'Another Piece of Cake' puts former actor back on stage

When Madelyn Sergel gave up her career as an actor to marry, have kids, move to a house in Gurnee, she never dreamt that ten years later she would be back in the theater, much less watching her newest play, "Another Piece of Cake," receive its world premiere production tonight at the Citadel Theatre Company in Lake Forest.

"I grew up in a very theatrical family," Sergel says. "My father was part owner of the Dramatic Publishing Company. My mother was, and still is, an actor. She appeared in Steppenwolf Theatre's 'The Grapes of Wrath.' I did commercials, appeared in some non-Equity plays, some industrials (documentary films).Then I just burnt out."

So she "got a life," as she puts it. But once she got a life, she discovered she still had an itch. This time the itch was to begin writing.

"I started out writing screenplays," Sergel says, "because screenplays allow you a lot of freedom. Then I wrote two novels, both unpublished. And then I started writing plays."

And that's when things started happening for her, creatively speaking.

"I was a good actor, but it never caught fire for me," she says, "but when I started writing plays it did. It was like I was in the ballpark but playing the wrong position. And once I started writing it was like the clouds opened up and it started raining."

Sergel began "Another Piece of Cake" a few years ago, after she, her sister and mother flew out to Colorado to celebrate her grandmother's 90th birthday.

"Talking to the women at the place my grandmother was staying," Sergel says, "I had this epiphany. I looked past the wrinkles and saw that all these older women were once young women. And that fifty years ago they might have looked like Michelle Pfeiffer. But now no one takes them seriously."

Sergel wondered what would happen if we were forced, as an audience, to see a senior's hidden depths.

"In my play Diane and Tandy go to a retirement home for their Aunt Clara's 80th birthday," Sergel says, "They start with cake, and then they have bourbon. And then Aunt Clara starts getting really honest. She starts telling the truth, and Diane, who is a 20- something, is blown away. Because old women are supposed to act old and think old -- and they don't.

"These women are complicated, funny, rich, alive people," Sergel says. "But they are invisible to most of the world because they have gray hair. They are amazing women. That's what I want to show."

"Another Piece of Cake" opens today and runs through May 18 at the Citadel Theatre Company, 400 E. Illinois, Lake Forest. For tickets and show times call (847) 735-8554 or visit citadeltheatre.org.