Stephanie Carlson is a professional actor and singer from Easthampton, Massachusetts – which for the non-Americans among us is not that East Hampton of ‘the Hamptons’ fame, but is instead ‘kind of near Boston’.

Over the course of her lengthy career, Stephanie has performed throughout the Eastern United States and has also toured nationally with Underground Railway Theatre. Touring on cruise ships has also given her the chance to perform internationally. Since founding Passport Theatre Company with Adrian Goldman in 2012, she’s visited Finland several times for major roles in the group’s joint productions with the Finn-Brit Players, such as Falsettos, Hay Fever and Melancholy Play. And she’s now delighted to be back in Helsinki for Educating Rita!

In fact, she has Adrian to thank for her first ever experience in theatre, when he directed her in a production of Pippin back when she was in high school.

“And I’ve been performing ever since!” says Stephanie.

Another big first resulted from playing April (a ditzy flight attendant) in Speakeasy Stage's production of Company, as it earned Stephanie her first Boston Globe review. Mr. Burns, a Post-Apocalyptic Play, in which she played Bart/Quincy, was also a stand-out production. This edgy black comedy follows a group of survivors remembering and retelling an episode of The Simpsons after an unspecified apocalyptic event.

“And I also loved playing the title role in Sylvia – a cursing, flirting dog who sings,” she says.

Stephanie has also enjoyed her two outings in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, in which she got to play Cecily in one production and Gwendolyn in another.

“Miss Prism is next in the queue if anyone is hiring,” she says.

Educating Rita has long been on Stephanie’s ‘bucket list’, primarily because of its strong female protagonist. Rita is a working-class hairdresser who takes an Open University course to study literature. When she sweeps into her tutor’s life, she absorbs his knowledge and challenges his assumptions.

“I identify with Rita's openness, her self-deprecating humour and her desire to grow and evolve,” says Stephanie. 

Rita is from Liverpool, and one of her defining features is her strong Scouse accent. As accents go, Stephanie says it has definitely been ‘a tricky one’ to master and one of the most challenging aspects of playing Rita. Due to the pandemic, Adrian and Stephanie have also done most of their rehearsing over Zoom, which has posed its own set of challenges. Stephanie is therefore looking forward to the final week of intensive in-person rehearsals in Helsinki.

Photo: Danielle Tait
Text: Zach Chamberlaine

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Adrian Goldman’s theatrical career spans a good many decades, two continents and three countries. Although he has focused more on directing in recent years, he’s no stranger to treading the boards and has even turned his hand to lighting design.

So what are some of the high points is his directing career? Here in Finland, he mentions getting Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist off his 'bucket list'. This was both an amazing experience and Adrian’s first play with the Finn-Brit Players. Another big first was directing his current co-star, Stephanie Carlson, in her first role. The play was Pippin, and at this time Adrian was directing semi-professionally in the US. Another highlight from this period was Arthur Miller’s The Price at the Stony Creek Puppet House Theatre.

“We got a standing ovation,” Adrian remembers.

In 2012, Adrian and Stephanie founded Passport Theatre Company as a semi-professional group whose mission is to bring international, alternative and less well-known voices to audiences; and he also has many fond memories of the shows they’ve done together over the past ten years.

When I asked him for some highlights from his acting career, he mentioned playing Gethin Price in Trevor Griffith’s Comedians.

“I had my head shaved and played an ANGRY YOUNG MAN. Which I was at the time,” says Adrian.

In Educating Rita, he plays Frank: less of an angry young man and more of a disillusioned middle-aged university lecturer.

“Playing an academic comes quite easily to me – for some reason,” says Adrian.

That reason obviously being his own lengthy career in academia. Although their subjects differ – biochemistry (Adrian) versus English literature (Frank) – he knows exactly what it’s like to be a university professor and inhabit Frank’s professional world. Yet not everything about playing Frank has come quite as naturally. Frank believes that any problem can be forgotten with a trip to the pub, and Adrian has found the drunk scenes to be the most challenging part of the role.

“I haven’t been seriously drunk since the old gang left Cafe Angleterre,” says Adrian, reminiscing about the old days when post-performance drinks were often had at the Finn-Brit Players’ then local watering hole. “Ah, the days of cigarette smoke inside (ew) and rolling home on the night bus....”

But you don’t have to be a big drinker to successfully play a drunkard. Since Withnail and I, Richard E. Grant has made a long and distinguished career out of portraying iconic drunks, yet a severe alcohol allergy means he’s been a lifelong teetotaller. So hanging out down the pub with a bunch of actors – albeit many moons ago – almost makes Adrian overqualified in comparison.

Text: Zach Chamberlaine

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Kiersten Leslie fondly remembers her visit to Helsinki in 2016 when she met several Finn-Brit types as well as some members of the cast and crew of Strange Season. She particularly enjoyed the delightful rambles in the wilds of Nuuksio.

In Strange Season, Kiersten has the role of Melinda, who accepts a romantic invitation from an old flame, Art, to join him for a getaway to sunny Spain. On arrival, Art whisks her off to a reception at the Madrid climate talks, which are grinding to a halt due to international infighting and a plot by the fossil fuel industry's venture capitalists to scuttle the whole thing.

Art seems eager to marry her at last and dump his rich wife. There are two catches in the way of their living happily ever after on the ranch Art wants to acquire in California. The first is that Melinda has gotten herself accidentally pregnant and is worried Art will change his mind if he notices her blissful state before telling the wife she is being dumped.

The other catch is that Art has joined the plot of the venture capitalists to scuttle the climate talks which will allow him to do a billion dollar coal deal to finance their getaway plan to California. Melinda's dilemma is compounded when she meets Louise, whose family lives near a toxic oilfield. Then there is the old geophysicist, Peter, who shows her pictures of Greenland in meltdown. These encounters are a real downer for her and her dreams of a romantic escape with Art.

Then there are all those bills unpaid and the baby on the way. She decides to flee the scene and collect her thoughts. Only to find herself at a bullfight. Art enters suddenly, with a bull in hot pursuit....

Text: Kiersten Leslie
Photo (bullfight): Giovanni Calia on Unsplash

Kiersten hails from New Zealand, but is currently working at a theater near Birmingham in the UK. At university she majored in sciences, but then moved on to theater and acting. The call is irresistable when it comes, as every true thespian knows.

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