John Moore
Christina Wellford Scott has mixed feelings about receiving the 2019 Eugart Yerian Award at the 2019 Ostranders. “It’s about awards in general,” she says, reflecting on previous Eugart Yerian honorees, and her reaction to learning that she would receive this year’s award for lifetime achievement in Memphis theater. Scott, a formidable performer and longtime upper school English instructor at Hutchison, wonders if she’s contributed enough to merit this kind of distinction.
“I don’t think of this particular award as being for people who are just actors,” she says. Of course Scott, who started out in the chorus of Carousel at Front Street Theatre, and whose resume includes so many great roles from classical and modern canons, as well as the part of monster-slugging heroine Penny Carson in the cult horror film I Was a Zombie for the FBI, isn’t JUST an actor.
Memphis: I wouldn’t describe you as, “just an actor.”
Christina Wellford Scott: Way back when I started, I asked Jeff Posson, my ex-husband, “When can I start feeling good about calling myself an actress?” He said, “When you’ve done 40 shows.”
That’s a very specific number.
It is. And I just love doing it. There are plays that fascinate me, but I can’t evaluate my standing as an actor, or my work in the craft. If I start to try and do that I’m inevitably humbled by the next project. Because I always feel like I’m starting over from scratch every time I work on a new role. All my insecurities come out. Can I do this? Maybe this is the one where I’m going to make a total fool of myself and fall down and pass out on the stage and have to be carried out.
But don’t most actors experience at least some of that? You train, obviously, so there are things you carry with you role to role.
I think it’s dangerous to carry too much with you. Because the thing I notice the most — the pitfalls I see with friends and with myself — is the minute you’ve got it all figured out and you’re going with some preconceived notions about how something should be, or what your process is, you’re defeating yourself.
You’re probably best known for your work on plays, dramas, etc. But you started out singing.
I started singing when I was in high school. I loved singing even though I probably, in some respects, wrecked some of my voice being a high school cheerleader. My great love is music. I love it as much as theater and more, and whenever I think about a character, I have to find the music in the character. There’s a sort of musical through-line through everything, even if you’re just speaking it. And if I can’t find that I can’t find my way. I can’t have a character enter me or enter into the character. It’s just the basis of everything. My master’s degree is in vocal performance and so I was doing all that and majoring in English and falling into texts before I ever started doing theater.
And if you can’t find the music?
If I read a part and it doesn’t say anything to me — because I don’t get paid very much — my first thought is, “Why would I want to do this?” Some people have said, “I won’t cast actors that won’t take any role I offer them. I’ve had that said to me. And I think, “You’re not paying enough to say that.”
Directors want commitment and working actors don’t always have a choice. But it’s a little self-important.
To me it’s so wrongheaded. If something doesn’t speak to you, and you don’t treat it as something that’s going to be exploratory to your life and psyche, why would you do it? Unless you have a contract with the theater and you have to do it. Just being on stage doing anything isn’t what motivates me. Or even attracts me.
You started out in opera. You toured with …
With Southern Opera Theatre. I was also at the Cincinnati Conservatory for three or four years. Five years? Something like that. I’d majored in English at Rhodes. I thought I really wanted to go to law school but then decided I wanted to go to music school instead. I was in school with Faith Prince and folks who went on to major careers on Broadway. Then I came home and worked for Southern Opera, and then later for Opera Memphis and managed the tour.
How did that evolve into acting?
I was singing a lot until I married [actor/director] Jeff Posson, and I’d started acting under his influence. Then he had that terrible cerebral hemorrhage and the stroke during the surgery. I was pregnant with little Jeffrey, and I just couldn’t sing. Every time I’d start to sing I’d cry. Once you stop singing like that it’s hard to get back, especially with children. That’s why I was so happy to play Maria Callas in Master Class. It was a wonderful spilling of my heart.
I know you’re musical, but still associate you more with dramatic work.
People have forgotten that I even sing. I love opera. I love choral singing. I like musicals, but I’m very picky about them. I loved doing Sweeney Todd but there aren’t a whole lot of musicals I’d just kill to be in.
But sometimes …
I remember when [Playhouse on the Square Executive Producer] Michael Detroit called me about A Man of No Importance. He gave me a demo tape to listen to and I listened to it for five minutes and I said, “I love this.” And I loved every minute of doing it. Then other people sent me things and I’d say, “No, not interested.” And then that would be the kiss of death for the next five years for working with that person. Because after you say no to somebody, they don’t want anything to do with you.
When did you finally start to feel okay about calling yourself an actor?
Normally, when I would do something, I would ask Jeffrey, “What did you think?” And he would say, “Holy buckets!” And “holy buckets” meant “you were terrible.” And that was a source of pain for me. But one show he didn’t see, for a variety of reasons, was a show called, Angel’s Fall, a Lanford Wilson play. It was my first time working with Bennett [Wood]. Jerry [Chipman] was directing. I’d just been playing Portia in Julius Caesar with [Ostrander Awards namesake] Jim Ostrander, who I loved. Jim and I had been in our first acting class together with [Front Street Theatre founder] George Touliatos. In any case, Angel’s Fall was a wonderful experience. Then I got married, he had the stroke, I had little Jeffrey, and all that slowed me down a bit. But then, sometime after that, I did The Heiress at Theatre Memphis, and that really kind of launched me.
You co-starred in that with last year’s Eugart Yerian honoree, Tony Isbell...
He played Morris. Jo Malin directed. We’d done Quartermaine’s Terms just before that. The Heiress is also where I got the terrible reputation for not being able to handle props. I was always having to enter with a million props. Then I accused Bennett and Jerry of always casting me in prop-heavy shows and making fun of me when I couldn’t handle them.
What sorts of things do you do with props?
Oh, you know — wrong props wrong scene. And I’m notorious for getting really in the moment and not putting a prop down when I’m supposed to. “Oh look, I’m carrying the gun that’s supposed to be up stage right.” So then I have to work my way back across a room to put it where it’s supposed to be.
Oh, I bet that’s resulted in some fun situations.
I was doing an Agatha Christie thing at Germantown Community Theatre and the actor playing the police inspector asked a yes or no question and I gave the wrong answer. I don’t know what it is — I think because my approach to acting is “don’t anticipate, just go.” I try to forget that I know all the lines and just walk out there and go, and respond, and sometimes that backfires on you.
Favorite shows?
I was pretty proud of Tourvel in Les Liaisons Dangereuses where I met my husband Terry. And I love doing Tennessee Williams. Suddenly Last Summer was my first Tennessee Williams show. And of course A Streetcar Named Desire. Rose Tattoo. Night of the Iguana. Streetcar always spoke to me because my mother and I had both struggled with depression — she more so than I — and that’s so real to me. And Chekhov’s The Seagull. And I really enjoyed doing Gypsy although I was sick the first week.
That’s the worst!
Wouldn’t you love to have the luxury to play a part you love for six months? Long Day’s Journey Into Night — I loved doing that. But two or three weeks, two or three nights a week? That’s just not going to do it for roles like that.
I know you’d like to direct. But are there dream roles you’re waiting for?
I would do any Tennessee Williams or Arthur Miller. And I’m very interested in new plays. But if I say something like, “I’ve always wanted to play Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” it’s not going to happen. Every time I mention something, it’s death to that. I mentioned a show three or four years ago and somebody immediately put it on their season and precast it. It happened twice with this particular role. That sounds ridiculous, but I have no way to cast myself in anything. I don’t have the resources to mount things on my own. I can beg somebody to think about doing it, but you know I have to depend on the kindness of strangers.
