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Chelsea Clark from Cornfields to the
Bright Lights of New York |
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These days Chelsea Clark has a lot of things going right for her acting
career and it seems the sky is the limit. The dark haired, Ohio born
actress who fell in love with New York City during her teenage years
appears equally adept on screen in films, television and streaming, as
she is on the theater stage.
Last month (September 2022), she presented a reading of Joseph
Krawczyk’s The Last of the Freudians directed by Eddie Lew in New
York City.
Chelsea Clark elaborates, “I have worked with Joseph Krawczyk before. He
is a brilliant playwright and I love his work. This one is about a
college professor who for some reason can commune with the dead spirit
of Sigmund Freud. I think it is brilliant. The way it is done in the
play is he can hear Sigmund Freud, but nobody else can. I play one of
the professor’s graduate students and (my character) is still having an
affair with this professor. It is not the typical play that I am in, but
I love Joe’s work, so I am excited to be in this reading.”
As for her preparation for The Last of the Freudians, she says,
“I work from the outside in if it is a character I do not understand
emotionally. I work a lot with physicality. How does this person walk?
How does this person speak? What is the tone of their voice? Is their
voice different than mine? That will inform how to play this person if
it is not something that does not come naturally to me. This person is a
little bit sexy, which is not really who I am. She has this little
hip-hop and that is what I work with. That informs the rest of the body.
The voice kind of follows.”
“My family moved from North Dakota and I was in my mom’s belly when we
moved to Ohio. My dad got a job at Bell Labs, so that is why we moved.
They were looking for a rural setting like in North Dakota, which they
found (in Ohio). There was a little road and I remembered there was a
neighbor’s dog that slept in the middle of the road. He could snooze all
day in the middle of the road, because there weren’t any cars around. As
I got older rich people started moving in and they built up the town a
little bit. By the time I got to high school it was somewhat different,
but the corn fields are still there. Industry has built around them. I
am not complaining very much, because I got to go to a very nice public
high school for free. It was a blue ribbon school (editor’s note: this
designation recognizes schools for academic excellence) and the campus
is modeled after the University of Virginia campus.
So, Chelsea, do you come from a long line of creative people in your
family or were you the first?
“In terms of being a creative trailblazer yes in terms of acting I am.
My mother put my brother and I into acting lessons when we were very
small, thinking that if we could memorize, that is most of what school
is, so that would give us a leg up on school. I never really cared for
school that much, but acting was something I really, really liked.
I was also a ballet dancer for many years, as a child and as a teenager,
but when I was fourteen or fifteen, I started thinking of acting again.
I thought I would like to make this my career. My mom who is a very
helpful person saw that there were auditions for a group that was going
to New York for a convention. As a child I was more extroverted, but in
my teenage years I got a little shy. My mother thought there was no way
in heck her daughter would want to go to this audition, but I said yes,
I do want to go.
I went to the convention and I was picked up by the New York
Conservatory for the Dramatic Arts for two of their summer programs and
then I was accepted into their conservatory. I stayed in New York and I
went to college, got a degree and I finished the acting training at
college. I decided to stay in New York, instead of going to California.
I just didn’t feel like California was me. I wouldn’t mind traveling to
California for work, but I feel I fit the vibe of New York a little bit
better.
My dad plays piano, clarinet and guitar. My brother also plays all of
those. My grandfather played the clarinet and the recorder. There is
that creative musical background for my family. As far as acting goes I
am the first and the only one,” she recalls.
As for whether or not it was an adjustment moving from the neighboring
cornfield to the largest city in the United States, New York, she laughs
and says, “Oh yeah, it was quite a big adjustment. I did have a leg up,
because I did come here in the summer for six weeks in 2003 and then for
six weeks in 2004 for the conservatory’s summer program. I got to scope
it out a bit. The first summer was extremely hard. I am not going to
lie. It was quite jarring in the best of ways (more light laughter), but
it was exciting at the same time. I remember one of my teachers in the
conservatory told us if you feel like crying the whole first month that
you are here, that is completely normal. That normalized the feelings
that we were having. I have told that to other actors that I have met
outside of school. You are going to be fine. I promise. If you can find
the places in New York that are more residential it feels homier in a
way. What I really like about New York is there are so many different
kinds of people here. People from all over the world live here (you
can hear the warmth in her voice) and I think that is really cool.
We have the best food. Whatever kind of food you want you can get an
authentic plate of that.”
After graduating from the conservatory, a classmate of hers who is still
a close friend to this day brought an opportunity Chelsea Clark’s way. A
friend of hers who is both a director and actor approached her about a
role in a one act play called Like Us. They met for dinner to
talk about it.
Chelsea Clark remembers that dinner, and her friend saying, “I am going
to give you the play, read it and tell me what you think. I immediately
liked the play. It was out there and so bizarre. It was a play by Mark
Rosati. That is how we got connected him.
It is a two person play about a man who is being interrogated by another
person. They go through all his life and his relationship with his
daughter. I play the person who is interrogating this man. It wasn’t
written to be a woman, but it was written to be anyone. My director
thought let’s make this a shadow of who his daughter is. It is a very
cerebral play and a lot of people don’t get it. The reason it is called
Like Us, because there is an underlying thread of a chimpanzee
and how we are like chimpanzees who are the closest relatives that we
have. In the end we are all animals. It was my very first role. It was
the very first thing that I did and it changed my life.”
Soon after graduating from the conservatory, Chelsea Clark also produced
her first film, “I wrote the screenplay while I was in school and then I
joined this group that was looking for screenplays to do. Mine was
picked. I was in it and my director friend was in it and one of the
people in the group that I joined was in it. That was an interesting
experience having my own work. You are very vulnerable when you have
your own writing out there. It is one thing to be an actress in someone
else’s work, but to act, write and produce your own thing is very
intimidating. I am glad it went as well as it did. It was in a few film
festivals.
We mentioned Mark Rosati earlier and he and Chelsea Clark would
collaborate again, when the COVID pandemic struck.
She explains, “It started in 2020 when we were quarantined and we
couldn’t do anything. We were pretty much stuck in the house. I was
living with my partner, Nathan Cusson at the time and we still live
together. He was bouncing off the walls, because he wanted to do
something creative and artistic. We hadn’t really done anything for
months. He had this idea that he liked The Shape of Things. Let’s
read it and let’s record it.
He had bought all these toys for recording and now he wanted to haul
them out and play with them (you can hear her smile) and try them
out. He said hey we’re actors, let’s read this play and talk about it.
It is something creative, it is something fun. Let’s do something,
anything. That is kind of how it started (the how being Black Cat
Audible Theatre, a podcast).
I have connections to playwrights, so I reached out to a few of them and
I said do you have anything that you would like to have read? We want
material and we want to work. One person got back to me, Mark Rosati,
who is a terrific playwright. I love being in his works. We loved being
in (his play) Entrenched. Then it morphed into what else can we
do? What other things can we do, besides reading plays?
(She starts to laugh) let’s do a Dungeons and Dragons session,
record it and then put it online. What else can we do? Let’s talk about
the field of acting, being a creative person and have a discussion like
that. There is a creative hodge podge of whatever we feel like talking
about. Whatever we feel like doing, let’s record it and put it under
this Black Cat Audible Theatre production that we started on a whim
during COVID. It has been fun and we do have a few more ideas of things
we would like to do. Right now, it is just finding the time to sit down
and to do them.”
Chelsea Clark has a knack for being cast as Greek goddesses. Gee, that
must be tough (this writer thinks with a smile).
First, she portrayed Helen of Troy in the American Theatre of Actors
production of The Man Who Found Troy.
“That was another Joseph Krawczyk play. It was a little surreal. I have
never felt a strong kinship with Helen of Troy like I have with other
Greek mythological figures like Artemis. Because I did not feel a strong
connection, I had to dig deep to embody this larger-than-life person. In
that play everyone played two characters. We played the (figures) from
mythology, but then we played these real-life people. I played Sophia
Schliemann who was the wife of Henry Schliemann who was the
archaeologist who discovered the ruins of Troy,” she says.
Flash forward to 2020 and she played the lead and title character in the
play Electra, which was performed in Central Park.
She says, “We did this one in the pandemic in 2020. I wasn’t even sure I
wanted to go to the audition. It was the first in-person audition that I
was going to have (during COVID). I was super concerned about COVID and
we didn’t have the vaccine yet. They said it was going to be outside and
we are all going to stay six feet apart from each other, so we will be
fine.
I went to the outside audition in Central Park I was thinking I hadn’t
done anything live for so long and I thought this would be nice to ease
me back into the whole acting situation. I auditioned for the part of
the sister. I got a callback, but during the callback I was told that
they wanted me to read for Electra too. As an actress of course you want
a bigger role, but as a person who hadn’t acted in a couple of months, I
had this moment of terror. Oh my gosh I am not just a side character
now. I am the person who has to carry the play. Can I do this?
Ultimately, I said yes. I am so glad that I did, because the writing was
fantastic by the playwright Daniel Levin. My character had these long
monologues. We had rehearsals in the park, just the two of us. It was a
cerebral process.
This was the first time I have ever performed outside and it was
challenging. A garbage truck would drive by. There was the great bird
war. During one of our performances this swarm of birds flew overhead
and we had to project ourselves over that. We had people almost
surrounding us, so I had to be mindful that if I was facing away from
(some) people and they might not be able to hear me if I was not
speaking loud enough. There was a lot of meticulous work that went into
performing outside. It was great. Everyone was a joy to work with. In
the performance space we stayed six feet apart. At one point I was
supposed to hug my sister, so we just put our arms around ourselves.
That always got a chuckle out of the audience. It was a fun experience.
I would one hundred percent do it again in a heartbeat.”
Before we dove a little deeper into Chelsea Clark’s film and television
work, we asked her if she had a preference for any of the mediums she
has worked within.
“I do enjoy all three mediums. They are all very different. With stage I
like the sensibilities of the lights, the backstage and the dressing
room. That old fashioned kind of sensibility is something that I connect
to. When I was younger, straight out of film school, I didn’t want to do
theatre. I didn’t want to do plays. I am such a perfectionist and it was
such a fear of mine, what if something goes wrong on stage, what do I
do? Now that I’m older and I have been in plays and in plays where
things go wrong you adapt and you think on your feet. It is very much a
collaborative process, which I enjoy.
Theatre is a longer process, which I like. Sometimes, there is a lot of
table work that goes into it, before you even get onto your feet.
I feel like TV in the last ten years has morphed and it is being shot
more like film. It is not like the three-camera setup anymore. Now when
I am on a TV show it feels more like shooting a film, if that makes
sense.
With film and TV there are more opportunities for many types of stories
to be told. You can have that on stage too, but (film and TV) is also
more of an intimate process, which I really like. You don’t have to make
these grand gestures. Everything has to be internalized, because
everything that you convey is in your eyes. The camera will pick up your
eyes, so very well and if you are not being one hundred percent
authentic then the camera is going to know that and it is going to read
as false.
On stage you can fall back on the technique a little bit more. You might
not feel that particular performance, but someone in the audience might
feel like this is so moving and groundbreaking. I had people come up to
me after stage performances and say they believed every single emotion
that I was going through, whereas I was not quite feeling it that night.
I had fallen back on the technique, but I was still able to convey the
story. You have to speak from your diaphragm and make sure that your
voice is hitting the back of the theater. I enjoy being a character and
the embodiment of a character.
Television appearances have included, The Knick, loosely based on
the Knickerbocker Hospital during the early years of the 20th century,
in which Chelsea Clark played Vera, who got kicked of a women’s home for
being pregnant. We will let her tell the rest of the story, about yes
you read it correctly, another historical fictionalized character.
“She got pregnant from a whaler who is halfway across the sea. Now she
is knocked up and kicked out of the home. Life isn’t too great for her.
I really liked this part. I gravitate towards historical fiction and I
feel it is a genre that I fit into well. Being a part of it as a
principal for two episodes was a dream come true. I would love to do
more things like that,” she says.
Chelsea Clark has the classic looks for historical fiction and she tells
this writer that her mother would agree one hundred percent.
“I am Sicilian, so I think that maybe where that facial structure comes
from,” she adds.
One of the more intriguing characters that Chelsea Clark has portrayed
is silent screen star Renée Jeanne Falconetti who played Joan of Arc.
“It is a two-person play and she is caught in this purgatory setting.
There is just Renée Jeanne Falconetti and a bartender. They are talking
about her life and everything she went through in her experience. That
was a lot of fun for me. It was a short play, maybe ten to fifteen
minutes and we did it for several play festivals,” she says.
In 2013 she was also cast in six episodes of Dead On Acting, in
the role of Bobbi Princeton.
At this point her dog and cat make a cameo appearance. Hey, they know we
mentioned Chelsea’s partner and they want in on the act too.
“This was one of my bigger roles on (camera), aside from student
productions, which were all fabulous. Jimmy Martin was the writer and
also a character. The show is centered around an acting class that
teaches people how to die. You have all types of characters in this
acting class. Some of them are a version of “serious actor” and there is
my character who wasn’t an actress at all. She was a nurse who was
taking the class, because her therapist told her it would be good for
her to help her with her fear of death. My character is traumatized most
of the time. She has one huge meltdown in I think it was episode three
or four. She then has a breakthrough and taking the class ultimately
does help with her fear of death. There is this (character) arc of I am
going to be okay in the end,” she says.
The future looks bright for Chelsea Clark, she approaches her career and
life with an attitude of gratitude, she is professional and she is very
talented. She does not seem the least bit intimidated by new challenges,
despite her initial apprehension with playing the Greek goddess Electra.
What is next for her?
“I am (cast) for A Thousand Miles and it is in pre-production. It
is (a film) set on New Year’s Eve and we go from 1990 to 2000 and 2020.
It spans the decades and what happens to these characters throughout the
years. We have shot some of it, but we still have some more to do, which
I believe we are going to do in 2023. My character is Dana and during
the first scenes that we shot she is having an affair with one of the
guys who is already married. She doesn’t know that he is married. Skip
ahead ten years and she is seeing someone else in 2000. In 2020 she is
with someone (different),” she says.
The screenplay for A Thousand Miles was written by Andrew Rothkin
and Jonathan Wallace and based upon Jonathan Wallace’s play. Andrew
Rothkin directs the film.
Take time to
visit the website for Chelsea Clark or you can follow her
on
Instagram.
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You
had to know that Chelsea Clark was destined for big things, because
right beside her house was the Field of Dreams. Well, maybe that
is just a bit of hyperbole, but there was a cornfield beside the family
home. Although, dealing that hyperbole yet another blow, she confesses
she is not even sure who owned the cornfield, but it was not her family. 