What does it take to get a decent acting role these days? A darned long commute, at least according to several non-Equity performers who are choosing to drive from Columbus, Indianapolis, Dayton, and not-quite-Northern Kentucky to perform on local stages.

 

Performers at Ovation and Covedale have been braving cold, weather and rising gas prices to spend these winter weeks driving to Cincinnati almost nightly for rehearsals and performances. And, no, they’re not breaking even on their financial investment although, they say, feeding the artist within is what counts.

At Ovation, where ‘And Then They Came for Me” plays Jan. 31-Feb. 16 at the Aronoff’s Fifth Third Bank Theater, Ilse Apestegui commutes from Henry County, midway between Louisville and Cincinnati and Roger Ortman is in from Indianapolis. Ortman has the advantage of a guest suite at Thomas Moore College, where Ovation artistic director Alana Ghent heads the theater department.

 

Ghent is bemused but delighted. When she realized that Ortman lived in Indy, “I thought he’d never take the role,” but Ghent reasoned that he traveled to Cincinnati to audition for the Anne Frank drama, so chances were he knew what he’d be getting into. It turns out Ortman loves the show which, says Ghent, is “essentially about can this happen again and how do we reflect on that fact now?”

 

Apestegui, primarily an opera performer, is a native of Costa Rica who was recently Portuguese dialect coach for “The Clean House” at Actors Theatre of Louisville.  

Isn’t there an easier, to say nothing of less expensive way, to get a stage fix?

 

“It’s a disease?” suggests Kristina Oost of Dayton, part of the ensemble of “Deathtrap” at Covedale Center. The show plays Jan. 24-Feb. 10.

 

Brent Alan Burlington commutes to Covedale from Columbus (“the north end.”) The drive is two hours each way, and depending on fluctuating gas prices, “$30 to $40 a day.”

 

“It’s this show,” says Burlington, who takes the central role of dastardly author Sidney Bruhl in the sneaky mystery. That and, he adds, the fact that several Columbus theater companies have closed in recent years.

 

Barry Williams, who lives south of Florence, is closer to Cincinnati than when he was among the founders of Actors Guild of Lexington in the mid-Eighties. Now he concentrates on independent film – but he’s awfully fond of “Deathtrap.”