The arts have always been a vibrant part of Wisconsin’s cultural history, with many talented performers starting right here in Wisconsin before sharing their gifts on stages near and far.
One such artist is Eau Claire native Stela Burdt, who has built an impressive career in regional theater and is currently appearing as the engineer Hertha Ayrton in “The Half-Life of Marie Curie” at the Commonweal Theatre in Lanesboro, Minnesota.
Burdt says she thought of chasing her theatrical dreams in a big city, but she ultimately wanted more than just success as an actor.
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“I wanted to have a family. I wanted to live somewhere where I felt comfortable talking to people around town, and Lanesboro drew me in,” Burdt shared with WPR’s Ezra Wall on “Morning Edition.”
This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Ezra Wall: Take me back to the beginning. What first drew you to the the arts?
Stela Burdt: I am very fortunate to have parents who are very supportive of the arts and when I was very young. I began singing in church choirs when I was just a little preschooler. Actually, my big claim to fame — I believe the beginning of my acting career — was when I was 6 months old. I was a June baby, so in December, when I was 6 months old, I played baby Jesus at Grace Lutheran Church in Eau Claire. Later, I did a lot of singing with choirs at church when I was little. And then I started taking piano lessons very early on.
EW: Aside from the Nativity play as a 6-month-old, tell me about your first experience acting on the stage. Do you remember what role you had? Did you have very many lines?
SB: I do remember it. The Eau Claire Children’s Theatre, which is still going strong, was doing a production of “West Side Story.” I believe I was an eighth grader, or maybe I was going into ninth grade because it was a summer show. I auditioned. My character even had a name, which was a pretty big deal. My character’s name was Teresita. So it was very exciting to not only be a cast member but to have a name in a production.
EW: How did you get to a point where you thought, “OK, I’m going to give this a go professionally?”
SB: During high school, I kept acting with Eau Claire Children’s Theater as well as the Chippewa Valley Theatre Guild. I also studied voice with one of the professors at UW-Eau Claire. Then I went to college at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, which is just a couple hours away from Eau Claire. I studied both theater and music. While I was there, one of my professors was Hal Crop, who is the artistic director of the Commonweal Theatre where I’ve been working for 25 years. He introduced me through one of his classes to a lot of plays I’d never heard of. That just got me really excited about theater.
EW: For a lot of actors, the goal is New York. The goal is Los Angeles. The goal is London. What makes regional theater an attractive option for you?
SB: For me personally, I did start out thinking I might do New York or LA or something. Nothing wrong with doing any of those things, but I came to realize that I really wanted to not, quote unquote, “just be an actor.” I mean, I feel like we’ve got a pretty perfect, beautiful life here, living in bluff country with a professional theater company that sees close to 20,000 people a year in a town of only 725 people. I know a lot of people in town, and I love that. I love the connections with the local people. I love that we have people who come consistently from around the area to see shows, and I get to talk with them after shows and interact with them, which feels very different from if you were trying to make it on Broadway
EW: The play that you’re acting in this season is called “The Half Life of Marie Curie.” That’s a character that a lot of people will have heard of. But Hertha Ayrton is someone who, until I read about this show, I had not heard of. Tell me about that play and about your character in particular.
SB: I had also not heard of Hertha Ayrton before we decided to do this script. Of course, Marie Curie is famous as a female scientist who discovered radium and polonium, and won a couple of Nobel Prizes. Hertha Ayrton was in the same scientific circle as Marie Curie, and they became friends. Ayrton also made many discoveries that are still part of our lives today. One of the big things she is most well known for is solving the noise problem of the electric arc, which is one of the early forms of lighting. When lights were first put on streets and things like that, they would be very loud. Ayrton was an engineer, and she experimented and found a way to make that loudness go away and still have the light be very luminous. She was also a suffragette in England. She was a big part of the Suffragette movement, working on getting the right to vote for women in England. So that’s a big part of who she is as well.
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