From WXXI News, this is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made with a little girl lying on her bedroom floor.

12-year-old Mimi was trying her hardest to hear a conversation happening in her parents living room below.

They had invited the neighbors over to discuss a very important subject.

Whether Mimi and her neighbor, Genevieve, would be allowed to audition for a play at the local community theater.

When Mimi heard laughter, she knew she was going to get her chance.

And then she heard her mother making her way up the stairs.

Mimi leapt into bed and pretended to be asleep.

Are you awake?

Her mother asked when she entered the room.

Whether or not she believed Mimi stirring and moaning as she feigned waking up didn't matter.

She exclaimed in a whisper, you can audition.

The answer is yes.

And that was a moment that changed Mimi's life.

Mimi is actress Mimi Kennedy.

You may know her from work on sitcoms like Dharma and Greg or Mom films like Midnight in Paris, Erin Brockovich, but you may not know that Mimi got her start in Rochester, the place she was thrilled to perform in at the age of 12 was Spider''s Web, a production of the Rochester Community Players.

She played the role of Pippa.

She shared that story in her memoir, taken to the Stage The Education of an actress.

Mimi will be in Rochester this weekend as the honorary chair of the 100th anniversary of the Rochester Community Players.

It's one of the oldest local community theaters in the country, and as Mimi learned well after her childhood performances, it was founded by her great aunt.

It's a story of home to Hollywood.

And this hour Mimi Kennedy back to Rochester.

She is with us, making her way to Rochester.

It's a tough travel day, but I'm so glad that Mimi Kennedy is making the time for us.

Hello!

Welcome to the program!

Mimi Kennedy.

>> Hello!

Are you hearing me on the video app or on my phone?

That was my only.

We got you now.

>> We got you loud and clear.

Doing great.

>> Here, can I?

Okay, I might want to hang up the phone, but then I'm afraid that.

>> You can't.

I've been told you can do that.

And I am not the chief technology officer of this.

>> All right, here goes.

All right, here it goes.

Fingers crossed.

Hanging up the phone, staying on the video.

Am I there with you, Mimi?

>> Can you believe how technology has changed throughout your life and career?

>> Oh, don't talk to me about.

I was nine hours at an airport yesterday with a whole bunch of my fellow Americans and others.

And I gotta say, the airport personnel were amazing.

And they knew just how stressed they were and everybody else was.

And I was trying to use my phone to get in touch with people.

And they were kept asking for passwords.

And what is your password?

And your password?

And so it was stressful.

And that was technology.

But, you know, hey, it allows us to do this.

I'm in Binghamton right now and I'm talking to Rochester.

I'm so happy that I'm coming back there.

>> Well, we're we're grateful that you're making time for us.

And I want to welcome in studio with us.

Michael Krickmire is a is the president, and he's a producer with the Rochester Community Players.

Welcome.

Thank you for being here, Michael.

>> Well, thank you for bringing us here.

>> Absolutely.

And Karen Olson is a board member and historian for the Rochester Community Players.

Welcome to you as well.

>> Thank you.

Thanks for inviting us.

>> Oh, Michael and Karen, I know you're excited to see Mimi on the screen.

You're going to be excited to see her here.

pretty big a pretty big weekend here with Mimi Kennedy coming.

What does it mean to RCP?

What does it mean to you, Michael?

>> It means a lot.

I first read that Mimi was an alum of RCP back in 1987, when I was the actual hired producing artistic director there, and she joins a long line of professional actors who got their start right here in Rochester.

It's going to be great to meet her.

>> You want to add to that?

Karen Olson?

>> Well, certainly I was the lucky one who had a conversation with Mimi Kennedy via a Zoom call.

I got connected to her through her cousin, Mindy Mangan.

who I did not realize because her name wasn't Kennedy.

And later I found out that Mimi's aunt was a mangan.

But she helped me get in connection with Mimi and Mimi, and I talked.

And went.

After we talked, I said, would you consider being our honorary chairperson, representing both the Mangan and the Kennedy families?

Her immediate reply was yes.

And that was the best answer I'd heard in a long time.

>> Well, there's a lot coming up with Mimi.

Let me tell you what's coming up this weekend here tomorrow there's a book signing from 330 to 5 at Writers and Books on University Avenue.

So from 330 to 5, Mimi's going to read from her recently rereleased memoir, taken to the Stage The Education of an actress.

Everybody I know who's talked to Mimi said, you're going to love talking to her because she is such a great storyteller, and it's reflected in the book as well.

So the book available, Mimi will be there tomorrow, 330 to 5 at Writers and Books.

And then on Sunday, the Rcp's 100th anniversary celebration, 4 to 7 at the Century Club on East Avenue.

Tickets are still available.

I've been told.

So if you want to join the fun there and meet Mimi and head out there on Sunday.

It's from 4 to 7 at the Century Club on Sunday afternoon.

Mimi, when you think about your earliest memories of Rochester, what comes to mind for you >>?

>> You know it's the landscape, it's the ecology, it's the trees.

I have a friend who calls it the Deciduous East.

when I went to New York City, I loved it.

But it's a concrete jungle of canyons and high rises.

And when I got to L.A., it was desiccated.

It's dry.

It's a desert.

It's lovely.

The palm trees and the beautiful ocean.

Mountains, even.

But there's nothing like Rochester's lakeside green, lush landscape.

And that's what I think of.

I had trees that I still think of as my friends.

Maple trees in the front yard.

And and I had a very parochial Catholic education school, church.

And I had very funny Father Daniel G. Kennedy, lawyer.

And I had a glamorous but also very down to earth mother Nancy Kennedy, who acted at community players.

So I had an amazing mix of sort of spiritual, religious restriction, generous ecology, the weather.

It was so dramatic.

Maybe that's what taught me to be dramatic.

That was snow.

And thunderstorms and heat.

We don't have that where I live now.

It's much more normally regular, the same.

And that's what I think of.

Yeah.

>> Well, you know, if if I'm remembering right here.

So you got the story where you're 12 years old and you just want to have a chance to audition, and yet and yet, to me, the irony is, your mother says you can audition even though you write in your memoir that your mother was not a fan of child actors because your mother thought child actors were lousy versions of both children and actors, which is amazing.

Is that true?

>> Yes.

Yes.

Exactly right.

Yes.

She.

Sing out.

Louise was her greatest fear that she would become a stage mother.

And I do think it was repressed ambition.

And she saw a lot of her Brooklynite.

neighbors.

Go to Manhattan.

I think, and audition for things or be on radio then.

And their mothers were pushy and helping their careers.

And I can't help but think there was something in my mother's mind going, gosh, I wish it was me.

I know I would have been good, but she didn't want to be that person and they wouldn't let me go to New York until I had finished college.

Even though I was invited to meet an agent and a director.

Midway through Smith College.

And my parents said, absolutely not.

Got to have your education first.

>> clearly RCP was good to you, and I also understand that even though you and your friend Genevieve both wanted to try out for Spider''s Web you, you didn't want to share the part with her.

>> No.

And I'm going to out my friend from childhood, and I don't know where she is now.

God, I would love it if she's anywhere near Rochester.

I'm hoping people will come out of the woodwork and I'll be confronted by people I never thought I would see again, but her name really was Madeleine Trainer, so, Madeleine, if you're out there, I don't know if it's still your maiden name.

I don't know if you're this side of the grass, but Madeleine Trainer lived across the street.

She was a year younger than I was, and her mother and my mother were friends.

And Madeleine and I shared the part.

So.

So I will out her as Madeleine now.

But Jean, Genevieve, Genevieve was useful as a pseudonym, but I didn't want to share.

Of course I didn't.

I was a very a 12 years old.

Geez, it was all about me and being on stage.

But I will read from my memoir at Writers and books about some of that because I look back and I, I just laugh.

I cannot believe I got through my life as far as I did sometimes with the little I knew, but people people were kind to me, and I guess I was good at what I did.

But yes, Madeleine and I had to share the part, and Harriet Warren, then the director of of the theater with her husband, George and I, I will read about their fractious.

And yet intact marriage as well.

they knew to keep us apart.

So once we were sharing the part, I never saw her rehearse.

I never saw her at the theater, which was probably wise.

It's like, you know how shrinks have different entrances and exits so.

>> That.

>> You don't feel you're sharing the attention?

Yeah.

>> well, you've got these interesting.

Not only yourself with the Rochester connection, which is a delight for people who maybe have followed your career but didn't realize that you were one of us, a Rochester.

But also you have these other interesting Connections you receive coaching from Bob Forrester friends with John Lithgow, who is also has roots here.

And can I ask you about a letter from his father written to your great aunt?

>> Yes.

Great Aunt Frances Landy Mangan.

She was sisters with my grandmother, Catherine Landy Kennedy Love.

She was married twice because she was widowed early by Mr.

Kennedy.

The grandfather I never knew.

Frances Landy Mangan was a professional actress, and she trooped with Otis Skinner and John Drew and Ethel Barrymore in 1915, 1916.

She was on Broadway.

she was there when they shut the theaters down for the Spanish flu.

And she organized a sort of a troupe of Broadway actresses to go into people's tenements and help clean up and feed their children.

If people were sick.

I mean, amazing stuff.

And she married this war hero of World War I. She married him in one hour because he was going to be deployed.

And he said, we have to get married.

And she went down from Syracuse, where she was trouping with Otis Skinner, married him, Catholic priest, married them, was with him one hour, and got back up on the train and went back for the evening performance.

She retired when she got pregnant and came to Rochester, and I hadn't known this for the longest time, but she helped with Mary Finucane, who really started Rochester Community Players.

But Frances Landy Mangan, with her professional expertise and skill, was very involved in the beginning of the theater and she was president from 1939 to 1953.

So my roots at Rochester Community Players were even deeper than I knew.

And she was wonderful.

I wanted to read the part about her because she she had that very 19th century way of talking and being very, very particular about her consonants and vowels.

And so I used to listen to her and watch her at family gatherings on Sunday regularly after church.

And finally my father said, you know, go talk to Aunt Fran.

She was an actress.

Oh, my dear, what do you want me to tell her, Jerry?

And then she would go on stories about John Drew and Ethel Barrymore and a wonderful time that they started improvising with her on stage.

And she didn't know what to do.

And she told me later he wanted me to stage character.

That was a very important thing for every member of the repertoire to know.

I was terrified.

I got off stage and the stagehand said, oh, Miss Landi, here's a chair.

You look like you've seen a ghost.

And Ethel Barrymore apparently chewed him out later and said, don't you ever do that to our young maid again?

That's how Frances Landi told the story to me.

years later.

>> Why don't.

Why don't we talk like that anymore?

Mimi, what has happened to that.

>> Affect?

No, I don't know.

I don't think they teach elocution.

And we're two centuries later.

This was the 19th century.

and I, I don't I had Aunt Ruth Warrick she was a by marriage cousin.

And I start my book with her.

She was in.

She was in Orson Welles Citizen Kane cast as the wife.

Because Orson Welles said I needed a real lady for the part.

And you're the only real lady in Hollywood.

But she had very oval vowels, too.

But it was much deeper and a little more Hollywood.

Oh, Jerry.

Oh, it's so good to be in Rochester.

You know, she visited us once.

So I talk about accents in the book because the Rochester accent would previously have prevented anyone from having a career on stage, television.

>> Film.

>> So.

So what is the Rochester accent?

describe it.

And I'm obviously we're all sort of doing it, I guess.

But.

>> They still say people.

Why did mom Allison Janney just used to laugh at.

I mean, people just laughed at the way I talked, and I'm like, why?

I'm not saying anything.

And they confused it with Frances Mcdormand's Minnesota thing.

But I call it the Great Lakes accent.

It sounds like Chicago.

It's flat vowels, cargo, and especially Rochester has a flat A. I've cleaned up my act a little bit.

>> The flat, like the snack Snapple Apple.

>> Snapple.

Snapple.

Do you want Snapple?

Do you want a hot dog?

>> So.

>> But I.

>> Still talk like that.

When I hear myself, I go, oh yeah, there it is.

>> Yeah, it's still in there.

>> I had a very nasty review that my mother never forgave this woman.

She had been a classmate, I think, at the U of R, and I hope she's not here listening.

I think gone by now.

God bless her.

Harriet Van Horne.

Harriet Van Horne was a critic.

I think, syndicated.

And she reviewed three girls, three.

And she said, Mimi Kennedy accent is so pronounced as to make her unintelligible.

>> Wow.

>> That was a review of my first television performance, and my mother never forgave her.

But I call it the Saturday Night Live effect.

Once Gilda Radner and some of those Chicago actors, John Belushi later, Bill Murray got on television doing comedy.

The accent thing was off the table.

You could be as regional as you wanted, and it only improved your delivery.

So I benefited from that.

So what did you hear me say?

That.

See how careful.

>> I am?

I hear, I hear that you know, you've.

>> You've you've beaten it out of yourself there, Mimi.

Although it's still lurking below the surface.

>> It's it's lurking.

Get me on the phone for, you know, ten minutes with a friend from Rochester, and I'm back.

>> I'm back, I'm back in Rochester.

When I got here in 2003.

I'm from Ohio originally.

I got here in 2003, and I had a videographer a photojournalist, who told me that it's not Rochester.

It's he says it's about a syllable and a half.

It's Rochester like, but it's a long RA says it's mostly like the most of the emphasis on the RA.

And then it's like a it's just a blink of an eye.

>> Well.

>> To, to give our to give our burg a bit of class, I will point out that that's very British, you know, you see things called looks like Lysistrata and they call it Leicester there.

Leicester Square.

It's not Leicester Square, it's Leicester Square.

I know that there are many other examples, none of which I can think of now, but it saying Rochester instead of Rochester is more or less it could be a sign of good breeding.

>> There you.

Let's go with that for sure.

Is there a regional accent in this country that's the hardest for you?

>> Yes.

Oh my God, I don't know if you can guess.

but every actor says it.

It can be a career killer if you do it wrong.

And there are many actors who come from them there.

Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, a few more.

It's Boston.

>> Boston?

Yeah.

>> Boston is a bear.

Boston is very hard to get right because I veer into Long Island when I try it.

nobody's really quite sure.

South.

They.

You know, I can't do it.

I'll just embarrass myself if I try.

But I would need a real dialect coach.

I have auditioned many times with my attempt at my best Boston accent.

I don't think I've done any of those parts.

>> We're talking to the great Mimi Kennedy, an actor.

An author should pick up a book if you.

If you're interested in more of these kinds of stories.

Tomorrow at Writers and Books from 330 to 5, Mimi is an activist, and Mimi is glad to be back in Rochester this weekend with the RCP.

We're going to talk about the Rochester Community Players more coming up here with Michael and Karen in studio from the RCP, we're going to talk about their history and what they've got going on now.

And really what has happened over the last hundred years that gave great opportunities to people like Michael and Karen and Mimi Kennedy.

So these stories are really just outstanding.

And if you're joining us today saying, I know Mimi's voice, you know, what are the many things I've seen her in?

I want to listen to a cut from the CBS show.

Mom, this is Mimi as Marjorie giving Allison Janney's character Bonnie some advice.

Now, Marjorie is Bonnie's AA sponsor.

Bonnie is struggling to accept a new job that she has, and the scene takes place in a restaurant bathroom where Bonnie has secluded herself.

>> Bonnie no.

Why do I keep locking myself into smaller spaces?

Go away.

>> I'm not going anywhere.

>> Well, then I guess I live here now.

>> What are you doing, Bonnie?

>> Oh, don't go all Marjorie on me, please.

I hate my boss.

There's no underlying blah blah, blah.

>> There's always underlying blah blah blah.

Are you trying to blow up your life?

>> No.

>> Okay.

let's play a game.

Pretend I'm your boss.

>> Goodbye.

>> That job puts a roof over your head.

Why are you so resistant to doing it?

>> Because I hate it.

It's humiliating.

I'm in my 50s and I'm plunging toilets.

This was not the dream.

Marge.

>> What is.

>> The dream?

Well, I don't know, but it doesn't involve chasing raccoons out of a garbage closet.

>> But that is the.

>> Job, right?

And if I do it well, then I'll be doing it for the rest of my life.

And then that's just who I am.. We just found the underlying blah blah blah.

>> Look, you might not be doing what you want to with your life, but that's not Rita's fault.

>> Shut up.

>> Bonnie, the job isn't who you are.

It's just what you're doing on the road to what you're going to be.

>> I said shut up.

>> So, you know, we've got the audience laughing, but there's a there's a lot of relatable stuff there.

Mimi.

>> Oh, God.

It's reminding me how much fun it was to act with Allison Janney.

My God, we had fun.

yeah.

Well, it's about the 12 steps.

It's about recovery.

Quite frankly, I think it was a cultural earthquake in a way.

Culture quake.

This was a way to introduce everybody to the comeback road from anything.

And it is always open, and we always need it on some level.

And I don't think anybody ever did it as well as Chuck Lorre did in mom.

And I will say there was a lot of recovery, a lot of 12 step.

And in that writers room.

And it introduced me to the 12 steps and to that full panoply of programs.

I mean, it's not necessarily just AA or even Al-Anon, Narconon.

There's adult children of alcoholics.

There's so many free places to create a community to speak about.

The most important things that you never say to anybody else.

And except maybe a shrink for much more money per hour, I think mom did an amazing job and I get hugs.

Still in parking lots.

I have amazing stories that I hope to tell in a second memoir about people I have met because of having done that show.

But Allison Janney and I had such a good time acting those characters, and I remember her saying to me once behind a door before we walked into our set and started the scene, she went, I don't know what I'm doing with this character.

I said, I don't either, but we're in the moment and I think it's real.

And bam, we walked out.

I've never had so much fun acting with somebody as I did with her.

>> I mean, it was.

>> Like, well, James Gandolfini, I will say James Gandolfini, this is much fun.

>> There's the top two, I like it, I eight, nine seasons at a time when you know you have done obviously the stage you have done different sort of genres of acting sitcoms.

I wanted to ask you briefly about this Mimi because, you know, mom comes out in 2013 and it has this great run, 8 or 9 seasons, something like that.

And, and and it ends at a time when we move to almost a peak transition to streaming and a move away from appointment viewing.

And so.

>> Yeah.

>> You know, my, my son cannot understand why when I watched lost every week, it it was like we have to wait a week to try to solve this puzzle and wait for another episode.

He's like, just watch the next episode right away.

If you're so interested.

Like it does, the world doesn't work.

It didn't work like that.

It does now.

And I think we lose something a little bit with this instant gratification and not waiting a little bit.

And I wonder how it feels for you to be an actor and seeing so much change in our our habits as viewers.

>> Yeah, well, our lives got more difficult.

I will say that.

I think we all know that people are holding two jobs.

Three jobs.

People are juggling parents and children.

And, you know, it's it's hard to keep an appointment with television.

The VCR, that's probably something nobody even knows what I'm talking about.

The video.

>> Recording.

>> you know, those things changed it a little bit.

And now YouTube streaming subscriptions have changed a lot.

They're getting very expensive.

You carry five subscriptions, six subscriptions.

You got to pare down.

So it will keep evolving.

But how I feel as an actor is yes, it was thrilling to be, you know, back in the day, Mash, I was on a show, the two of us, even three girls, three people who the amount of people who saw that show and it was considered not enough of a rating that would now be a through the roof rating to get that many people to watch you.

And they would then tall talk about it together.

One of the very first chat groups online ever was something called viewers for Quality Television.

1992.

They loved the show Home Front that I was on for two years, and you know, the producers would kill for that kind of community enthusiasm all around.

One show now, but it's changed because our lives are difficult, and that's what I respect.

I respect that if I'm a storyteller, it's whose ears reach it.

When it reads.

I don't know what the effect is.

I only know that if I do something, I think it's worthwhile and give it my best.

Maybe it'll have a good effect somewhere, somehow, and somebody's life.

And as a community, you know, we're not moving in huge groups all the time to cultural stuff anymore.

But we are changing within.

That's something recovery has taught me.

And mom kind of taught me.

I always call it the last sitcom, you know, was the last one.

Certainly I might ever do on network TV, although never say never.

Things change, but I think as we move individually to waking up to things, I think it affects us all.

I think new aspects of community form, and I know even in Hollywood and in politics, people are talking about, hey, go to your community.

And that's why I've got to get back to Rochester Community Theater.

I'm so happy to be going back to this, which was where I started, where my mother, my great aunt, even my father was on the stage.

My brother.

There's something about doing it locally that you rediscover something it's not A.I., it's not on the internet.

You know.

And if you can find time in your life to do it and get somewhere in a car or a bus or whatever, it's doable.

And it opens.

It's amazing.

So I don't know, I think recovery groups do that.

If you meet in person.

I think churches do that.

Yeah, school, of course, but these are the things that are tenuous now.

So we're trying to recover community.

>> Yeah.

>> That's.

>> As I get older myself and I think about you know, I'm not someone who goes to a regular church.

And I maybe in my younger adulthood I was more cynical about it.

But I when I see people losing any sense of connection in the physical world, I mean, just about just about anything that brings us together in person, whether it's RCP, your local church, the PTA, whatever it is, I think it's it can be really, really valuable.

And for listeners who think Mimi is just sort of overinflating because she's coming back to RCP and she has to say she was excited.

I read an interview that Mimi was so excited to learn last year that she would be Rcgp's honorary chair of the Centennial event, that she bought a plane ticket for November of 2024.

Not this year.

Yeah.

Is that true?

>> Would have been a lot easier to travel, I'll.

>> Say yes.

Cheaper.

>> Yeah.

Not not as fraught.

>> Yeah.

>> But yes I did.

Yes I did.

I think I got a reimbursement I you know, I can I think I threw myself on the mercy of the airlines.

>> well we're, we're glad that it has worked out.

And when we come back from our break, we're going to talk to Karen Olson and Michael Krickmire and Mimi Kennedy about what is coming up on Sunday.

And we're going to talk about some of the history of RCP and community players in general.

They're celebrating Rochester Community Players celebrating 100 years.

Michael Krickmire says he was he was on that staff in the 80s when they used to pay people.

Can you even imagine?

So we're going to talk about what has changed, but also the value of community theater and players like shows like these.

So let's come right back.

We'll continue on the other side of this break on Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson Monday on the next Connections.

In our first hour of the Rochester Academy of Medicine is putting together a program trying to combat disinformation about medicine, vaccines, American health care.

We'll talk about how they're doing it in our first hour.

In our second hour, my colleague Patrick Hosken joins me talking about the rise in interest and locations where you can go have a drink and not consume any alcohol.

Talk with you Monday.

>> Global pop star Rosalia is back with a new album, and it's her most ambitious yet.

Featuring 13 different languages.

>> I love people realizing that pop music can be great art, and that's something that's happening here.

>> I'm Juana Summers, NPR Stephen Thompson.

Reviews Rosalia's sprawling new record box that's on All Things Considered.

From NPR news.

>> This afternoon at four.

>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson Mimi Kennedy.

You're going to love this story.

Leave it to a historian.

Historian for the Rochester Community Players Karen Olson to have this little bit of history, as we talked about accents and pronunciation and different affects that have gone out of style.

What's the story here?

Karen Olson.

>> Well, one of the things that surprised me when I was doing research, which I had to do at the library, I was historian years ago when we sold the building, and we found another theater with an office, but there wasn't room for what is literally a huge collection archival collection documenting everything in the earliest days.

When you get into the 1900s, you lose it.

But I go, so I would go and spend the day at the library going through things, and I came across the fact that in the 30s, late 20s, early 30s, they would do classes.

And one of the classes that was very popular was diction.

>> Diction as a class.

>> Exactly.

>> I don't know if they're still teaching diction Mimi Kennedy.

How about.

>> That?

>> No, I don't think I think the only elocution I ever got was at Smith College from a woman who was of my Aunt Frances Landis generation.

And I took it and I thought, hopefully, oh, this will make me sound wonderful.

I'll be half standard American English for the stage.

But I remember another part of me went, and I'm going to sound really phony, so I, I struggled with that.

Probably my natural comic aspect fought against any kind of veil of plastic surgery for my voice.

Let us say.

But I have a feeling.

Francis Landey Mangan had something to do with the promotion of elocution or diction classes.

I think she was involved in the theater from from its inception, although she might, I don't know, Karen.

I defer to her.

Man.

Karen is amazing.

I genuflect to Karen and everything she's done.

I also love to listen to your voice.

Karen.

And it's a delight.

And anyway, I do think it would be great simply to have diction.

I think it's important.

There are times, especially in what I would call our melting pot culture, which I love.

I know it's not on everybody's favored list right now, but especially when I travel, I get directions from people sometimes, and maybe it's my hearing at my age, but I'm like, I have to ask people two and three times and I apologize.

I didn't understand, and I'm thinking, wow, is that a thing that we like?

Need my son is married to a Japanese woman that he met after Brown University, and he went to Japan, having already learned Japanese because he loved video games and anime.

And he was in a remote mountain region of Japan, assigned to a school, and his job was to repeat after the teacher the proper way to say the English words.

All Japanese children have to learn English as a second language.

That's instructive in its own way, but the funniest thing he told me was it was his job to put on a Christmas pageant.

And he said, if you go through everything about Christmas, Noel, Christmas, Merry Christmas, everything involves an R and an L, which are the two things that in Japanese language, pretty much are not part of it.

So it's very difficult.

It just in terms of muscle production to make those sounds.

But that's why it was so interesting and why the teacher was so smart to go, let's put on a Christmas production, and this will help the kids with their English pronunciation.

So I don't know.

It is stuff like that, a thing the theater can do?

Should we do it?

>> Is it is it.

>> Not a nice thing to point?

I don't know, I mean, I really I do think it's important to understand each other, but, you know, we could end up saying everybody's got to speak Chinese in 50 years or 100 years.

And I know I would never be able to do it.

You know, there's a pitch thing if you say it in a high pitch, it means completely different from a low pitch.

That's instructive.

I mean, we have to be humble about this, but while we've got English, I say just, you know, have fun with it.

I love regional accents.

I standard English is beautiful.

I love the Rochester accent.

It makes me laugh.

So, you know, it's rich in differences.

>> Too.

>> No, I agree, I love celebrating all those different.

I mean, Asian languages are so beautiful and to me, impenetrable.

maybe A.I.

will will that maybe that'll be one of the only good things about A.I.

We'll be able to actually more quickly translate for each other.

But I think learning different, different languages, different diction, different accents is a great skill.

It's a great skill for any performer to have, I'm sure.

I mean, Michael Krickmire what's in your what's in your repertoire?

>> Well, we have an interesting connection.

Mimi and I that she doesn't know about, and that is one of my first acting teachers and became my mentor in theater, is the woman she appeared with on stage.

Her first time.

Gisela freaking.

>> Oh my gosh.

Yes.

Oh she's amazing.

Yes.

>> And I studied theater on the undergraduate level at Suny Brockport, where I happened to teach now as well in the theater department.

And Gisela was one of the founding members of the Department of Theater at Suny Brockport.

>> I didn't know that.

>> I didn't know, wow.

Of she.

>> Was.

>> And yeah.

>> Diction wise, she would make every student and I still use this today in auditions, say the words pots and pans without the Rochester accent pots.

>> And pans?

>> Yes.

Without that flat A and often in auditions to do some tiebreakers, I'll turn my back on everyone and I'll say, please say the words pots a and d p s just to hear if they say pans.

>> Pots and.

>> Pans.

Pots.

>> Pots and.

>> Pans, indeed.

And so.

And yet it's so useful for comedy.

Go ahead.

>> Yeah.

No, it's just that I found that as you were talking about that we do teach a class at Suny Brockport in voice and diction.

So what a story.

And it's a part of the theater, major.

>> See, you're all just.

>> Maybe we should.

>> Oh.

>> Go ahead.

>> Oh, no.

No, please, Mimi.

Go ahead.

>> Well.

>> I'm thinking out loud here, but maybe it's like comparative religions.

You know, when.

Leave your dogma at the door.

Leave your bigotry, whatever it is that's making you preferential.

I like the way I do it at the door.

And understand that there's this rich variation.

I'm thinking back to the Marx Brothers, Chico Marx was almost at one time my favorite Marx Brothers because he did the Italian guy and what's it going to be and what's that going to be?

You know?

And yet there are people who would my children's generation go, oh, gosh, mom, that's microaggression.

You can't do that.

And I'm like, oh, you know, of course I'm sorry.

I don't want to do that.

But that was comedy.

And that was a reflection of what was going on.

So I this is what I would say if I were a playwright, I'd write a whole play about, you know, and have eight different versions of English on the stage.

And I would use it for comedy, comic effect, and also searing emotional profundity.

>> I think that's great.

We're talking to Mimi Kennedy and in studio from the Rochester Community Players, Michael Krickmire and Karen Olson are here.

They would love to see you on Sunday afternoon starting at 4:00 at the Century Club for the 100th anniversary of the Rochester Community Players and Mimi Kennedy who participated in RCP back in the day, is coming back to Rochester to be the honorary chair of that event here.

So Michael and Karen, a little bit of background here.

First of all, for people who haven't been to RCP in a while, still doing it.

But what's changed and what tell people what it is that you do now?

>> Well, we no longer have our own home.

The theater on MiG Street was given up back in 1986, I believe 84. we moved at that point to a small theater in what is now the Radisson Hotel or the ghost of a hotel downtown.

Unfortunately, it was the Holiday Inn and produced shows there all the way until 1992, in a small cabaret theater from there we moved out to next to Saint John Fisher College in the Orcutt Botsford School of Dance, which had transitioned to the Orchid Botsford Arts Center.

And when Saint John Fisher purchased their building, we had to move again.

So we have been a nomadic theater for a while until the multi-use community Cultural center, the muck.

The muck here in town came about.

And that is where we do all of our shows now, except for in the summer.

We do for next year will be our 29th year offering free Shakespeare in the Park at the Highland Park Bowl.

And our season is a four play long season.

Three's plays at muck and one play at the Highland Park Bowl.

>> And what was on the agenda?

What are you doing most recently here?

>> Well, we just closed a play called The African Company Presents.

Richard the Third, which is an historical drama about the Grove Theater and black, how black theater was born here in the United States.

And we're coming up opening our 101st season.

next January with the female version of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, which my wife will be directing because she too is also an actress and a director.

And that'll be our first show at Muck in January.

>> And so when you look at the history as the historian Karen Olsen does here, you know, Michael's talking about a company that's had to move a lot in a community that has seen a lot of change, still very much an arts town.

Karen, how do you how do you see RCP and its place in Rochester now?

>> Well, it's very different from what it was originally.

And the history is so rich.

But when Rochester Community Players started, people weren't used to the idea that you would go and pay money to see people that you knew, your neighbors, your doctor, your clerk in the store, librarian doing plays.

So the whole concept of a community group was very new.

It was all part of the little theater movement happening at that time.

Mary Finucane, who was the founder in 1923, she had the idea.

She got other people excited about it, had a big dinner at the Sagamore Hotel downtown, and then they went ahead and they started working on becoming incorporated in 1924, they got incorporated as a community theater group, and then their first actual production using local talent was in January of 1925.

So technically we are 101 years old as an organization.

But as far as actually producing plays, we're celebrating our 100th season from January 1925 to now.

>> I just want to a brief aside, as a a question or comment for the historian, this has been a big week for historians on this program.

We had an election on Tuesday, and in the town of Perinton, a Democrat, won the supervisor's seat and we thank goodness New York state mandates.

Individual towns have to have their own historian because Bill Perry, the historian out in, in perinton, was able to tell us that it has been 107 years since a Democrat won that seat.

And really appreciated that little bit of history that there's no way anybody would have been able to dig up here.

Karen's got these great stories, this great history.

As the historian for RCP, but the job of historians, I mean, Karen's talking about there going down to the Sagamore.

They're having this big dinner.

It's the it's the 1920s.

They're talking about what what they want to do in local theater.

You know, maybe there's this epistolary component, maybe you've got old letters.

now, what are the historians of the future going to say?

Like nobody goes out, nobody sees each other.

You got to decode a bunch of short text messages.

I mean, it was it's a very different it's going to be a very different profession in the future for you, Karen.

>> Well, and it already is.

And for me, it's just something I've always been interested in.

History.

Got that from my mother.

But what was interesting is once they got started and they right from the beginning, they didn't have much money.

They were doing fundraisers all the time, but they managed to get enough people excited that they bought a theater.

And in 1926, they they started their own theater group with a remodeled old church that everybody started calling the playhouse.

And for the first 50 years, they were the only game in town.

So when you looked at the old scrapbooks and there were like 6 or 7 newspapers and they were covered not only in the theater pages, but in the society pages, so you would hear about who had the dinner parties before opening night and what they were wearing to the show, and you'd have not only the list of who was in the show, but the list of the ushers.

>> I love.

>> It, I mean, it was a totally different world.

Blackfriars came along in 25, you know, after after that.

But for a long time they had they had an open game.

>> Yeah.

Go ahead.

Mimi.

>> I was.

>> Going to say, I think it's always sort of a dress up event when people come together.

That's an artistic thing too.

That happens and it's creative and it's individual.

you know, it's slow, but we're coming back to that.

People have talked for a while.

Cultural historians about the end of history.

And I think the digitization of our lives is part of that.

But all the more important, anybody who writes anything down keeps a diary, writes a letter, keep those in a trunk, because it's kind of like, well, the slave narratives, you know, who was paying attention to the lives of the enslaved, the people themselves who were enslaved.

>> Yeah.

And they did.

Yeah.

>> Write narratives, and they give us that history.

And it is a precious treasure that cannot be denied.

Though people try to deny it.

And I would say that during this digitization Fantasia, we we need to remember the importance of writing things down that we want to keep.

It doesn't need to be every day all the time, but to remember that that's important.

I wanted to ask a question about RCP.

Now how are the auditions?

I remember the audition process, the I could you could go down and try out to get a part.

Maybe you wouldn't win the part, but you were on stage trying out.

Doing your best.

Is that still happening or not?

Is it by invitation only?

Do you have open auditions?

How does that work?

>> Now.

>> One thing that I want to say I need to correct myself.

I just realized I said it was the first 50 years.

It was the first 25 years that Community Players was the only theater.

And then Blackfriars came in.

So I just wanted to correct that.

And then at their 50th anniversary so I had sort of both things in my head.

Other theater groups participated in celebrating actually did shows as part of it, but I wanted to correct that.

For the record first 25 years, there's no other competition.

>> And Michael, what's going on now to.

>> The the audition process still is indeed an open process.

any person can come along.

We love using brand new actors who show talent and encouraging that.

And we love using actors that we know we have used before.

So most of our shows are a nice mixture of alumni, actors, and brand new actors.

>> Same as it was.

>> And as it was.

>> Any listener, it is.

That's I mean, that was my first audition.

That was my first real.

And it was fantastic.

And of course, there was nepotism involved.

Let's face.

>> It, my mother, we try.

>> We try our darndest not to do that.

I have.

>> Only, well.

>> I've only.

>> Has.

Yeah.

They still talk about Mimi.

>> It brought great shame to RCP.

>> But I'll be honest, it's.

>> Getting to know the theater later on.

I was beaten out with a very important early part by Julie Garfield.

I know Kennedy versus Garfield.

One was a political name, one was a theater name.

Garfield got the part and Lucie Arnaz versus Mimi Kennedy for a wonderful Neil Simon musical.

Lucie Arnaz.

So it it worked against me as well.

>> But I'm just saying.

>> Those were open auditions, and it's a part of the process of learning to be an actor.

And whether you're professional or whether you're just doing it to play and have fun and show off, which is something that is our right as human beings.

And theater gives a structure for it that is so celebratory and wonderful and community driven.

And when you're in a play with other people, you never forget those people.

That is a community that lives.

Even if you don't get in touch with each other afterwards, you remember the things you learned together.

>> Well, Michael, do you want to tell us a little bit more about what's coming up Sunday afternoon?

>> Sunday afternoon is our soiree.

It's going to be a wonderful party.

It's at the Century Club on East Avenue.

and the best person to probably tell you what is actually involved in this soiree, other than meeting Mimi and having the chance to talk with her.

is Karen because she was on the committee, the Centennial celebration committee that my wife and another lady by the name of Linda were the chairman of.

But Miss Historian here.

>> All right, Karen floor is yours.

Tell us about.

>> Sunday keeping the current history as well.

>> There you go.

This was my my year.

Evan.

Anything we did, there was something in RCP history that would connect to it.

It's just amazing that this group has weathered ups and downs and successes and about anything you can imagine somewhere in the history they've done it.

But for the soiree, we also, when we opened, when we kicked off the opening and Mimi Kennedy appeared on the screen, we announced our big announcement, which she would be our honorary chair, and she told the story herself about buying the ticket too early to come to the soiree.

but we we had an exhibit.

We called it Rochester Community Players 100 years in photos.

There are 87 photos from 1924 through 2024.

That exhibit will be back up at the Century Club.

So people who didn't see it will see that we will have costumes.

We have a huge costume collection at Community Players.

You can imagine all these years.

>> They're all over the floor of my living room.

>> Right now.

>> And so we're going to have some outfits on display around.

People can look at.

We're going to have music throughout, and there will be performances of songs from musicals at RCP, produced at different points throughout the evening.

We're going to have wonderful.

It's not a sit down dinner where you're only talking to the people around you.

It's going to be one where you wander around and you get to talk to everybody, and there will be gourmet hors d'oeuvres and the Strathallan is the company behind all of that.

And just so much going on.

And then there's we've we've had I talked earlier about theater groups taking part in our 50th anniversary.

Many local theater groups are very generous, donating tickets that will be prizes.

So it's going to be a fun event.

People are dressing up a little bit because we don't get to do that a lot.

And it's just going to be fun to celebrate.

And Mimi is going to be a part of it.

>> 4:00 Sunday, the Century Club tickets.

Can you get them in advance here?

>> Yes, absolutely.

Online you can go to our website Rochester Community Players.

Org and we'll connect you online is the best way.

And then if you absolutely make a last minute decision, you can come to the door.

Yes, $75 per person.

>> So that's on Sunday afternoon, 4:00 tomorrow afternoon starting at 330 Mimi Kennedy is going to be doing a book signing at Writers and Books on university and reading from her recently rereleased memoir.

And they would love to see you there as well.

Mimi I've got about a minute left here.

You've done so much over the years, and as you say, you never know what you're going to do next.

But if you could go back and do one role again, the most fun you ever had was what?

>> Well, there's two acting opposite James Gandolfini in In the Loop, which was an antiwar movie which very close to my heart, nonviolence.

But also Homefront, in which I played Ruth Sloane, the woman you love to hate post World War II bigoted woman who learned every episode.

Something about grief and privilege and change and race and many things.

I loved playing Ruth Sloane, and I brought a lot of Rochester to that.

>> Role.

Oh, dear.

So there's.

>> A lot of Rochester to.

>> That role.

Well, she.

>> Actually she had one of these kind of.

>> Voices, but she.

>> Was a Ohio woman, but she had the one of these little bit upper class.

But we want another martini, >> Dear.

So, yeah.

>> Mimi.

Thank you.

You are very generous to give us this time today and to share it with us.

I know you're excited to come back to your native Rochester.

We're excited to see you.

Thank you for your generosity and being on the program today.

>> Oh you're welcome.

I had a ball.

I can't wait to see Rochester and Rochester again.

See you this weekend.

>> That is the great Mimi Kennedy and Michael Krickmire Karen Olson from the Rochester Community Players.

Happy anniversary to our.

>> Thank you, thank you.

>> Thank you.

>> Big, big weekend here.

>> We're the second oldest community theater in all of New York State.

>> Very proud of that.

>> Yes.

>> And still doing great work.

It's Rutte one more time, the website to learn more here.

>> Rochester Community Players PBS.org.

>> Thank you for being here, guys.

Thank you very much for sharing these stories and our thanks as well to the team from Writers and books.

Going to be a big weekend for them as well from all of us at Connections.

Thanks for watching.

Thanks for listening.

We are back with you.

Oh, Monday on member supported public media.

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