I didn't want the recent Stageworks production of The Sisters Rosensweig to fade into memory without paying a call on the delightful actress who played Gorgeous Rosensweig, Eileen Koteles. As Gorgeous, Koteles was frenetic, very funny, overflowing with love and convinced that her job as a radio personality made her the envy of all who knew her. Author Wendy Wasserstein wrote the part so that Gorgeous would steal every scene she charged into, and that's just what Koteles did.
Her sisters in the play, Sara and Pfeni, might have been more level-headed, but bubbly, vivacious Gorgeous was a celebration unto herself, a good time waiting to embrace everyone she encountered. Madeline Kahn had the role on Broadway and won a Tony for her troubles. But Koteles played the part so capably for Stageworks that you could hardly imagine anyone else doing the job.
I met with Koteles at her office in the Mendez Foundation, a South Tampa chapter of a national institution that brings anti-drug and anti-violence curricula to schools and schoolchildren. Koteles, as the Foundation's local theater director, both writes and acts in plays, meaning that sometimes she plays a cat to very small children, sometimes an author teaching bully prevention.
Her office was cluttered but attractive — someone had put a sign announcing "Dr. Gorgeous, like Dr. Pepper" on her desk — and she laughed easily and often during the hour we spent together. Behind her were the clearly treasured photos of her husband and three sons.
She reminded me that she's a Tampa native — Plant High, class of '71 — whose first love was dance, and who went on to the University of Florida where she studied musical theater and worked as an actress, dancer and singer. After graduation, she decided to try her luck as a dancer in New York City, where she managed to study modern dance, tap and jazz.
But repeatedly she was told that, at 5-foot-2, she was about two inches too short for available jobs. So she choreographed instead — "so far off-Broadway that it was in New Jersey" — and then "it got very cold and very difficult and I thought, OK, I need to go back and rethink all this."
She ended up in Miami, dancing and writing for the touring group The Lemon Twist Showstoppers, then found a year's employment performing in Jack Hefner's Vanities, first in Gainesville and then back in Miami. Accepted into the Equity actors union, she took roles all around the Miami area. "It was great because there were a lot of Equity houses, and you could actually make a living acting," she said.
Koteles met her husband Albi — a Canadian-born rock drummer — while living in south Florida, and even joined his group as a vocalist for a while. Then they decided to have children, and reasoned that Tampa, near family, was the best place for it. Eventually, they had their sons (two of whom now play in a folk-rock band with their father) and Koteles gave up her acting and her Equity card.
In the early '90s, Koteles saw that Stageworks was looking for performers for its annual Briefs festival and decided to rejoin the fray. Eventually she landed work in major Stageworks productions like All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, Talking With…, All My Sons, Hypoxia Zone and The Memory of Water. She said she's only done a little acting outside of her Stageworks stints because she can't juggle her work at the Foundation with the rehearsal schedules of most local theaters.
But an occasional performance, combined with work and family, is satisfying enough, she said. And she enjoys taking direction from Stageworks' producing artistic director Anna Brennen: "I know that when I'm working with her I'm going to learn a great deal. She pushes the envelope. She knows what she's talking about when it comes to directing."
I mentioned that Brennen has a reputation for being tough on her actors, and Koteles suggested that there was a good reason for that. "A lot of us have nervous things that we do that are crutches, before we give ourselves to that character," she said. "So when people are with her, they're learning that; they're learning that about themselves. It's a gift, given in a way that can sometimes be a little difficult, know what I mean? But nevertheless it's a gift."
Brennen is mightily impressed with Koteles. "She's a team player," the artistic director said in a phone interview. "She's incredibly enthusiastic; she's always helpful; she's very imaginative; she works extremely hard, highly disciplined. Because she can dance and is a choreographer … she's got to find her patterns of movement. … But in addition to that, she's one of those natural comediennes, which is a rare thing."
Why did Brennen cast her as Gorgeous? "Why wouldn't you?" she said with a laugh. "She's got the comedic timing; she's got a wonderful face, a speaking range of about three-and-a-half octaves, and she loves to play characters. And she's not afraid. The beauty of Eileen, I tease her all the time: She's incredibly sentimental, very romantic, and extremely loving, all of those things wrapped into one. She's kind of the perfect mom. And that's who Gorgeous is."
Brennen added that she thinks of Koteles — in both comic and serious roles — as part of Stageworks' core group of actors, along with Richard Coppinger, Dawn Truax, Petrus Antonius and a very few others.
But can Koteles really be happy appearing so seldom in local drama? "Yes," the actress says. "My family is here; we wanted to raise the children here. … I wouldn't give it up for the world. I wouldn't go back and do anything different."
Further, she's committed to her work at the Foundation: "There's a lot of opportunity for me here with Mendez and helping children through the arts, which is an amazing feeling. It's wonderful. And if along the road I can kind of go and do my thing with theater and stay…"
Her voice trails off for a moment. "It is a passion," she resumes. "It's definitely a passion. As a matter of fact, I get a little" — she sighs deeply — "when I talk about it. Because I do want to keep doing it. I love it. And I need my fix.
"At least once a year."
This article appears in Jun 6-12, 2007.