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“Look at me! Look at me!”
Barbara Chisholm playfully waves her hands in the air, as she describes her blossoming passion for the stage as a young adult. “I wish there was more to how I got started in theatre, but that was pretty much it – my insatiable desire for attention!” Chisholm shares, with a deep, dimple-producing laugh.
From her junior high school days, writing and performing plays for her family, Chisholm’s professional resumé now boasts film, television, theater and a host of awards from B. Iden Payne, the Austin Critics Table and “Best Actor/Actress” in the Austin Chronicle’s 2008 Readers Poll. She has starred in two one-woman shows (producing one); was on screen for an estimated five minutes as a waitress in Richard Linklater’s Fast Food Nation and just completed a feature role for Friday Night Lights. Heather Collier, her agent for four years and president of Collier Talent Agency in Austin, says she was blown away when she first saw Chisholm on stage.
“She did a one-woman show and then, another one. Anyone who can get on stage as one performer and sustain the audience for two hours is fearless,” says Collier. “I have a great respect for her as a writer and actor. And, she does it effortlessly.”
Chisholm’s journey around the world to finding her home in Austin contains all the intriguing, heartbreaking and humorous ingredients for an award-winning play. Let’s go on stage as Chisholm, along with her personal and professional co-stars, narrates her story.
Act One: A Life on the Road
The scene opens up in the Chisholm home in Logansport, ND, where Chisholm’s Air Force parents “are tapping their heels for me to be born,” so they could leave for their next stop: Goosebay, Labrador in Canada.
“So, I lived in ND for about five minutes,” Chisholm explains to the audience. She joins the Catholic family with five older siblings, four of them “born after WWII, every two years.” There was a six-year gap between the “first family and the second family,” she says. Throughout her early childhood, Chisholm’s “second family” moved again and again – to faraway locations, such as the Eskimo village known as Happy Valley, “which is only accessible four months of the year,” and to numerous military bases around the U.S. Finally, they settled in a suburb of Washington, D.C., in the late ‘60s, after her father retired from active duty and went to work for the State Department. It was during this period of Chisholm’s childhood that tragedy struck the family.
Her “second family” included an older brother, Robby, and younger sister, Gina. An older sister, Margaret, had moved back in with the family after college. With one brother fighting in Vietnam and another serving as a “conscientious objector,” Chisholm shares, “Gina died of leukemia when she was just shy of her eighth birthday. I was nine years old. Margaret saved my life, since my parents were absorbed in their own grief.”
The family picks up again and moves to Germany, leaving the place where they lost Gina. Chisholm now plays the role of the youngest child. After five years in Germany, as Chisholm is entering her high school senior year, her parents pack again for San Antonio, where they had first met.
“That was horrible – to be a senior in a brand new school! Nobody notices you sulking when you are one of six, but when you are the only child … well, I punished my parents.” As the lights fade on the first act, our heroine shouts, “I hate Texas!”
Act Two: Finding Love and Zach in Austin
Chisholm mimics swishing down a snowy mountain slope.
She survived her final high school year in a Texas high school, where she hones her debate skills begun in Germany. Based on her favorite sport, she then makes her decision about college. “I asked myself, ‘Where is there good skiing?’ So, I went to school at the University of Colorado, where I bought a ski pass, while others were buying school books,” recalls Chisholm with a chuckle.
Spending more time on the slopes than studying prompted Chisholm and the university to “come to an agreement” and she leaves, hitchhiking to Aspen. She lands a waitress gig during the breakfast shift at Holiday Inn, skiing the rest of the day. “It’s a nice hotel, and Willie Nelson and his band come through to play for several days. He always asks for my section and is very gracious. Of course, I claim my Texas roots when I meet him!”
Chisholm eventually transfers to study drama at D.C.’s Catholic University, where her aunt once attended. After graduation in the late ‘80s, surprisingly, she moves back to the state she abhors, rather than to New York where most of her classmates head.
“I love it, but don’t have that hunger to make it there. My brother had moved to Austin, (I was still mad at Texas) and told me about all the art here. I thought, ‘I’ll go to Austin, beef up my resumé and then go to New York.’”
Her first job in Austin turns out to be with the arts venue where she now offices, as assistant to the managing director. “When I get to Austin, I go right to Zach with my resumé and head shots, and the audition people ask, ‘Do you know how to stage manage?’ I didn’t, of course, but answer, ‘Sure!’” Chisholm shakes her head. “They’re doing Brigadoon and everyone around me knows what to do, but I was so awful. The show is great, but no thanks to me!”
The theatre keeps Chisholm on. Zach Theatre’s Managing Director Elisbeth Challener enters from stage right. She can’t imagine running the show without Chisholm, and her long-running connection with Zach, by her side.
“I don’t think of her as my assistant, but my partner. In the next five years, Zach will experience tremendous growth and Barbara was instrumental in a critical project – our strategic plan, which takes us where we are today to beyond the new theatre opening in 2012,” says Challener. “I told her from the beginning, I loved that she was an actor and had the history.”
It isn’t too long after Chisolm joins the organization when she meets her future husband Robert Faires. It was his understanding of a director’s instruction, which causes her to sit up and take notice of him.
“We are auditioning for The Dining Room and the director gives him the most oblique direction. I think, ‘What does she even mean?’ But, Robert hits it and I understand what the director said by what he does,” Chisholm explains. “At the first read-through with the cast, I am attracted to him,” she adds with a love-struck sigh. “I asked the director if Robert is married, gay or a felon. If anything else, I know we could work it out.” She responds, ‘No, to all three,’ and I am in!”
Faires, her husband of 22 years and arts editor at The Austin Chronicle, remembers this day in 1985 very well. “She has the advantage over me, having watched me audition and having this reaction to it. When we are cast, I don’t know her and didn't know if anything is going to click there romantically. However, after a few rehearsals, the director says, ‘Pair up as couples,’ and Barbara is on my arm like that! Then, there is a click, we start dating and have never looked back,” he says.
They marry two years later, and in 1992, create their most famous production – daughter Rosalind. “She is funnier, smarter, has more character, is taller and more beautiful than I am,” Chisholm gushes. “She is named after Shakespeare’s character and never had a chance to even think about not acting.” Faires also raves about his daughter and his soul mate.
“Barbara really is this tremendously life-affirming force. I tend to be very cerebral, a head person. She is all this, too, but, also a heart person,” he says. “To this day, I wonder what chord I struck in her that gave me a more special place than someone else.”
The Chisholm-Faires’ are definitely “a family affair, “confirms actor Jamie Goodwin, of Sex and the City and Guiding Light fame. As Chisholm’s co-star in Zach’s production of Shooting Star, and directed by Faires in An Almost Holy Picture, Goodwin becomes good friends with the family after his move to Austin in 2003. “Barbara is a great lady to work with; she really engages the audience on talk-backs,” he says.
Both Chisholm and Faires delight in another memorable family collaboration as a gift for Faires’ 50th birthday in 2008. Chisholm tells her version: “This is my favorite story! At the time, I was producing and starring in a one-woman show, When Something Wonderful Ends, written by a dear friend and playwright, Sherry Kramer. (This is something I would not recommend you do at the same time – act and produce).” She continues, “So, I’m deeply in the process as Robert’s birthday is approaching. Rosalind comes to me and suggests, ‘Daddy’s been talking about doing a one-man show of Henry V for so long and I would hate for his dream not to come true. He’s been so supportive of you, why don’t we produce this for him for his birthday?’ My first reaction was, ‘How can I do this now?’ But it was too beautiful an idea,” says Chisholm.
Faires, who finally sees his 18-year dream come true this past summer, picks up the story. “I am a world-class procrastinator from a family of them! I had the idea for this show before Rosalind was born, but kept putting it off for many years. In a seminar we attended, we’re told to write down our dreams. I wrote down Henry V and Barbara wrote down her one-woman show. She makes good on her promise and I still hadn’t.” With awe in his voice for his wife, he adds, “When I opened my present and saw the mocked-up program, I was stunned. What a huge act of generosity.”
Act Two closes on the close-knit Chisholm-Faires family, which now includes her 87-year-old mother Gloria, sharing a laugh around the kitchen table in their beautiful and cozy Travis Heights home.
Lessons Learned from Karen Kuykendall
Chisholm’s voice deepens to a gravely delivery (think Ann Richards’ Texas drawl), as she imitates her friend’s memorable sayings:
“I am about to go on and save the show. You might want to watch this!”
Before my one-woman show, Blown Sideways, and Karen tells me, “You will work like a dog.” She was right.
She sends me an opening night note, such as, “I am out in the audience; try not to (expletive) it up!”
She was such a gracious performer, before and after the show. Always the first one in the lobby to thank the audience.
Karen was such a huge force, you didn’t slowly meet her. You were magnetically drawn into her sphere.
She was the consummate hostess, with never a sense of exclusivity. You would just as likely find a Nobel Laureate at her home, as a cab driver.
In House Arrest, she portrayed Ann Richards. It was surreal, she did her so perfectly … and, Ann was in the audience!
Karen was involved in so many areas of Austin. I watched her and learned.
How to Get More Art in Your Life
You stumble upon it – guitar sculptures all over downtown, for example.
Allow it to happen. Open up and it’s there.
My relative commented, “I love that restaurant with live music.” Try to find one without it!
Theatres are everywhere. Look up and say, “Wait a minute, there are dancers coming off that building!”
As the hub for 365 Days 365 Plays, Zach performers were on a bridge. Joggers exclaimed, “What the…,” then, “Cool!”
Act Three: Lights, Camera, Action! An Austin Icon
Chisholm attends the Oct. 28, 2009 Austin Film Festival premiere of Rafael Antonio Ruiz’s Holy Hell, in which she plays a supporting role.
Whether Chisholm steps onto the stage, performs for the camera or works her magic on behalf of Zach Theatre, her contributions meet with enthusiasm and deep respect from her peers and audiences.
“The first time I ever saw Barbara on stage was at Zachary Scott Theatre in the 1980s,” says Dave Steakley, Zach’s artistic director. “I was a student at the University of Texas and assigned to write a paper on their production, Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. Late in the play a new female character is introduced, and the other characters realize that this woman is their male friend from high school who has had a sex change operation. I didn't know Barbara at the time, but her portrayal was so convincing, my friends and I debated whether it was actually a woman or a man in drag!” he says.
Challener says Chisholm connects with everyone she meets, no matter what her role. “Whether it’s with an applicant for a position here; a visiting actor looking for a place to stay; or, answering a question for a board member, the caring is the same on the phone as when Barbara is on stage. She is there almost 24/7 for me and is the one person I turn to when I need to see if someone’s request of Zach is possible,” Challener says.
Faires has covered Austin theatre for many years. “I have seen some actors whose light is rather dim off-stage. Barbara has a blazing light on and off,” he says. “When she is on stage, you are drawn to that presence and because of her generous nature, her character will connect with whomever she is playing opposite of, as well as with her audience.”
Chisholm, the “look at me!” kid, is very humble about all the kudos bestowed upon her. A columnist once compared her to another great actor, Karen Kuykendall (featured on austinwoman’s cover in November of 2007) after Chisholm won the Readers Poll. He wrote, “She might have inherited her (Karen’s) touch,” to which Chisholm vehemently responds, “It’s not remotely true, but so flattering!” She gives full credit for her successes to those around her, especially her family. About her stage work with Goodwin, Chisholm remarks, “You are safe, with great actors like Jamie.”
She says working in collaboration with Janelle Buchanan, Martin Burke, Les McGehee, Carla Nickerson, Smaranda Ciceu, Lauren Lane and Meredith McCall, among others, has been so rewarding. With her daughter heading off to college soon (“Rosalind told me it has to be in a city where there is art”), her quest to showcase Henry V in more venues; and, playwrights knocking on her door to produce their plays, Chisholm’s future is as bright as her smile.
And, so it appears, is Austin’s, because of her. Steakley closes our play with this tribute. “Many Austinites think of Barbara as one of our city's most gifted comedic actresses and can count on her to deliver an evening of hearty belly laughs,” he attests. “In the musical, Funny Girl, Fanny Brice sings, ‘I've got thirty-six expressions, sweet as pie to tough as leather. And that's six expressions more than all them Barrymores put together.’ That's our Barbara in a nutshell and why she is one of Austin's greatest stars.”
Fade to black. Audience cheers and gives Chisholm a standing ovation.
MORE INFO
Zach Theatre
512.476.0594x251
zachtheatre.org
Collier Talent Agency
2313 Lake Austin Blvd. Suite 103
Austin, TX 78703
512.236.0500 | colliertalent.com