(Actors) stay true to their dreams in spite of the sacrifices. Why? Because actors are willing to give their entire lives to a moment ó to that line, that laugh, that gesture, or that interpretation that will stir the audience’s soul.
By Katie Scarvey
kscarvey@salisburypost.com
That David Ackert quotation pretty much sums up Kevin Carroll’s feelings about his life as an actor ó which he describes as a purpose-driven one.
And now, Carroll ó who is the son of Ken Carroll and Mae Carroll of Salisbury ó has received an honor that validates his career choice: an Obie award.
The Obies honor excellence in off and off-off-Broadway theater and have no set categories or nominees. An Obie is the highest honor you can get in the off-Broadway community, selected by a committee of theatre artists and Village Voice theatre critics. They have been giving the awards for 64 years.
“They are sort of the voice of the people,” Carroll says.
Carroll was hoping to “get some appreciation” for his role in a play called “Home,” a revival of a play Samuel L. Jackson did on Broadway in 1989.
But the recognition for Carroll turned out to be much deeper: His Obie was for sustained excellence in performance.
Carroll, who has been doing off-Broadway shows for about 15 years, has had some significant shows in the past few, including a play called “Satellites” that was written by playwright Diana Son for Carroll and actress Sandra Oh (of “Grey’s Anatomy” fame).
“Satellites,” he says, is about a mixed race couple raising a baby. His character was adopted by a white family.
“You watch the dynamics of stereotypes being challenged,” Carroll says.
Carroll also revived Reuben Santiago Hudson’s Tony award-winning role in a play called “Seven Guitars.”
The Obie, Carroll says, “seems very affirming” in terms of his career both on and off Broadway.
“To be recognized for the canon of work for the last 15 years and to have a body of work that includes new works by an Asian writer and an African-American writer and white writers ó it feels like it’s a reward for a very colorful body of work. I’m really proud of it.”
Carroll has certainly had his share of Broadway acclaim as well.
Perhaps most notably, he played the role of Belize in “Angels in America.”
He also appeared in “Bring in ‘Da Noise Bring in ‘Da Funk,” “45 Seconds from Broadway,” and “Take Me Out,” a show that garnered three Tony Awards.
Carroll says he is particularly gratified to be able to sink his teeth into classical roles for black actors.
“And by that, I mean, we all as a culture revere Shakespeare, Moliere, Ibsen, as classic writers, but oftentimes I don’t think you get the same consideration for some of the African-American writers.”
Carroll says that his mother, Mae Carroll, has “been over the moon” about his Obie win.
Still, he realizes that an Obie, as prestigious as it is in theatre circles, isn’t something that a lot of people outside of theatre circles understand.
“To a lot of people, if you’re not on TV or in movies, you tend to fly under the radar, which is fine because my career has been about the work,” he says.
Carroll graduated from Salisbury High School, but was not involved in drama as a high school student, he says.
He went to college at North Carolina A&T with the intention of becoming an industrial technologist.
It was there that his life changed when he went to his first play.
“I was so mesmerized and galvanized,” he said.
The play was about a young man ó who is poised to be the first in his family to graduate from college ó joining a fraternity. A trick is played on him ó he believes he is getting expelled from college when, in fact, it’s all a joke.
“I had laughed and been moved by this stage full of frat brothers the whole evening,” Carroll said.
But the play has a darker ending. Not knowing that his expulsion is a joke, the young man kills himself.
“To see the twist in the play, it just absolutely left me stunned,” Carroll says.
“I thought, I’d love to be a part of being able to move people in this way.
“That all sounds corny, I know,” he says.
Carroll had been on his way to becoming an industrial technologist, but about two weeks after he saw the play, he switched his major to theatre.
“My mother had a heart attack,” he said.
His progress toward a career in theatre was steady from then on. He got a scholarship to study drama in London for a year. After that, he traveled to California for a theatre program there, and then to Florida before he moved to New York, where he attended graduate school.
Before he was finished with his graduate program, he got the plum job of playing Belize in “Angels in America,” replacing Jeffrey Wright in the role. (Wright went on to play the role in the critically acclaimed HBO production of “Angels in America.”) He played Belize for the better part of a year.
The two-part play (each part is 3 1/2 hours long) dealt with the subject of AIDS.
The message and the timing of that play were “bigger than I could ever foresee,” Carroll says.
When asked about some of his most meaningful roles, he mentions being in a Neil Simon play called “45 Seconds from Broadway,” which opened right around Sept. 11, he says.
Simon, he says, is “one of America’s treasures.”
Carroll is proud of his part in that short-lived play, which served its purpose in the wake of a national tragedy, he says.
“People were able to come and laugh in the midst of tragedy,” he says.
“It ends up being one of those moments in time where what you wish this career was, on a corny level, really happened.”
Plays can have “therapeutic value,” he says. “For people to come after one of the biggest modern tragedies, to escape for a minute ó I really felt like having a purpose-driven life was fully realized in that short amount of time.
“It was a great opportunity,” he says. “What the play meant to the city of New York was much bigger than I could visualize at that moment.”
Carroll is justifiably proud of his body of work.
“There’s hardly any fluff in any of the things I’ve done,” he says.
Carroll was part of a play about 10 years ago called “Stop Kiss,” about a woman getting beaten up because she shared a kiss with her girlfriend.
“It was just one of those plays that was ahead of its time,” he says.
Carroll hasn’t lived in Salisbury since he was 17, but he says that he’s coming home more often these days, partly because his father, Ken Carroll, has had some health challenges.
Carroll has some projects coming up that he’s not ready to go into details about, but he promises that he’ll check in with the Post again ó and we hope he does.