Allistair Basse
Allistair Basse (Henslow)
Shakespeare in Love
FEBRUARY 11 — MARCH 20
What excites you about Shakespeare in Love and the role you are playing?
Firstly, as with many actors, Shakespeare's work holds a special place in my heart, and I love any opportunity to perform within its context. Secondly, I've been entranced with Tom Stoppard since I first saw Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead. This is also my third production with Vintage Theatre, and I love the wealth of talent and commitment to quality productions that I have found there, to say nothing of its warm, unpretentious, family atmosphere. I get to work with an incredible cast and production team. It's a Win-Win-Win for me. To top it all off, I get to play Henslowe, whose blend of humor, vulnerability and profundity makes him very deep and appealing to me. There really isn't a downside.
What’s your process like in preparing for a show like this, and how does that process change (if at all) from other shows?
Typically for any show I wait until rehearsals have begun to try to gain a feel for my character, since any assumptions beforehand can actually work against how I find my place in the cast. Once we begin, I start to feel where my castmates are coming from, and I try to compliment that in the context of the script. In this situation, there's also a historical basis for my character, so I try to learn more about Henslowe and imagine what he may have been like as a sixteenth century Londoner.
What’s your biggest challenge about taking on this role?
The vast majority of challenges I have faced for this role have been personal. Obviously, we're all having to learn how to live in this world all over again, and nothing has been the same. But my last two productions with Vintage have been bookended by first the loss of my mother (during the run of Marvin's Room), and then the loss of my father on the final day of 2021 as we were rehearsing Shakespeare in Love. I would like to dedicate my part in this production to my dearly missed parents.
How did you get started performing?
I was a very shy, nerdy teenager when I first took a role as Reginald Tasker in a high school production of The Bad Seed, and I was, as they say, hooked. Acting helped break me out of my social anxiety, and I spent the next decade trying to make a career of it. Unfortunately, I had to take a hiatus from acting in my late twenties to work on a more reliable means of income. Little did I know, I would fall out of acting for more than fifteen years. In 2014 however, I returned to school to upgrade my degree, and decided to get back on stage in my spare time, joining a college production of To Kill A Mockingbird as Atticus Finch. It reminded me how much I had loved being on stage, and I've done it as often as possible since then.
Why do you still perform?
Theatre is a unique work environment. Firstly, are you able to collaborate with other artists to create a unified work of artistic expression for strangers to absorb. True, spontaneous magic can emerge from those collaborations, and together, you can truly become greater than the sum of your parts. But that collaboration also breeds a bonding experience with very special people that is so fierce and passionate, and then all of a sudden, it's over. It really is a microcosm of the human experience.
What’s your dream role, and what do you feel you would bring to it?
Hard to say there's one dream role, as there are so many I would love to play. My biggest unachieved goal in theatre is getting more involved in musical theatre. The title role in Sweeney Todd, Frollo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Beast in Beauty and the Beast, and Javert in Les Miserables are on my wish list, as all have a tragic gravitas that I find appealing, and work best with a booming Baritone.
What’s a fun fact people may not know about you?
I almost decided to become a comic book artist or classical animator in my youth. Although I don't sketch anywhere nearly as often as I once did, I had once become a pretty good pencil artist. Comic book superheroes and medieval fantasy were my favorite topics of study.
