Four nights a week Anne Veal drives to Arlington, slathers her eyes in black makeup, pulls a black hoodie over her head so it shades her face and sulks, motionless, in a diner chair for half an hour.
Veal, a senior theater major in the College of Arts and Sciences, is playing a girl about to start her freshman year of college in Charter Theatre's "Short Order Stories." Her role as Jenn, the oldest child in an average but argumentative family, is her first professional role. In person Veal is a talkative woman, relaxed and emphatic with her speech. On stage she is a moody, foul-mouthed adolescent with a stare that could melt ice.
"You know right away, 'Oh, she's THAT girl,'" Veal said. "I was never that drama-filled."
The writer of the play, Ren?e Calarco, said she saw Veal's audition and knew right away she was the one to play Jenn, and she is thrilled with the way the characters have really come to life.
"This is not the play I wrote, this is better than the play I wrote," she said.
Calarco has been an improv comedian for almost 20 years and said the play started as a two-minute comedy sketch. Over the years it slowly grew until it became a two-act comic drama about life and how people react to it. She said although it is dramatic, there are funny lines, because people get through life by being funny.
Veal said she loves working with the professionals and discovering new aspects of her character's identity every time she performs. She said these revelations are what she really loves about theater; every night the show is going to be different from any other night. She said she is awed by the award-winning director, Joe Calarco, in love with the theater company because of their dedication to the art, and even more comfortable on stage than she usually is.
"I thought, 'Oh! That's what acting is,'" Veal said. "[My professors] were all right, all along, and now I get it."
Veal is one of the few AU students who has landed a professional role while still in school. She said she went to a general "cattle call" audition with a bunch of other AU students just to get her name out there. Later she was given the chance to audition for "Short Order Stories." Even though she's told herself for years that she would get a professional role, she could never convince herself it really would happen. So when her cell phone rang this summer with the fateful call, she said she was so surprised that she starting screaming and jumping around her apartment.
Karl Kippola, one of the AU theater professors that Veal said has helped her most, said he knew she was mature and talented enough for the challenges of professional theater. He said he still remembers the first monologue she did when he taught her as a freshman.
"She brought intelligence, a sense of humor and a willingness to commit from the very beginning," Kippola said. "I'd say that now she is bringing even more of herself into the roles she plays."
Veal is also the executive director of AU Players for the second year running and has been in multiple AU plays, including "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" and "Into the Woods." She has been involved in theater since she injured herself in high school and could no longer play volleyball. She never looked back.
"A broken wrist got me into theater," Veal said with a shrug and a laugh.
