Elk Grove actress enjoys playing party girl in Steppenwolf's 'Honest'

Actors are rarely what they seem. Elk Grove Village native Katherine Cunningham, for example, is still young enough to be playing ingénues, girlish roles that don't often have a lot of intellectual heft to them.

For example, in her current role, in Eric Simonson's "Honest" at Steppenwolf, she plays a girl the main character meets in college.

"The play goes backwards through (the main character's) life," Cunningham says. "And I play Madison. She is kind of a party girl. She may not be the brightest."

Yet, ask Cunningham what she might have studied if she hadn't gone into theater she answers, without blinking an eye, "science."

"I really like science," Cunningham insists. "I am fascinated by the world around me. I had an astronomy teacher in high school (James B. Conant High School) who got me very interested in science. She used to tell us we all came from the same place. We all came from stars."

She came by her interest in science honestly. "My dad was a computer scientist," Cunningham says. "My dad was always in the basement building things like frequency counters. Or he was always putting mirrors up all over the place to show how to bounce lasers off each mirror."

But she also comes by her interest in theater naturally, too. A self-described bookworm, Cunningham still spent much of her high school career performing in shows. "I did every show Conant did from 2000 to 2004," Cunningham says. "I liked both musicals and drama. And improv."

But when Cunningham went to college at Illinois State University, she didn't go there to study theater - even though ISU has a nationally recognized theater program and was the alma mater for all of the founding members of Steppenwolf.

"I was dead set against studying theater," Cunningham says. "I started out as a biology major."

Then something happened in Cunningham's life. "I was kind of depressed in college," she says. To beat her depression she started reading plays. "I read one play after another," Cunningham says. "And then someone told me, 'Why don't you start working on monologues. That way you will find out what your support is, what sustains your life.' So I started reading more and more plays. And I realized that drama is what makes me happy."

She decided to change majors. Unfortunately, she didn't come to this realization until the middle of her second year.

"I went to the head of the drama department," Cunningham says. "And I said I wanted to be a drama major. She said I was a little late. That I had a lot of catching up to do. But if I really proved myself, she would help me out."

What Cunningham had to do was finish in half a term what most students take a full term to do. Cunningham applied herself and found her love of theater carried her through. She passed with flying colors - and had found her vocation: acting.

After graduation, she came back to Chicago and auditioned. Right off the bat she landed a role as an understudy in David Cromer's production of "Picnic" at Writers' Theater. Soon after that, she got an agent.

"I am a real go-with-the-flow person," Cunningham says. "Just like Madison, the character I play in 'Honest.'"

But there are differences. Cunningham is not the party girl she plays at Steppenwolf.

To soak up Madison's world, Cunningham hit the bars with her roommates and "did a lot of screaming."

She describes Madison as "super loud."

"And I am not," Cunningham says. "I am a chick who likes to sit in the corner and read her books. Madison likes being the center of attention."

And then there is the issue of Madison's IQ.

"I had a hard time with the fact that she might not be the brightest," Cunningham says. "I fought for her to be smart. But she is not the smartest girl. She isn't dumb she just doesn't care much about knowing things. That was the hardest thing for me. I had to learn to let her be."

Of course, there is a great difference between being a party girl and playing one on stage. Playing a party girl can be an intellectual challenge, a way of seeing the world differently.

"What I really, really like about theater," Cunningham says, "is you can learn something from every piece you do."

And learning is what it is all about for Cunningham.

"I am fascinated by life, and by all those theories of where life comes from and how life is made," Cunningham says. "You know what I am reading now? 'Understanding the Genome.'"

Which takes us back to where we started: Don't judge an actor by her cover. She may be the party girl she plays on stage or she may be the kind of person who relishes books on the human genome project.

• "Honest" runs through Aug. 9 at Steppenwolf's The Merle Reskin Garage Theatre, 1624 N. Halsted St., Chicago. Tickets are available by calling (312) 335-1650 or at steppenwolf.org.