫情期间做了这么多变焦工作后，我非常擅长将表演的大小与电脑上镜头的大小相匹配。It is so important to keep adapting to the medium, but not forgetting that at the end of the day, our work will be shared live and it needs to serve the space in which we perform.

观众的反应

吉姆[奥特利布，主演]是一个如此亲切的人。我非常感兴趣的是，这部戏剧要求你以不同的方式对待戏剧。这在很大程度上取决于你，观众，对这部戏的看法。如果观众紧张，就会影响我的角色。如果观众非常吵闹，那就会影响我。对我来说，我必须与观众，与你们所有人保持一致，因为我是集体经历的一部分。

这部剧是澳门威尼斯人注册我们如何成为一个整体。我对这种经历负责。大多数时候，我从观众身上感受到的是，我觉得他们松了一口气。他们很高兴我能参与其中，他们得到了很好的照顾，他们开始意识到我们正在把他们带到故事的结尾。观众想要把这些谜题拼在一起。这部剧不允许你这样做，除非你能体验到一些东西，这个故事的策划。有些人有时会低声说，‘她是这部剧的一部分’，这没关系。我的目标不是让你相信我不是，而是让你怀疑我不是。

而不是谈论她的角色

我对这个角色一直很谨慎。I am mortified that somebody I know will show up and try to interact with me, which is why I have not said much about it. 所以我在做这个节目，但是有点隐姓埋名。当我在过程中谈论过程是很困难的。事后看来，我现在已经准备好把它交给（并与我的学生分享），但是当我在经历的过程中——无论是导演、写作还是表演——我都尽可能地远离合成。

从角色中学到的教训

这个角色教会我的一件事是更好地倾听。我的目标是成为一个更好的倾听者，一直如此。在台上和台下。不断地做这件事挑战着我活在当下。你得听听演出的进展，因为每晚都不一样。（最近的）一个星期天，我们的座无虚席。每个人都在笑，很开心。吉姆对这出戏有不同的感受。我不得不去接他，并且鼓起了比平时更大的勇气，这取决于我在旅途中在哪里遇到他。与另一个演员和观众之间的那种信任是很美好的。我们一起跨越。就像任何戏剧一样——也许更有目的的是重新构思故事和剧院体验——我们的戏剧不仅每夜都在变化，而且每分钟都在变化，以一种挑战我们所有人一起飞跃的方式，不是作为被动的旁观者，而是作为集体经历的积极目击者和参与者。

What’s next

I am a Core Company Actor at American Players Theater (APT) [a professional theater just outside Spring Green, Wisc.]. I am a big believer in regional theater because acting companies provide an artistic home. I believe in the community of it. This will be my 11th season. The audiences at APT have seen me grow up, from playing Juliet to Lady Macbeth, being directed by my friend and longtime collaborator Jim DeVita. While getting my MFA in classical acting at Illinois State University, I encountered titans of the regional theater, like Henry Woronicz (who was the head of my Acting Program) and my friend and mentor Robert Ramirez (whom I met while working at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival).

The first time APT encountered my work was at the Utah Shakespeare’s Festival production of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus. Brenda DeVita approached me and asked me if I would be interested in auditioning for Juliet in a production that was to be produced two years from the date. I was right out of grad school, not knowing where my next paycheck would come from, hearing that someone was looking into the future and keeping me in mind felt overwhelming and comforting. APT has been nurturing my career ever since. My passion for language, obsession with poetry, and deep need for community continues to guide me in every space I enter, whether it be in the regional theatre, Broadway, or academia. 

Regional theater allows us to work on the local level, to engage and make relationships with the local audiences who live nearby and are invested in the theater in a personal way. Although we are making theater on the bones of a flawed business model, I try and get some joy out of the relationships I encounter along the way. This makes the process feel less transactional while investing in reciprocity in a more personal way. 

This summer I am directing a play called Wolf at the Door. We’ve been working to diversify the classics and redefine the structural models that allow stories to withstand ‘the test of time.’ In this conversation, it is important to me to be in plays that speak to the Latine community in some way. I am deeply drawn to this piece of writing and it was an instant classic in my mind the day I read it. This play is part of a trilogy from the playwright Marisela Treviño Orta, whose play The River Bride, directed by Robert Ramirez, was on the APT stage in 2019 and where I had the opportunity to play the leading role of Helena. I am so excited to bring another play from the series that she calls “Part of a cycle of grim Latine fairy tale plays which are inspired by Latinx mythololy and are informed by the European fairy tale canon.” It’s gorgeous and dangerous. A story about the resilience of women and the lengths we will go to protect our homes, our autonomy, and ultimately our futures.  

Time at BU

We are all educationally in a moment of transition, trying to figure out culturally what is important to our community. We are working on defining what that community is. For me, it’s important to uplift the Latine theater community not just in Boston, but wherever I am. Uplifting community is what theater is supposed to be.  

What I’ve loved about Stand Up If You’re Here Tonight is that it asks people to trust. We are at a point nationally where it’s hard to have that trust and connection. We’re struggling to build and invest in that; in rehearsal rooms, in classrooms, in moments of uncertainty and political upheaval. But we want to: we want to trust. We are hungry for it. It will be up to us to decide how we pick up the narrative and what contributions we choose to make on and off the stage. Until then, I choose to keep fighting for authentic connection no matter the platform.  

亨廷顿剧院公司制作的《如果你今晚在这里就站起来》将在4月20日之前在线播放。在这里购买数字门票。