From Logan Square to the Goodman
| 12 December 2008
The Goodman Theatre’s annual production of “A Christmas Carol” was the first play Adam Poss ever saw, back in 1986. And it was the first play he was professionally cast as an actor before he graduated last year from De Paul University’s Theater School. Poss is back this year reprising the role of Dick Wilkins, Ebenezer Scrooge’s colleague and best friend in a better, earlier time, in this perennial adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic holiday ghost story playing at the Goodman until Dec. 31.
“Wilkins is fun. He really enjoys having a good time. He wants to make sure that [the younger] Ebenezer has a good time. Dick is a hard worker, but he also knows that you can’t work hard without playing hard,” explains the actor of Puerto Rican descent.
This tale of a 19th Century British miser who discovers the true spirit of Christmas with the help of three ghosts takes an added meaning this year thanks to the difficult times we live in and the election of Barack Obama as president. “There is a sense of hope right now, and I think that’s what the show is about: a sense of hope,” says Poss. “It’s not all drudgery. Things can change. You don’t have to be stuck.”
Poss’ acting resume includes such plays as Robert O’Hara’s “Antebellum” at the Athenaeum Theatre, a staged reading of Carlos Murillo’s “Dark Plays or Story for Boys” at the 2006 Latino Theater Festival at the Goodman, and Alan Bennett’s “The History Boys” for The Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C. Poss’ road to the stage started in Logan Square where he grew up before he moved to Oswego at the age of 3 after his mother remarried.
“It was a big change. We lived in my grandfather’s house and my great-grandmother lived downstairs. My great-aunt was there and my cousins lived a couple of blocks away,” recalls Poss. “When I moved to Oswego, I was basically the only minority in my school.”
Although he grew up in a household where Spanish was the dominant language, he was now in a world where English was king. Even so, Poss was able to keep one foot firmly planted in his Puerto Rican heritage thanks to his grandparents.
“I would come here [to Chicago] every weekend and I would spend summers with my grandfather. I would have Puerto Rican food there. They made sure that my family was still really important,” Poss says. “My grandmother took me to Puerto Rico when I was in second grade to meet the extended family and it was a huge cultural shock. I didn’t speak any Spanish and they didn’t speak any English. By the end, I knew how to communicate with them, tell them what I needed.”
It was also in the second grade where Poss got his first taste for the theater. He was a shy boy and his mother enrolled him in acting classes to get him out his shell. But the acting bug really hit Poss hard in high school, where he went from taking classes to becoming involved in bigger shows. He realized that this was a career option.
After graduating from high school, Poss took two years off, then enrolled at De Paul University’s Theater School. Of the initial 50 students accepted into the program, only 20 graduated and made it into the casting pool, Poss included.
“I liked the fact that I wasn’t guaranteed [graduation]. After two years of floating around, I felt that a program that would force me to really try and make it would push me. [My parents] were worried about a program where I wasn’t guaranteed a degree. They were the ones who pushed me to make sure that I graduated, that I got a diploma.”
The program taught him to work backstage and on stage, to “know every single person’s name, that every single person there has a function and that every single person is there to make the show the best it can be. You get a sense of community.”
IF YOU GO:
“A Christmas Carol”
When: Through Dec. 31
Where: Goodman Theater, 170 N. Dearborn St., Chicago
Admission: $15-$70
Contact: (312) 443-3800 or www.goodmantheatre.org
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