Telling Stories Beyond the Stage

Even going beyond the everyday nature of her profession as an actor, Karen Ziemba is a storyteller. The stories flow out of her like a firehose, each giving a glimpse of a life spent on the stage.

There’s the story describing what it’s like to play Rita’s Mom in Prelude to a Kiss, The Musical, lyrics by Sean Hartley and Daniel Messé, music by Messé and book by Craig Lucas. Directed by SCR Artistic Director David Ivers, it runs through May 5 on the Segerstrom Stage. The role marks the Tony Award-winning Ziemba’s SCR debut and she was cast after several readings in New York during the production’s multi-year evolution and development.

“In this role, I just care about my daughter and her welfare and her life. I like this guy she brought home and feel he’d be a wonderful addition to our family,” she said. “I just want her to feel more settled. She is afraid of life, afraid of things, she doesn’t want to settle down because it will be the end of the world. Life is a bumpy roller-coaster and so is being in a relationship. That’s all part of life and I want her to understand how wonderful it is we get to take that journey. That’s what I care about.”

Ziemba’s played many of the marquee roles on and off Broadway—Roxie Hart in Chicago, Peggy Sawyer in 42nd Street, Lizzie in 110 in the Shade. And there’s a tale hiding behind nearly every one of them.

There’s dancing with the Rockettes.

“My first big gig where I was making decent money was appearing as a dancer on the 50th anniversary of Radio City Music Hall,” she said. “I danced with the Rockettes. … My mother used to take me to Radio City and I always wanted to be a Rockette, but it never happened. I finally got on stage with them.”

There’s making her Broadway debut as Diana Morales in A Chorus Line, which came about after she played Maggie Winslow in that production’s national tour. And there’s landing the role of Peggy Sawyer in 42nd Street.

“When that role came up, the girl who was originally cast in it was pregnant, so I got to work with Jerry Orbach and all those wonderful people. That was my first major role and Jerry Orbach was my first stage kiss,” she said.

And, of course, there’s winning a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her stirring and searing portrayal of a 1950s housewife coping with verbal and emotional abuse in Contact by Susan Stroman. The Tony—one of four she’s been nominated for—not only cemented Ziemba’s status as one of American theatre’s foremost stage presences, but came with another story.

“Susan Stroman created that part for me and that was eye-opening and mind-blowing. … I had people tell me, ‘Karen, I lived that life for 25 years. That was me.’ I had someone who worked with domestic violence victims at St. Luke’s/Roosevelt Hospital tell me, ‘I work in this business and you totally nailed this character. I work with women like that and you really understand how these people go through this.’

“That’s what you want to do. You want people to relate to you.”

The critics relate well to the way she embraces the maternal instincts of Rita’s Mom in Prelude to a Kiss, The Musical. In his review for Stage and Cinema, Michael Landman-Karny wrote “Tony-winner Karen Ziemba and Broadway veteran James Moye, playing Rita’s parents, deliver standout performances that blend comedic timing with pathos, capturing our affection and laughter.”

C.P. Smith also picked up on the scene-stealing chemistry between Moye and Ziemba, noting in the Orange County Register that, “Rita’s parents burst with brio, veteran actors James Moye and Karen Ziemba elevating the proceedings in scenes where their characters step up to the fore.”

Perhaps some of that talent is in her genes.

Ziemba's maternal grandmother was noted mezzo-soprano Winifred Heidt, one of the mid-20th century stars of the New York City Opera, who was celebrated for her portrayal as Carmen in Georges Bizet’s famous opera. She also performed as Mrs. Mullin in Carousel on Broadway and on the NBC Television Opera Theatre. Ziemba’s home in first, St. Joseph, Mich, then the Detroit suburb of Farmington, was always full of music.

That is, when she wasn’t at the theatre. Or dancing. Or taking gymnastics lessons.

“My mother wanted to be a dancer, but she never was, so she gave that to me,” she said. “The boys went into music and sports and I went into dance and music. I took to it like a duck to water and I got a lot of attention. I was competing with all those boys in the house. I had a performative upbringing and an appreciation for it. My mother took me to the theatre and to local ballet and I came to love it. It was something she was giving to me because she wasn’t able to have that in her life.

“I’m still doing it. Beside the musical stuff, I’ve always appreciated great acting and I wanted that to be part of who I was. I wanted to be someone who could sing and dance, but it’s acting through dance and song. I wanted that to come first. I wanted my ability as a storyteller and actor to be the engine that drove my interpretation of song and dance. I think those are the roots. The grounding of any kind of good storytelling is in the theatre.”

With every story she tells on stage for audiences, the ebullient Ziemba has three more to tell about the experience of being on stage.

Back to the 2000 Tony Award, which returned Ziemba to Radio City Music Hall. She said being on the Radio City stage accepting a Tony with Rosie O’Donnell hosting felt like home and was “one of those full-circle things that was really a wonderful moment.”

And finally, there was one role that really brought her back to her roots in more ways than one—110 in the Shade, which was based on the 1954 Broadway play The Rainmaker by N. Richard Nash.

“That was a great story with a great character who had brothers. I have brothers in my life (three). I took this character who had two brothers and I sort of became a mother to them … it’s just a beautiful story in the Southwest during the Depression,” she said. “That role was very, very special to me because it was at the New York City Opera and my grandmother was with the New York City Opera. I was working with people who knew her.

“It was like me coming full-circle.”