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Constable: 'My kingdom for bug spray!' Suburban actors face summer's torment

Full of sound and fury, wet basements, hot offices, cold picnics, hail damage and mosquitoes from hell, this summer of our discontent proves a challenge for actors in “The Winter's Tale,” playing through Aug. 9 at the outdoor First Folio Theatre in Oak Brook.

“Outdoors is how Shakespeare's plays were first performed 400 years ago, and we do them the same way, right here under the stars,” says actor Kevin McKillip, who has managed to overcome every obstacle nature puts in his way while reaping rave reviews for his portrayal of King Leontes. “We do it with a great deal of resilience because we are committed to our art. We also do it with a great deal of bug spray.”

A veteran of dozens and dozens of outdoor performances, the 1992 graduate of the now-defunct Wheaton Central High School concedes that mosquitoes are an annoyance that nothing can allay, nothing but blood. But McKillip, who grew up in Wheaton and Lombard, says he's faced worst six-legged villains on the outdoor stage.

“A moth the size of a license plate,” McKillip says when asked for his personal pest peeve. “When your character is supposed to be dead and the moth decides your forehead is the best place to land.”

All those winged insects bring out even scarier flying beasts. “The bats come out and see the bugs and it's like Old Country Buffet for them,” McKillip says. “You'd swear they were going to hit you.”

A graduate of Drake University, McKillip has trained and performed with the National Theater Institute, the Royal Academy of Arts in London, The Stratford Festival of Canada, Wisconsin's American Players Theater and Peninsula Players and elsewhere. He has honed the discipline to ignore gnats and bats and be true to his role.

During the deadly heat wave of 1995, when comparing thee to a summer's day would have been an insult, McKillip was touring with the Iowa Shakespeare Festival.

“My costume in ‘Twelfth Night' was wool, and one time on stage, I started getting tunnel vision and my peripheral vision was going,” says McKillip, who finished his performance. “As soon as the scene is over, you get backstage.”

Outdoor theaters stock plenty of water, electrolytes, cool towels and ice packs.

“I've had special costumes constructed for me with pouches for those blue, gelatinous cold packs,” McKillip says. “The year I played Richard III here (at First Folio), between opening night and closing, I lost 11 pounds.”

Already, sporting a lean and hungry look at 6-feet-1 and 180 pounds, McKillip says his most physically demanding scene as King Richard came at the end of the play. “I pick up a broadsword and charge a 20-year-old actor fresh out of college, when he's been on stage for five minutes,” McKillip says, noting that he “thankfully” is killed in the battle.

Sometimes nature adds to a scene. Shakespeare's “The Tempest” opens with a storm. One night, an actual storm with black clouds and lightning roared in the sky beyond the stage. “That's the kind of storm I want,” the director told the set designer. “Give me God's budget, and I'll make it happen for you,” McKillip remembers the designer responding.

In addition to the din of traffic, airplanes, cellphones and the rustling of chip bags, animals sometimes distract just by showing up.

“We've had deer, coyotes, the occasional garter snake, newts, groundhogs, skunks, opossums and raccoons. That's all part of the experience,” McKillip says. “If I'm upstaged by a 10-point buck, there's not a lot I can do.”

As a grieving Hamlet, the actor cries, “I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum.” He delivers that emotional wail as Ophelia's body is lowered into the ground through a trap door on the First Folio stage.

“I look down into the grave and the actress playing Ophelia, she has found a frog and is playing with him,” remembers McKillip, who maintained his anguish in spite of the whimsical scene before him.

“If you're really committed to what you're doing, you are not going to let something like that stand in your way. Especially when you have a full audience you owe your best work to,” says McKillip, who notes that the play may be the thing, but entertaining the audience is his goal. The ideal weather for him isn't as important as the conditions for those paying customers.

“I like whatever makes the audience most comfortable,” McKillip says. “A comfortable audience is a good audience.”

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  When your whole world is an outdoor stage, nature can play a meaningful role in theater productions, says actor Kevin McKillip, who portrays King Leontes in Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale," playing at First Folio Theatre in Oak Brook. Burt Constable/bconstable@dailyherald.com

“The Winter's Tale”

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Location: First Folio Theatre at Mayslake Peabody Estate, 31st Street and Route 83, Oak Brook, (630) 986-8067 or firstfolio.org

Showtimes: 8:15 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday; through Aug. 9

Tickets: $29-$39; $25-$35 seniors

Running time: Two hours and 20 minutes with one intermission

Parking: Nearby free lots

Rating: Largely for general audiences, though there are accusations of adultery

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