Vanessa Sterling: Shaking up Shakespeare

“Lord, what fools these mortals be!” ~ William Shakespeare, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

That’s kind of how I’ve been feeling these past few tumultuous weeks. The words seem apropos for this period in time as we mortals have surely been acting foolish, but these words were written by the bard, William Shakespeare, in the late 1500s for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Shakespeare’s whimsical tale of young love and mischievous fairies.

The entire play has been given a new life by Hedgerow Theatre Company, partnered with Mauckingbird Theatre Company, the Philadelphia company known for innovative, affordable, gay‐themed productions. This time around, Athens is the backdrop as an elite boarding school adjacent to a forest full of enchanted flowers, fluid identities and expansive possibilities. In this retelling by director Peter Reynolds, four students find themselves in a supernaturally heightened love tangle. Hermia is being forced by her father to marry Demetrius, a young man in her school. But she is already in love with Lysander, a young woman in her class. Meanwhile, her best friend — a young man named Helena — is smitten with Demetrius. When the four schoolmates run off into the forest — full of mischievous fairies and beguiling visions —mayhem and surprising discoveries meet them at every turn.

In this gender-bending rendition, the cast is a diverse selection of actors across the queer continuum. This week’s Portrait, Vanessa Sterling (they/she/he) plays King Oberon and took a moment to speak to me about the show while practicing new looks for the role. Some responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Wow, your makeup looks outstanding. It really makes your eyes pop!
Thank you. I’m trying a few different looks.

So I understand that you’re from cold country.
Yeah, Saratoga Springs, NY. It’s upstate NY, about an hour north of Albany. A really pretty little town, known for horse racing and mineral springs.

Did you go to the springs or is that something everybody does except for the people who live there?
Well, you pass by some of them just walking around the town. I think I’ve visited most of them over the years.

Oh, so springs as in creeks. I was thinking like hot springs and baths for therapeutic purposes. That’s right, there’s Saratoga Springs bottled water.
Yes, I mean during the 1800s, taking mineral baths was a big thing and they still have spas now. I haven’t ever done that but there are springs coming out of the ground all over and you can just stop and taste the water. It’s pretty cool.

What is your favorite thing about Saratoga Springs?
It’s just a really pretty little city. There’s a lot of history there — beautiful Victorian buildings, parks — it’s really cute. When I talk to people who are really into history, I tell them they should check it out. Go visit my hometown and check out the architecture!

I was going to ask if you had any siblings but I read that you have two very close siblings…
[Laughing] Yes, I’m an identical triplet.

You’re the second set of identical triplets I’ve interviewed this year! I did Rex Yin in May.
Really? I have to meet him! I’ve never met another identical triplet.

Yeah, he was telling me that his parents color coded them. They each got to pick a “Power Rangers” color and they wore that for the rest of their lives. He was blue and he still wears it to this day.
Wow! When we were really little, my mother apparently used to put different-colored nail polish on our fingers, or maybe it was toes, to help them tell us apart.

What’s your strangest triplet moment?
Now that we’re older, we all live in different places. We don’t see each other as often and various things about us are different now but whenever I see them — both of them or one at a time — there will always be a moment where we will both say the exact same thing at the exact same time, with the exact same inflection. It’s always very weird and funny.

You were talking about how you were trying different make-up applications for the show, I guess another cool thing might be that you can see what things will look like on you without a mirror. Different styles of clothes or like, ‘Hmmm, let me see what my hair looks like pulled back…”
Yeah! When I first chopped my hair off, my sisters were like, “This is awesome! I can see what it would look like on me.” Every iteration my hair has gone through is a preview for them!

I’ve interviewed a lot of twins and often find that they do have a little of what seem like clairvoyant moments. Does that extend to triplets?
I’ve always thought that I should check in with them on days when I’m feeling bad to see if they’re having the same experience, because our lives do tend to ebb and flow in similar ways, which is interesting, but I’ve never made that call and tested it. [Laughing] At no point have I ever heard a little voice in my head softly crying, “Help, help! Call your sister…”

Do you have any other siblings?
No, just us.

Your parents were like, “three and done!” What did they do, by the way?
My parents were both teachers. My dad taught math and my mom was a special-ed teacher. They’re both retired now.

Did you have to have your dad for math in such a small town?
[Laughing] No! They both taught at different schools that were not where I went to high school. That was lucky!

Best birthday?
When we were really little, we would have our birthdays all together. There would always be a theme and one year, the theme was magic and we had a puppet theater with all different kinds of different puppets for kids to play with. There was a magician who did a little magic act in our living room for everyone. I think my mom made black magician capes for all the kids who came to the party. At the end, they took them home like little party favors. And she would always make each of us a different cake. I always had the pink cake and my other sisters would get marble or chocolate.

[Laughing] Were you ahead of the times with the Barbie pink culture of last summer?
Yeah! When we’d get the Neapolitan ice-cream, I’d always eat all the strawberry! I guess I just loved those berry flavors or maybe I just liked that it was the weird or fun color.

What kinds of extracurricular things were you into as a youngster?
My family is pretty musical. I did a lot of singing and I played the piano. I even played the cello and French horn for a second. That was before they made you choose between choir and band. I did a lot of music and that’s what led me to theater.

What was the first play you were in?
There are videos of me in the first grade where we would theatricalize storybooks that we were reading. I think they were the “Mrs. Toggle” books. We had our classes in a trailer outside the school and there’s video of me playing Mrs. Toggle and everyone else played my students. I apparently memorized everyone else’s lines and you can see me in the video prompting everyone else with their lines. Whispering to them, “That’s your line!” or mouthing the lines along with them. [Laughing] I was directing everybody and telling them what to do! But to answer your question, the first “legit” show was “Fiddler on the Roof.”

Did you go for higher studies after high school?
Yes, I went to Ithaca College to study music and singing. I auditioned for the musical theater program and didn’t get in, but I was accepted for the acting program, which was strange because I didn’t think I was a very good actor at all. But it ended up being the best thing that could have happened! I still like to sing, but acting is my passion now.

How did you end up in Philadelphia?
Ten years ago I started dating my partner and a few years into the relationship, we were tired of moving back into our parents’ houses between gigs. My partner is really into the fight and stage combat community and had some great connections in Philadelphia, so we ended up here.

How did you two meet?
We were working at a theme park! It was a fun summer job and we both had crushes on each other but were too shy to say anything. I think we both said two words to each other the whole summer and it wasn’t until the last weekend that we finally struck up a conversation.

And the rest is history! How did you get involved with this particular show?
I worked with our director Peter Reynolds before the pandemic in a production of “Tartuffe,” which was a co-pro with Drexel and [Reynolds’] theater company, Mauckingbird. I loved the way he interacted with his actors. I assistant directed for him on a show later that year because I wanted to learn from him and when I saw that they were doing “Midsummer,” I was like, “Oh man, I have to play King Oberon in this.” I auditioned and happily got the part!

What’s that song? “I just can’t wait to be king!”
Yes! “Midsummer” is the first Shakespearean play I ever did years ago. I just played a small part — some nameless fairy — but the person who played Oberon in that show was really powerful and stoic and I thought he was just the coolest thing ever, and now I get to be that guy!

What is it that makes this production so special?
To start, we have this unapologetically queer cast. And it’s all different facets of the queer community — gay, lesbian, trans, nonbinary, bisexual, gender fluid. It’s a beautiful rainbow of people. It illuminates the story and the text in a way that’s very unique and beautiful. I think it revitalizes a play that people have seen a lot. It brings a different context to it with a modern take that includes so much representation. It’s exciting to be a part of. There’s a lot of joy in it.

Speaking of joy, I love the fact that your resume on your website says “Vanessa is non-binary, gender fluid, and is a proud member of the LGBTQIA+ community” right on the front page. What was your coming-out journey?
Well, I grew up in a little town in upstate New York. I went to high school in upstate NY. I went to college in upstate NY. I had my first jobs there and when I met my partner, they were the first unapologetically queer person I ever met. I think at the time I didn’t realize how homogenous the spaces that I’d lived and worked in my whole life had been. So there was an awakening that happened when I met my partner, moved to Philadelphia and was hit with so much diversity and a whole new world of gender expression.

I feel like this past decade, the world has opened up to me in a new way, especially being in this business where things have always been written for straight, cisgender people, but it’s starting to change a little now. Representation is expanding. I mean, I came out pretty late and I think a lot of that was because the possibilities that I saw before me were either column A or B. And I felt I had to be in that one lane since there were no other options. I spent a lot of time at the beginning of my career fitting into that box, being the person I thought I needed to be to get work. But being here in Philly, my possibilities as an actor, my possibilities as a person have completely expanded!

What was the reaction from your identicals?
We’ve always been close, so there wasn’t even a blip. It was just like, “Cool, moving on…” My parents have been wonderful. There might have been a moment to get used to the unexpectedness of it, but there was never any pushback.

Nice to hear. So I see on your resume that you speak several dialects, including British (Cockney and RP), Irish, Southern American and IPA. I’ve never heard of that last one. [Laughing] Does that mean you can sound like you’re drunk on beer?
No! But I should use that! IPA stands for the International Phonetic Alphabet. It’s a tool for learning dialect. It has symbols that represent all the different sounds that we make. It’s a way to map out and figure out different dialogue and dialects.

Got it. OK, a few random questions, I saw one of your commercials and it was for Perfect Print. What’s a favorite picture of you or your partner?
We took a series of pictures years ago, I don’t even remember what it was for, but we ended up wrapping our heads together in this green sweater so we looked like peas in a pod. We’re both making these absurd faces that are really silly. We have a magnet of it on our refrigerator. I think the thing I love the most about our relationship is that I can be a little introverted and serious and one of the things my partner says all the time is, “I love that you have this goofy underbelly that I’m the only one that gets to see sometimes.”

If you had to be stuck in a character or play for life, which one would you choose?
Oh man, I tend to obsess over whatever role I’m currently playing. So right now, it feels like playtime with King Oberon will never be over.

When was the last time you made a snowman?
Woah, that’s a deep cut. There was a lot of snow in upstate New York. We barely had any snow days because we were always prepared. I’m sure I’ve made a snowman since then, but what comes to mind is a funny picture of me and my sisters all bundled in snowsuits with our dad. I think there was a snowman involved somewhere but our faces were bright pink and we looked miserable. Our dad was trying to get us to laugh and we all looked like the tragedy symbol.

What’s your favorite line from Shakespeare?
It’s a line from this show that I’ve been focusing on, “Be as thou wast wont to be. See as thou wast wont to see.” Basically meaning, be what you used to be, see how you used to see. But I like to interpret it more in the present tense as, “Be who you want to be and see how you want to see.” I’ve been carrying that vibe of having control over who you are and how you see the world.

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” runs through Aug. 11 at Hedgerow Theatre Company, 64 Rose Valley RdMedia, PA. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit hedgerowtheatre.org/midsummer. For more information on Mauckingbird Theatre Company, visit www.mauckingbird.org. For more on Vanessa Sterling, visit vmsterling.wixsite.com/vanessasterling.