The young actress on her work in Shakespeare Theatre Company's current production of The Wild Duck and more.
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Today’s subject Maaike Laanstra-Corn is currently living her theatre life onstage playing the role of Hedvig in the rarely produced Henrik Ibesn play The Wild Duck at Shakespeare Theatre Company (STC). The show continues performances through November 16th at STC’s Klein Theatre.
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While The Wild Duck marks Maaike’s STC it is not her first experience with STC overall. She attended their camp before she became a professional actress. Read on to see what that experience was like.
In NYC, her off-Broadway credits include Atlantic Theater Company’s Grief Camp, Ars Nova’s ANTfest: Homofermenters; WP Theater’s When The Other Mary Celeste Sank, Clubbed Thumb’s Button Lake Band Camp and Ms. Lily, and The Tank’s Joan of Arc in a Supermarket in California.
The Wild Duck is a play that is hardly ever done. That alone should be reason enough to attend a performance. The fact that Maaike Laanstra-Corn is coming full circle as a member of Artistic Director Simon Godwin’s cast should also be reason enough to go. Performers sometimes forget how they started or what got them to where they are. Maaike has not and so much the better for that.
Grab your tickets to see The Wild Duck at STC and witness a little known gem of Henrik Ibsen while also marveling at the young talent that is Maaike Laanstra-Corn. She is truly living her theatre life to the fullest.
What would you say was the one show you saw that made you think that you could be a performer?
I don’t think it was ever a single show. I think it was an inside out feeling (cheesy, sorry!). Funnily enough, I didn’t get all that much external reassurance that I could be a performer when I was growing up. And to be fair, I was bad as a kid, all heart and absolutely no skills. I just genuinely loved doing it so much that I was like: well, I have to keep going, this is the only thing for me even if there’s no good reason why that’s the case.