A Memphis actress returned home from Chicago this week toting one of the city’s top theater awards for Best Supporting Actress in a Play. Cecelia Wingate is a familiar character actress on local stages, but her shiny new Jeff Award went for a role that Wingate says comes naturally – a character loosely based on her.
It helps that she knows a few successful playwrights.
Evan Linder, the Jeff-winning author of Byhalia, Mississippi worked with Wingate when he started out his career at Playhouse on the Square. He insisted that she come to Chicago when he was staging the play there.
Another former Memphis playwright, Jerre Dye, has written roles exclusively for her. Two years ago, when Dye’s play Cicada debuted in Chicago with Wingate in the role, she was also nominated for a Jeff Award.
In one sense, Wingate recognizes that she’s playing a character some might consider a Southern stereotype. And yet, in some ways, she IS that person.
“I’m just a big, Southern, stern, loud, brassy woman, so I guess I’m your go-to girl when you want that sorta character,” she says.
Her Chicago theater roles have led to film auditions and a growing number of professional opportunities, even as she continues to act and direct in shows here in Memphis.
Due to the critical success of Byhalia, Mississippi, the entire production is being re-staged at Chicago’s famed Steppenwolf Theatre from July 22-August 21. Wingate will reprise her award-winning role.
Shortly after that, at another Chicago theater, playwright Jerre Dye is premiering a play called Distance, featuring a character heavily influenced by Wingate when she created the role in Memphis.
This muse of Southern playwrights is leaving an increasingly memorable mark in the Windy City, and on contemporary southern drama itself.
