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Pendleton helps actress master role in SSLqStreetcarSSRq
Austin Pendleton’s interest in Tennessee Williams began five decades ago in Warren.
To prepare for her role in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” Cortland native Pamela Wilterdink, who lives in New York City, sought the help of acting coach Austin Pendleton.
Pendleton, of course, is a Warren native and a character actor whose screen r sum dates to the late ’60s. He’s also an expert on “Streetcar” playwright Tennessee Williams.
But Wilterdink didn’t know his Trumbull County roots when she approached him.
“I was reading with my friend, and she said I should get in touch with Austin Pendleton, who is a real Tennessee Williams buff,” said Wilterdink. “He was teaching a workshop ... and I came up to him after it and said ‘I’m doing "A Streetcar Named Desire" in Ohio, and right away he said ‘Where in Ohio? I said ‘Warren,’ and he said ‘I’m from Warren!’”
She asked to join his class, but to her delight, Pendleton instead suggested private lessons. “We worked together six or seven times,” said Wilterdink. “He was wonderful, charming and knowledgeable. Now I really have an understanding of the play.”
Wilterdink plays Blanche DuBois in Kent State-Trumbull’s production of “Streetcar,” which opens Friday and runs for two weekends. Daniel-Raymond Nadon is the director, and local theater standouts Tom and Amy Burd play the leads of Stanley and Stella Kowalski, with Joseph Toto as Harold Mitchell. Jim Lybarger, who is known for his scenic design work for Youngstown Playhouse, is handling that job for Kent-Trumbull. The remainder of the cast and crew is rounded out mostly by students.
Wilterdink’s involvement in “Streetcar” began in 2004 when she was performing her one-woman show “Myth America” — which she also wrote — at Kent-Trumbull. Nadon asked her at the time if she had a dream role that she would do as a guest artist. She had no reply at the time, but two years ago, during one of her regular trips to the Warren area, she told Nadon she wanted to play Blanche DuBois. Nadon made it happen.
Wilterdink is a graduate of Lakeview High School, where she was in the school plays (“Oklahoma!” and “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”). She also did summer stock at Kent-Trumbull. After completing her education at Ohio University, she moved to New York, where she’s lived for 19 years. She is a playwright and also is a part of a comedy act called Ham and Egg, for which she writes and performs. She has done some off-Broadway work and also had a role in the 1999 straight-to-video movie “The Waiting Game.”
She is currently a yoga instructor and also does occasional work in television commercials, including a recent national ad for WebMD.com.
As for Pendleton, his fascination with Tennessee Williams began more than 50 years ago in Trumbull County when he saw “Streetcar” for the first time.
“I first encountered ‘Streetcar’ in the spring of what must have been 1954, when it was done by Trumbull New Theatre, under the direction of the remarkable Dorothy Gmucs, at the theater they had before the one they have now on Youngstown Road,” Pendleton told The Vindicator. “I remember everything about that play. I remember every scene as it came upon me. I remember the electric way the audience responded. I remember specific responses! And I remember saying to my cousin, Lila Corbin, afterward — we had seen it together — that I hadn’t realized til then that the theater could make you so concerned with the fate of another human being.
“It was probably the night, if indeed there had been any doubt before then, that I decided I had to spend my life in the theater.”
Pendleton had high praise for Wilterdink.
“Pamela is extraordinarily good,” he said. “She is intelligent, and she has that wonderful combination of fiercely held convictions and real openness to new ideas. We had quite a few sessions, and it was exciting to see her open up to all the many facets of that awesome character [Blanche DuBois].”
Pendleton regrets that he won’t be able to come back to Trumbull County to see the play. “Oh, I wish I could see it,” he said. “To see a passionate, committed production of ‘Streetcar’ in Warren again. I’d say it would close a circle, although I don’t think a circle could ever be closed around that wonderful play.”
Pendleton’s acting credits are extensive; he has appeared in everything from the sitcom “Frasier” to the drama “Joan of Arcadia” to movies like “A Beautiful Mind” and “The Notorious Bettie Page.”
His next project, not surprisingly, involves Tennessee Williams.
“As it happens, the next thing I’m going to direct in New York is also by Tennessee Williams, and also set in New Orleans,” he said. “It’s called ‘Vieux Carre.'"
Pendleton is also working on the book for a musical version of Shaw’s play “Candida” to be titled “A Minister’s Wife.” It will open in Chicago in May.