A typical day for Linda Kerns starts with teaching a singing lesson at Macgowan Hall at 9 a.m. and ends at 11:30 p.m. with signing autographs outside the Pantages Theatre.
Kerns, a theater professor at UCLA, has been teaching voice as a part of the Ray Bolger Musical Theater program since 1999. When night hits, however, she transforms backstage at the Pantages into the evil Madame Morrible. As a member of the Los Angeles cast of “Wicked,” Kerns performs as a part of the ensemble and also understudies the role of schoolmistress Madame Morrible in the production, a part she filled last week while the lead was away.
While some may coin her role in “Wicked” as evil, Kerns is anything but frightening. Her theatrically expressive nature makes her easy to talk to, and as she strokes her dog Freckle back at her office on campus, she recounts her Broadway days, her passion for teaching and, of course, “Wicked.”
Kerns’ love of theater began in kindergarten when she starred in her class production of “The Little White Rabbit Who Wanted Red Wings.”
“I got up in front of these parents sitting on the metal folding chairs in the kindergarten class and did my thing as the little white rabbit,” Kerns said while nostalgically singing some lyrics from the production. “And when I came out at the end, those parents applauded, and I thought, “˜This is it.’ I felt like the world loved me.”
After her initial affair with the theater at age 5, Kerns went on to pursue a degree in music education at Temple University in Philadelphia. However, with one semester left to go, she abruptly changed her mind.
“I got to this place in college where all of a sudden I went, “˜I don’t think I’m going to want to spend the rest of my days standing in front of a blackboard teaching quarter notes to eighth graders,'” she said.
With a little nudge from her mom and the help of $10,000 in game show winnings, Kerns was able to attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York for two years and ignite her professional theater career.
After attending the American Academy, Kerns set the goal of performing in a Broadway show within five years, and sure enough, five years later, Kerns took the stage with the original Broadway cast of “Nine: The Musical.”
But while Kerns had achieved her Broadway dreams, she soon discovered that it’s not all glitz and glamour ““ imagine seven actors on tour trapped in a van during a snowstorm. She furthermore experienced the drawbacks of the Broadway stage firsthand in an unfortunate onstage faux pas during a run of “Nine.”
“We had to dance across this little runway (at the edge of the stage), and one night I just got off and couldn’t find where my spots were in the house. And the next second I stepped right off the edge of the stage and fell into the lap of this lady who was wearing silver lame,” Kerns said.
“(But) I finished the number with a smile on my face, and when the number was over, it was like being in a football stadium ““ the audience … went crazy.”
After performing on Broadway in both “Nine” and “Big River” and touring with “Les Misérables,” Kerns moved to Los Angeles in 1991 and pursued film and television projects after becoming exhausted theatrically.
In 1994, Kerns joined the Actors’ Co-op, where she both directed and acted in shows, and she won an LA Weekly Award for her ensemble performance in “The Nibroc Trilogy” last year.
“The ensemble stuff is really the most important thing,” she said in regards to the experience. “And it’s great when you find a company of people that work well together and really respect each other enough that they’re able to do the give and take.”
Kerns describes herself as a journeyman, an actor who works on a consistent basis but has never really made it big enough to pick and choose roles. But some might argue that performing in “Wicked” is certainly “making it.”
Her break with “Wicked,” however, almost didn’t come. Kerns was a part of one of the first workshops of the show before it went into production at Universal, but when it came time to actually audition, the idea to audition escaped her.
“I don’t know what happened there,” Kerns said. “I’d heard they were casting out here, but I didn’t really want to audition because I thought they were casting for New York and … with my job at UCLA, I didn’t want to go on the road.”
She would soon find out that the show was a sit-down in Los Angeles, giving her the perfect opportunity to perform. Yet having only seen the show once before rehearsals began, Kerns felt like she needed to catch up.
“That rehearsal period was really, really hard for me,” she said. “There was a block of time when for 10 weeks I didn’t have a day off, and by the end of that I was fried. I felt like a little hamster running on a track.”
Despite her sheer exhaustion, Kerns’ dedication to both teaching and acting makes her a role model for her students back on campus. Angelica Richie, a second-year musical theater student and one of Kerns’ voice students, strives to mirror Kerns in her career ambitions.
“It’s great to see someone who’s teaching and training a younger generation without giving up their own performance outlets because I feel like so many times when people go into education they totally forsake the part that’s performing,” she said. “I would be totally OK with growing up to be Linda Kerns.”
Balancing the world of teaching and acting may be taxing at times, but Kerns, who left college to pursue acting instead of teaching, feels that she was led back into education. What began as what she termed a “survivor job” has become a priority in her life.
“It’s to the point where the teaching is more important to me than the acting. I never in my life thought I would say that because I love acting. It’s a wonderful profession. I wouldn’t trade anything I’ve done for all the money in the world,” she said.
“But you get to the point where you go, “˜Okay, this isn’t as creatively satisfying anymore; I don’t get the same buzz.’ So I have found in the last couple of years that teaching gives me that. I get a buzz from teaching.”