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Clown prince
The many sides of John Kuntz
BY SALLY CRAGIN

Years ago, actor John Kuntz figured out how to work all the time. Write a show, cast yourself, repeat when necessary. The first play Kuntz wrote was for his English class at Cohasset High School. The assignment was to write an essay comparing Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead with Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? In a daring theatrical maneuver presaging his later playwriting career, Kuntz finessed the assignment. His play combined characters from both works, and he’s still archly proud of his A.

Finding common ground for disparate characters is writer John Kuntz’s stock in trade. Area audiences might know him from his four solo shows, which include Freaks! and Starfuckers. But the writer/performer of his own works is also a busy actor in a wide variety of area companies. This week, his worlds collide as he stars in the Actors Shakespeare Project’s Richard III while, across town, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre presents his Jasper Lake, an eerie new comedy drama about quirky families in the gated community of the title (and his 11th full-length play). Kuntz is also preparing for Fully Committed, a one-man show by Becky Mode in which he will play 40 different characters at the Lyric Stage Company beginning November 26. This fall, he will also appear in the pilot for WGBH’s Survivor’s Guide to High School, a reality show for teenagers with a Queer Eye–type self-improvement theme. (Kuntz’s specialty is "presentation.")

All the same, he makes time before a Richard III rehearsal for a late lunch at the Whole Foods Café behind Symphony Hall. Take away the heavily highlighted script in his hands and you might guess this modest, dark-haired man carrying a bike helmet and a jumbo backpack was another college student en route to class. Between mouthfuls of gazpacho and a gargantuan salad, he confesses, "I don’t know what to do with free time. I get anxious and roam around the house. I rearrange the furniture." But it’s clear he’s invigorated by the prospect of playing the Bard’s physically challenged, deliciously murderous villain. Raising his left arm to demonstrate Richard’s infirmity, he contorts his wrist and flutters his fingers. "It’s like there’s this other creature on him," he says with wonderment. It’s both a creepy and a comic gesture.

And then there’s Jasper Lake. Developed during Kuntz’s first year as a Huntington Playwriting Fellow, it’s been entered in the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. Kate Snodgrass, director of the BU playwriting graduate program, notes that he "isn’t afraid to go too far. And I’m afraid many actors don’t go far enough. He’s fearless as an actor and as a writer." Huntington Fellow colleague Melinda Lopez has worked with Kuntz for the past year; she comments, "He’s deeply connected to the dark side of the American psyche. It’s like he’s a seer, except his vision is so funny. He’s a funny David Lynch."

After graduating from Emerson College, Kuntz found that acting jobs were few and far between, so he got a job as a fry cook at the Comedy Connection downtown, where, he says, since "no one needed food, I’d watch the comedians. They were all so-o-o" — he pauses for effect — "glum." So Kuntz wrote and wrote and wrote and along the way, he raised his profile. Of those early years, he comments, "Everyone said you have to move to LA or New York. But I said, I’m going to stay here and do whatever it takes to be an actor in this town."

Richard III is presented by the Actors Shakespeare Project at Old South Meeting House, 310 Washington Street in Boston, October 14 through November 7. Tickets are $25 to $35; call (866) 811-4111, or visit www.actorsshakespeareproject.org.

Jasper Lake is at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, 949 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, October 7 through 17. Tickets are $15, $10 for seniors and students; call (617) 358-7529, or visit www.bu.edu.bpt


Issue Date: October 8 - 14, 2004
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