"Don't be afraid to love something passionately"
— An interview with Juliet Hart
     back to Harmless

TimeLine's world premiere production of Brett Neveu's Harmless features a remarkable cast of three actors who walk the tightrope of Neveu's script with commitment and skill. Because the experience of seeing Harmless is so much about watching these three actors master the language and speed of its verbal ping-pong match, TimeLine company member and marketing director Lara Goetsch (LG) interviewed all three of them so you could hear more about their background and what it's been like tackle Harmless on stage.

Ladies first. Juliet Hart (JH), who portrays Lieutenant Mindy Ergenbright, is a founding member of TimeLine and has appeared in many of its biggest successes, including Gaslight, Martin Furey's Shot, Not About Nightingales and It's All True (for which she received a Joseph Jefferson Citation nomination for Supporting Actress). Read her complete biography here.

(LG) What inspired you to a career in the theater and how did you end up in Chicago?

(JH) As anyone knows who watched me cheer on Fiorello! last season, I was a toe tappin’ musical theater performer and dancer in high school. Unfortunately, I wasn’t a great singer, but I did eventually come to Chicago to train as an actor at The Theatre School at DePaul University, where I was only called upon to sing occasionally.

(LG) You are a founding member of TimeLine. How and why did you get involved 10 years ago? What were those early meetings like and what’s your favorite memory from that time?

(JH) Nick Bowling, PJ Powers, Pat Tiedemann and I did a show together at DePaul in my last year which was essentially the beginning of the relationship that TimeLine grew out of. In the first year of meetings, the actors of the company were all kind of conflicted – how do you pursue an acting career aggressively while trying to start a theater company? Ultimately, being part of an artistic family won out, and we all, being Type A overachievers, worked our asses off together to make something happen.

The early years were absolutely exhausting and hysterical to look back on, as anyone unfortunate enough to have a couple of beers with PJ, Nick and me will find out. We tell the same horror stories over and over again and we love them. We once gutted an entire room, including the old ventilation system and everything trapped in it, in Wicker Park's Flatiron Arts Building to create a theater space for our second production, No End of Blame. We worked all night, every night – got our cars towed, seated the audience on stacks of newspapers and could barely see straight by the time the show opened. But Chris Jones wrote our first Tribune review for that show, and we kind of got on the map.

(LG) Did you ever think the company would grow this much? Is there a moment you can remember when you knew it all would turn into something, and that the company would succeed?

(JH) I don’t think until recent years, any of us had much time to have thoughts like that – we were too busy trying to put on plays. But in the last few years, as we’ve become an organization with a staff and had a little more time for artistic reflection, our success has become more real.

(LG) What has your involvement in the company meant to your life and career, and what has surprised you the most over the years?

(JH) While I was trained as an actor, I’ve had so much more than an acting career with TimeLine — I’ve really had 10 years of a career in the theater. And all the ups and downs of that. Literally. For a very long time, we all did everything. Now, God knows, I still can’t sew, but I built the company’s first database, was marketing director for many shows, co-produced shows, did props, and we all still pitch in on the set of most shows, even though we have wonderful people building them now. What surprises me most is that 10 years have gone by. I still walk into every single tech week and think, “It’s magic time.”

(LG) What does this 10th Annversary of the company mean to you, and what are your aspirations for the company in the future?

(JH) I helped build a place where people want to come and work, and where people leave having loved what they experienced here. There are few things in my life that make me more proud.

(LG) This is your first experience with a Brett Neveu play. Can you talk about working with Brett and his script? Do you approach his work differently than other writers?

(JH) What a great experience to watch Brett work — he really has an incredible talent with language. As an actor, the rhythms and music in his work really guide you toward what he wants to happen in the script. It’s really challenging to surrender to those rhythms, but if you can do it, good things happen. Now, at week three of the run of the play, the music feels like a part of the character, and there’s room to keep making discoveries, which is so fun.

(LG) What’s it like having the playwright in the room?

(JH) Brett is a collaborative person, and supportive — I liked having him there, and he and Ed understand each other so well that it felt like a team effort between all of us.

(LG) This is a small cast and it’s truly all for one. The three of you are tackling it together, working together very closely to bring the script to life. What’s it feel like out there?

(JH) Yeah, it’s like running a sprint while holding hands – if someone falls down, the other two are going to keep pulling him or her along until we’re running together again. Exhilarating and scary, but a thrill.

(LG) So much of our audience has talked about the chemistry the three of you have. How do you create that?

(JH) We like each other, and we trust each other – that’s a good start.

(LG) Over the past year or so you have been spearheading TimeLine’s new education program. What is your background in education and why did working on this project interest you?

(JH) I’ve been married to a teacher for 10 years, and he and I have collaborated over the years on teacher training programs – taking a more active approach in the classroom. I started as an intern at The Kennedy Center in the Education Department 15 years ago, and developed an interest in arts education.

My biggest goal in working with Chicago Public School students, and all young people, is to encourage them to get their voices out there into the world and be heard. And to not be afraid to love something passionately – to not be cool or cynical — and to embrace trying something new. I tell the students that I hope they find something in life that they love to do, that is worth taking risks for and worth falling down for. Theater is a great medium for encouraging them to do that, even if it’s scary at first. And it is scary if English isn’t your first language, or if you don’t think anyone is interested in what you have to say.

(LG) What has happened so far with the education program, which TimeLine calls our "Living History Eduction Program," and what's next?

(JH) We did a pilot with Carl Schurz High School in Fall 2006, with a history classroom. We worked on The General From America. Schurz is a great school, and we’ll be expanding our programs there this spring with Widowers' Houses and building from there. I was so lucky to meet Megan McCarthy, a history teacher there, through a mutual friend, and she was willing to take the plunge with us.

(LG) What’s next for you? What kind of challenges are you looking for next as an actor/artist?

(JH) I don’t act as much as I used to, because I have a young family at home. So every time I do take a role, I want to be able to learn something from the experience. As an actor, I keep looking for roles or plays or directors or fellow actors who can push me to a new place. I love the collaborative nature of theater because in the best scenarios, you are always learning and discovering with other people.

Thank you for reading! You may also want to check out our interviews with Juliet's castmates David Parkes and John Jenkins.