Award-winning actor and cabaret artist Stephen Rader grew up in Powell, Tenn., a suburb of Knoxville. Nine years ago, not long after graduating from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theater and Psychology, he moved to Chicago where he landed an acting job in a production of All's Well That Ends Well in the subterranean performance space at Cafe Voltaire. Rader has since performed in many heralded productions and has established himself as a cabaret performer of the highest rank. I recently had the pleasure of interviewing him in the offices of Healthworks Theater about his role in the revival of Vampire Lesbians of Sodom.
Gregg Shapiro: You are someone who is fortunate enough to be using their degree and making a living in theater, beginning with your day job at Healthworks Theater. What do you do there?
SR: I'm the executive director. I started out as a ( company ) actor for about six months and moved into the staff right after that, as an office manager and just simply worked my way through. I had no training in administrative theater, so I've learned as I've gone. Presently, I'm in charge of the development work for the company and the financial work. It's been a wonderful way to get on the other side of the table and look at how things are run.
GS: Gives you a new appreciation.
SR: Completely new appreciation for it all ( laughs ) , and paying the bills.
GS: You also have done extensive work as a director. Does being an actor make you a better director or vice versa?
SR: I think that it all plays in. I'm more of an actor's director in that I try to listen to all of the actors that I have and not think that every good idea has to come from me. In that respect, I treat actors the way that I want to be treated. Sometimes, if you haven't been on the other side of that fence, you begin to see actors as your cattle for how you create your picture. A lot of directors that I've worked with as an actor immediately spot me as a director because I'm constantly breaking up a picture and I'm constantly trying to move things along. Sometimes it's good and sometimes it's really bad, because I'm sometimes in my head too much.
GS: You have been honored with awards and accolades for your cabaret work. What do you get out of working in that realm?
SR: I love it. First and foremost cabaret gave me an identity. I want to say a name, but I don't know if that's the way to put it. It was the penultimate way, to put my name with my face, so I was no longer just another actor or just another director. I was this person who can do this. Also it plays into you're your own director. You're creating your own music, your own thing. It's a lot of stand-up; it's a lot of improv. To put all of the stuff you've worked with over your life together into one art form is amazing for me.
GS: It also gives you a chance to have creative control.
SR: I have total creative control with it. I work with Cindy Stevens as my accompanist and musical director. When you find someone like that, who you can bounce ideas off of completely and know that you are creating something, just the two of you, it's really wonderful.
GS: Do you have plans to release a cabaret CD?
SR: Cindy and I have actually started talking about that. I'm interested in recording something live, because I think that the best cabaret albums are always live albums. Hopefully that will happen sometime in the future.
GS: The first time that I ever saw Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, in 1990, Alexandra Billings played Fauna, The Virgin and Madeleine. What's it like being directed by Alex?
SR: Alex has done so much work for Healthworks. She's played the Wicked Witch of Unsafe Sex in a lot of different productions of Wizard ( of AIDS ) . She's done the last two of our Spring concerts. We bring in different actors and singers and have a one-time only concert of the musical. She's done those for two years. She's a big supporter of ours. I think she's one of the most talented in Chicago, funny, hysterical and her energy is so massive. To deal with somebody that's that funny and that great and listen to them. I look forward to rehearsal every night, because we're going to have fun. As much as we're having we're still getting so much accomplished. I think the only danger is that we really think we're extremely funny and whether other people will think we're funny, I have no idea ( laughs ) .
GS: Have you ever done any other Charles Busch plays?
SR: I have never done a Charles Busch play. It's so fun to play in that style. It's so old movie. All of the exposition is out to the audience. It's wonderfully big and just when you think you can't be too big, you should go a little bigger.
GS: Who are you playing?
SR: In Hollywood, I play King Carlisle...the studio's newest biggest star of silent film. In Vegas I play the bitter, jaded, cynical Danny, the chorus boy. I don't know why I'm playing the bitter, jaded, cynical chorus boy.
GS: I couldn't imagine why.
SR: Can't imagine ( laughs ) .
GS: What projects do you have lined up for the future?
SR: I'm in the process, crazily enough, of directing a production of a Nicky Silver play called The Altruist at Boxer Rebellion Ensemble, which goes up at the of October. I'm now an artistic associate at the Bailiwick and I'm talking with David Zak about a few projects for the late fall, early winter.
