Making the world better: Glenview native earns starring role in Kokandy’s premiere of ‘Amélie’
It was 2018 and Aurora Penepacker was an undergraduate theater major at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University when she first experienced Kokandy Productions.
The Glenview native was two years shy of her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree when she saw the theater’s revival of “Grand Hotel.”
Impressed, Penepacker auditioned several times for the Joseph Jefferson Award-winning company, which has received 25 non-equity awards since its 2010 founding. She wasn’t cast, but she remained a fan, “blown away” by the intimate productions and the deeply felt performances from an ensemble “that’s connected in so many ways.”
Now Penepacker makes her Kokandy debut as the titular do-gooder determined to improve the lives of people around her in Kokandy’s regional premiere of “Amélie.” The 2015 musical by writer Craig Lucas, composer/lyricist Daniel Messé and lyricist Nathan Tysen was adapted from the 2001 French film.
Penepacker enjoys working with Kokandy artists.
“Derek (“Amélie” director Derek Van Barham) fosters this unique collaboration you don’t always get,” she said. “It’s a lot more open, people feel free to speak up.”
A lifelong singer, she also played an instrument in her grade school band. By middle school she was auditioning for school musicals.
“I learned I really love to perform as a character and tell stories,” said Penepacker, who served as president of her Glenbrook South High School drama club and performed with its a cappella ensemble. She also interned with Glenview’s Oil Lamp Theater.
Her parents were supportive, but like many parents of artistically inclined children they worried about the viability of an arts career. That changed when Penepacker was 19 and Michigan’s Encore Musical Theatre company artistic director Daniel Cooney, one of her CCPA instructors, cast her in her first professional show.
“My parents decided: If she is provably employable, this is a possibility for her,” she said.
In addition to Encore, her professional credits include non-equity and equity productions, most of them in the suburbs, where she has performed with Janus, Citadel, Oak Park Festival and Drury Lane. Last fall she made an impressive Writers Theatre debut as the titular Natasha in the Glencoe theater’s magnificent regional premiere of “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812.”
Some of her earliest roles were with the Janus Theatre and the Elgin Shakespeare Project’s unrehearsed 2019 productions of “The Merchant of Venice” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
“I still have the scrolls,” she laughed, referring to the scrolls Janus actors used during those productions. “I value that time so much.”
“We loved working with Rory,” said Janus artistic director Sean Hargadon, who praised Penepacker’s commitment to her craft.
“We did some interesting projects with her early on,” he said, referring to the unrehearsed Shakespeare productions, “and she was always willing to learn and do more.”
“We’re very proud of her success,” he said.
A toddler when the “Amélie” film was released, Penepacker found Audrey Tautou’s impish poster scary.
“I thought it was a horror movie,” she said.
Noting the challenge of following in the footsteps of Tautou and Libertyville’s Phillipa Soo (who played Amélie in the musical’s 2017 Broadway premiere), Penepacker is determined to pay homage to their performances while also delivering one that is uniquely her own.
“At her core, she is a girl on her own in the city, following her interests and her passion for people watching,” said Penepacker of the character she describes as a guardian angel and who press materials describe as living “quietly in the world but loudly in her mind.”
“One of the themes is isolation,” she continues. “We’re dealing with an entire generation of kids who are feeling the effects of that right now.”
“Everybody can feel very alone, especially with the way the world is,” she said. “It’s important to look around, appreciate people and make known your appreciation.”
Hopefully, audiences leave the show with their compassion renewed.
“I hope they walk away with a passion for seeing others,” she said, “for finding ways to help them, and make the world around them better.”
• • •
“Amélie”
When: Previews at 7 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 5 p.m. Sunday, through Aug. 1. The show opens Aug. 2 and runs through Sept. 28
Where: Kokandy Productions at the Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division St., Chicago, kokandyproductions.com
Tickets: $25-$55