Today we’d like to introduce you to Debo Balogun and Heather Chrisler.
Debo and Heather, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Debo: I started getting involved in theatre relatively late. I performed in my first show my senior year of high school. I had auditioned kinda on a whim, kinda because my friends were badgering me to, and managed to land a role in our Fall drama: Elephant’s Graveyard by George Brant. And I guess that’s what hooked me. I went to college with an interest in theatre but no intention in majoring in it or pursuing it as a career. But the more time I spent around the college’s theatre department and was exposed to the art form, the more I realized this is what I was meant to do.
Heather: So, I grew up in Medford, Oregon, which while being a fairly large town (you may say small city), is incredibly isolated from metropolitan areas and the professional artistic communities that tend to live therein. So while, as a child and teenager, I deeply loved the art of theatre, I was not awarded many opportunities to be exposed to professionals within that field. It actually didn’t really occur to me, or it seemed, any of the adults around me, that being an actor was something that could be done professionally.
At least not from the position I was in. People who became actors lived far away. They lived in New York, or Chicago, or L.A. They were the sons and daughters of people in show business. I remember being a teenager the first time I realized I would like to be a professional actor. I was watching a play at The Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The actors onstage were so joyful and confident about their work, and it dawned on me, that all those people I was watching, acting was their job, and I wanted it to be my job too.
So I spent years of college at the University of Portland studying how to be an actor, while peers in the business school made fun of me, and my father begged me to do something that would make me money. And then I was lucky enough to be accepted into the graduate training program at Ohio University where I spent three more years just working on my craft. And still, people would say, “what are you going to do with that?” To which I always answered, “I’m going to be a professional actor.”
After graduate school, The Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park (which is an enormous theatre, if you have never been, it’s beautiful) asked me to be one of eight acting apprentices for the 2012-2013 Season out of the nearly 3,000 young actors they auditioned that year. It was an enormous honor to stand on that big beautiful stage right out of graduate school with such capable and established people in my chosen field. I felt honored, almost overwhelmed, to be there with them.
Today, after almost five years of working as an actor in Chicago, I have helped develop new work at some of the city’s most prestigious theatres, just recently working on Rebecca Gilman’s new play at Goodman, TWILIGHT BOWL. I played a really fun bad guy on Chicago PD on NBC. I made Chris Jones’s Top Ten performances list of 2017 in The Chicago Tribune for my work as the leading role in MACHINAL at Greenhouse Theatre Center. I have an upcoming season already lined up of fascinating new projects I will be acting in Chicago.
Most importantly, however, I have made incredible lifelong friends in the community. I am finally at home with the other practitioners of my art that I have so longed to be with. Just this past season I accepted an Artistic Associate position at First Folio. A theatre that gave me some of my first opportunities in Chicago, and whom I love working with. Getting to do MARY’S WEDDING with them is a joy and the high point of my year.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Debo: It’s definitely been an eventful road. I ended up doing things I never would have thought myself capable of. The hardest part this far has definitely been moving back to Chicago. Even though it’s where I’m from, I’ve spent the vast majority of the past 4 years of my life three hours away at college.
That being said, Chicago became a bit of a stranger to me. I left a small liberal arts school with a very condensed close knit community and had to adjust to a much more aggressive fast expansive community in Chicago. I definitely felt the push to establish myself immediately which left me anxious and flustered for the first few months of being back. I still feel that way to be honest but to a lesser degree.
Heather: Today, after almost five years of working as an actor in Chicago, I have helped develop new work at some of the city’s most prestigious theatres, just recently working on Rebecca Gilman’s new play at Goodman, TWILIGHT BOWL. I played a really fun bad guy on Chicago PD on NBC. I made Chris Jones’s Top Ten performances list of 2017 in The Chicago Tribune for my work as the leading role in MACHINAL at Greenhouse Theatre Center. I have an upcoming season already lined up of fascinating new projects I will be acting in Chicago.
Most importantly, however, I have made incredible lifelong friends in the community. I am finally at home with the other practitioners of my art that I have so longed to be with. Just this past season I accepted an Artistic Associate position at First Folio. A theatre that gave me some of my first opportunities in Chicago, and whom I love working with. Getting to do MARY’S WEDDING with them is a joy and the high point of my year.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Debo: This production is really special in that it’s probably one of the most complete productions I’ve been a part of. Everything from the lights to the sound to the direction to the costuming and props compliments each other absurdly well and enhances the story tenfold. Speaking of the story: it’s gorgeous. I don’t cry very often but this play hits me right where it counts.
I have a strong affinity for poetry so I guess I’m mostly drawn towards and get called in for classical works. I got the chance to study abroad at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London which in addition to being a very proud achievement of mine, heightened my affinity for classical work.
Heather: This production is gorgeous. I am playing the Mary in MARY’S WEDDING. As a character, she is a vast emotional undertaking. The story is not really about a wedding at all. It’s about a young woman on a journey through her past. Like Alice in her Wonderland, you as an audience follow Mary through her dream. Living through her first love and her life torn asunder by World War I. It’s a journey of love loss, forgiveness and acceptance. And it’s Mary’s job to take you through all of it. So I feel a great responsibility with this character.
And this, I suppose, is why I wanted most to become an actor in the first place. I think the world needs actors to help us understand the biggest things in life. Like death, and loss, and love, and war. One of the reasons I truly love this play and the character of Mary is that she, I think, is a light for anyone who has ever grieved over the loss of love. She is a character who takes you through her journey and says, “you are not alone, and you will be ok.” And I find that infinitely important.
So anyway, I feel a great responsibility in this role.
What were you like growing up?
Debo: I think a characteristic that has been important to my success is just generally being okay with who I am. I’ve adopted a “what you see is what you get” attitude which has been liberating in the sense that I don’t feel the need to doctor certain parts of myself. I’m a really quiet reserved person. I used to hate that about myself but I’ve learned to accept it for part of who I am. And I think that’s a really important element in acting – accepting whatever character for who they are without judgment – embracing it and letting it shine.
Heather: Passion. Passion is what it will always come to for me, in anything. Have you worked hard to be where you are? Do you believe what you are doing helps other people? That’s passion. Success is just a byproduct of passion.
Pricing:
- Tickets range from $25-$44
Contact Info:
- Address: 1717 W 31st Street, Oak Brook, IL 60523
- Website: www.firstfolio.org
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FirstFolioTheatre/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/firstfolio
Image Credit:
D. Rice
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