Interview with Billie Jo Konze
Lyric Arts sat down with the actress to discuss her first role on the Main Street Stage. Read on!
LA: Tell us a little bit about why this particular show interested you.
BK: I played the role of Maggie in a scene for The Actor’s Workout class at the Guthrie a year ago, and it was a very intense experience. Maggie is just a force of nature, and takes so much energy to play. It’s a great experience for an actor to have, playing a role like that.
LA: For those that are unfamiliar with Cat on a Hot Tin Roof can you tell us about the show?
BK: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is really about the decay of this family in the South. Like most of Tennessee Williams plays, actually, the play is about those people whose lives once held such promise and hope and yet they’re now just grasping at straws to keep themselves afloat.
LA: This show is a huge artistic step for a community theater to take on, why should people come out and see the show?
BK: The cast is fantastic! It may be a big step for a community theater, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t take it. There have only been a handful of productions of the play in the Twin Cities in the past ten years, by Fifty Foot Penguin, Torch Theatre, and an original production of it by Lamb Lays With Lion. The first two both starred Stacia Rice (now in the Guthrie Theater’s production of A Streetcar Named Desire) and the third was not a traditionally realistic version of the play. I think this show deals with amazing, classic themes that people can really relate to—how people deal with marriage troubles, death, truth and family dynamics.
LA: Has Cat on a Hot Tin Roof challenged you? If so, in what ways?
BK: I don’t think challenged is the right word. It is a challenging play, but I also think it has enabled me to rise to meet it. Maggie requires a certain energy…a drive..that certain other roles don’t give you. I’ve been challenged more by the ingénue roles that I’ve had because it feels like those roles don’t always give you much to play. Tennessee Williams gives you a lot to deal with, and as Maggie says “not facin’ a fire doesn’ put it out.” I really enjoy these types of roles where you have to face that fire, because there’s actually a fire to face.
LA: Tell us about the character you are portraying in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
BK: Maggie is Brick’s wife—the wife of a former star athlete and football hero, the pride of his family, who has now taken to drinking. Maggie is a beauty who grew up poor with an alcoholic father and married a man whose family had money and the largest cotton plantation in Mississippi. Maggie and Brick are in danger of losing everything because Brick is drinking away their money and they are childless, and Brick’s brother and sister in law are trying to position themselves as the “rightful heirs” to the Pollitt estate.
LA: Tell us a little about yourself.
BK: I grew up in Wisconsin with a large Catholic family on one side and a slightly less large Lutheran family on the other side. I have one sister who’s eleven years younger than me, so I was an only child for most of my life, but I had lots of cousins. I became interested in theater at three years old when my grandma took me to see my aunt’s high school production of Oklahoma!. I love singing, dancing, nature, animals (especially cats—my boyfriend and I have three of them), photography and too many other things to mention.
