Last month I was thrilled to have the opportunity to profile actress Emily Nelson for Not Even Joking’s very first “Creative Minds Profile”. This month I am excited to profile another extremely creative soul, Kevin R. Free, a prolific actor, writer, director, audio book narrator, story teller, and producer. I met Kevin many years ago when a theater company I helped co-found, Reverie Productions, produced Kevin’s full-length one-man play with music, Face Value. Through the power and beauty of Facebook I learned that Kevin is producing and starring in a new web series called Gemma & the Bear, which is premiering soon and looks incredibly funny!
Kevin R. Free has an extensive bio. He recently completed an off-Broadway run in The Fantasticks, was named one of NY Theater.com 15 people of the year in 2010, and was the recipient of the Doric A. Wilson Playwright award at the 2014 New York Innovative Theater Awards. I could go on and on about Kevin…you should check out his full bio at www.KevinRFree.com. In any case, I am psyched to have Kevin share a little bit about himself and his new web series this month.
Kevin, you wear many, many creative hats, and you wear them quite well. How do you do it?
I DON’T KNOW, NINA! But I thank you for thinking I wear them well.
Do you ever feel your creative attention is divided, or does one creative endeavor energize the next?
I do think my attention is divided, but when I started putting my career together, I said yes to every creative thing that offered me a paycheck. My goal was to stop waiting tables, which I did off and on between 1990 and 2004. I was saying yes to my career as an artist, so being an audio book narrator, a storyteller, a director, and/or a teaching artist just came into my life. You were there when I began writing (thank you!), and I have come a long way since then.
The projects don’t necessarily energize each other…many of them feel like a pain in the ass when I am prepping for them. But they all have a really great pay-offs. For instance, producing The Fire This Time Festival often feels like long, arduous drudgery in August, but by the time January rolls around and the Festival opens, I feel so proud of our producing team and of all the artists involved (including myself)…and we just won an Obie Award this May, so I’ve forgotten all the things that made it feel like drudgery!
A big congrats on your Obie win! Which projects from your past are you most proud of and why?
Well, as you can see above, I am very proud of The Fire This Time Festival, which is a festival that produces 10-minute and full-length plays by playwrights of the African Diaspora.
I received a fellowship from The New Black Fest in 2012 to do a workshop of my play, A Raisin in the Salad: Black Plays for White People. It was amazing what we accomplished given a week in a space with great actors. The play was a semi-finalist for the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights’ Conference. I am dying for a production of this new version, but I am so proud of it as a play, and as a mile marker in my development as a playwright.
I am really, really proud of the acting I did in Colman Domingo’s Dot, which had its world premiere at the Humana Festival of New American Plays this year. The play is funny, heartbreaking, and more epic than a play whose action takes place over the course of 48 hours should be. I often think of how exactly the universe had to become aligned for that specific group of artists to come together to create that play. Never in my life have I felt more connected to a play and to a story (that I didn’t write), and I cannot wait to do it again.
I am also super-proud of Gemma & The Bear, but I guess we cannot call it a past project.
Tell me a little bit about Gemma & The Bear. What sparked the idea? Why this project now?
Well, my friend and frequent collaborator, Eevin Hartsough, and I started writing it a few years ago. It was her idea to write something for both of us. We both wanted to write for ourselves, and we wanted it to be a kind of project we’d never done before.
The show is about a young white woman who, when she falls asleep, wakes up a gay black man. A bear, as in a gay bear (some info:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bear_%28gay_culture%29). The Bear was around when Gemma was a kid. He read her journals and terrorized the kids who bullied her when she was a kid. He disappeared sometime after college, but now he’s back – to help Gemma find love.
Why this project now? Why not? It was so much fun to write and so much fun to shoot. The hard part is producing it and publicizing it…but I have a great partner in Eevin, so it feels good to be nearing the finish line for Season 1. Here’s our first trailer for the show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIyZGkrVjko
What else gets you up in the morning? What are you passionate about? And how does this influence your creative life? (or does it?)
I wake up most days wishing for more simplicity in my life. But I am also excited most days about all the diverse work I will generate that day, even though I pretend to want to slow down and only do one thing. I have never been a good relax-er. I have never only done ONE thing. I am not sure it’s possible for me. My challenge continues to be finding and maintaining my focus on each project. It seems like an okay goal to add to my other goals for the rest of my life.
And, my standard drama teacher question: What advice would you give to a young performer who is considering a career in the biz?
STOP CONSIDERING IT. Do or don’t do. If you want to be an artist, then be an artist. Make the next series of decisions to make it real. Get a survival job. Audition. Write. Submit. Say YES to all new experiences. Keep saying yes until you know for sure you want to stay in or get out. Show business doesn’t care about any of us. It was here before you and it will be here after you… It owes you nothing. You can get in the business, but it will drive you crazy, if you are only in it to be famous or to be rich. There are better ways to get rich. Likewise, you are no obligation to stay in the business. There is no shame in deciding to do another career. There is only shame in making a life for yourself that you don’t like. You owe it to yourself to make your life awesome… so do that.
Thank you so much Kevin! That is fabulous advice. Congrats again on EVERYTHING and I seriously can’t wait to see Gemma & the Bear… and whatever else you may have in store for us in the future.
Connect with Kevin at:
Twitter @kevinrfree
Instagram: @kevinrfree
Facebook: facebook.com/officialkevinrfree
Learn more about Gemma & the Bear and its co-creator Eevin Hartsough below:
Eevin Hartsough’s website: www.eevinhartsough.com
GATB website: www.gemmaandthebear.com
GATB Twitter: @gemmaandthebear
