MAN OF MANY FACES
Angelina College Theater Student Master of Disguises
From "Buzz" Magazine

During a recent performance offered by Angelina College Theater, an audience member who happened to be an AC instructor took note of one of the characters and his on-stage abilities. Turning to a colleague, the instructor inquired as to the young actor’s identity.

The answer surprised her. It was one of her former students – and a young man she had directed in a play earlier that year. She hadn’t recognized him at all.

Not only is that the ultimate tribute to any actor, but it also describes Casey Lilley’s abilities in a nutshell. In his two years with AC Theater, Lilley has played roles varying in nature, from a chain-smoking, lung-hacking Mack Sam in “Miss Firecracker” to the murderous Brewster brother Jonathan in “Arsenic and Old Lace.” Lilley even made an appearance as a retired Boogeyman, Bongo Boy and a typing monkey in last season’s “Plays in Ten” skits.

The young man of many faces took time during a recent rehearsal to discuss his ability to fool even those who know him with the parts he’s learned to play.

BUZZ: Even people who know you well don’t always recognize you onstage, which is a real compliment for any actor. From were does this ability to morph into an entirely different persona stem? Is it some hidden form of Multiple Personality Disorder?

LILLEY (laughing): It might be. I don’t know. I just know that when I was small, I spent a lot of time alone playing with different toys. And I’d take one toy – usually Ninja Turtles or Star Wars stuff – and become that character, then I’d use another toy and become another character. I guess that’s where it started.

BUZZ: How did you happen to get bitten by the acting bug? What influenced you to try your hand – or face – on a stage?

LILLEY: I’ve always been a ham. If someone put a video camera on me, I’d start acting up just for the laughs. Then later, I saw my brother Clay in a couple of high school plays, and I thought it would be really cool to try it. As soon as I got to high school, I got involved with theater. I was in three shows my first year.

When I realized I could actually do it was when they came to me two weeks before a UIL competition and told me one of their main actors had failed a class and wouldn’t be able to participate. They asked me to stand in, and I did it with only two weeks to prepare. I made All-Star cast for that role.

BUZZ: Describe your very first role.

LILLEY: I was Casper in “Saga of Katy’s Saloon.” I was sort of a medicine man, I guess. He’d come into town, and they were having problems, and Casper would fix everything. He had this bag that contained all the right answers. The weird part of that show was that all the dialogue rhymed, so if you messed up, you had to come up with something that rhymed or the audience would know you messed up.

I remember that the bag I carried on stage would never open. We tried several times, and it just wouldn’t open. Then the day we presented the play, I plopped the bag down on a table, and it fell open. Dust and all kinds of stuff came blowing and falling out, and no one knew it wasn’t part of the scene.

BUZZ: Describe your process for morphing into whatever role you’re playing. How much time do you actually spend “getting to know” that character?

LILLEY: I try to do some research on whatever time period is relevant to the character, just to get a feel of what they wore, how they spoke, what their ideas were at that time. Then I go over the script and try to get a sense of who that person is, and try to bring that out in the character. Sometimes I’ll try different mannerisms for each character, and sometimes I’ll take characters I know or have seen and get different things from them. Some of these parts fit and some of them don’t. By the time I’m in rehearsal, I have a firm idea of who the character is and how I want people to see him.

BUZZ: How did it feel going from smaller stages at Big Sandy High School to the big stage in the Temple Theater? Could you really tell the difference, or is a stage a stage?

LILLEY: You can tell the difference, especially vocally, and just from the sheer size of the audience. I went from having around 200 people watching me in high school to more than 900 at Temple Theater. And we do a lot for smaller children, and there’s such a huge difference when they’re here. You just feed off their intensity.


BUZZ: I understand you’ve managed to immerse yourself in nearly every aspect of the theater, from stage management and design to lighting? Why? Isn’t acting enough for you?

LILLE: I wanted to get my feet wet in every part of the theater. It’s taught me exactly what I can get from theater, and what I can give to theater. As an actor, you don’t always realize everything that goes into putting together a production. When you work backstage, you get a real feel for the entire process, and in turn that teaches you what actors need to know to help production, and what production needs to know to help the actors.

BUZZ: What are some things you will take away from your two years onstage at Angelina College?

LILLEY: Definitely the instructors. Kary Raine (Fine Arts Division) has been such a big help to me, both with instruction and encouragement. And I’ll remember some of the roles I played, especially those that were completely in contrast with my own personality. Those were the most challenging.

BUZZ: Where do you hope this takes you? Red carpet on Oscars night, a Tony on Broadway, or maybe to some high school where you’ll become a Theater teacher?

LILLEY: I know I want to earn my bachelor’s degree in acting, and I’ll just have to wait and see how far that will take me. With this, you’re never quite sure where it can go. I know that I’d some point I’d like to be able to help my parents out when they get older, just the way they did for me.

Ideally, I’d love to be acting on film. It’s one of the main reasons I got into acting in the first place. I just never realized you could actually go to school just for theater; I just thought it was some extracurricular activity or something. At first I was a Business major, but then I learned Theater is actually something I could study. I guess I’ll just wait and see what’s out there for me.
 

The Interpreter (Sasha Cruz, right) jumps into the arms of Norman (Casey Lillie), her would-be rescuer, during rehearsal for “Arabian Nights” – one of several ten-minute skits presented for Angelina College Theatre’s “Plays in Ten.” The mélange of plays runs Feb. 21st through the 23nd at 7:30 p.m. in the Angelina Center for the Arts “Black Box.”

 

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