An Iowa-born actress, writer, teacher and director with more than five decades of stage experience is starring in the title role of a touring Broadway production that will make a one-week stop in Iowa next week.<\/p>\n
Sioux City native Ann Morrison, who\u2019s 70, is very up-front about her age and says it\u2019s a thrill to play the lead in \u201cKimberly Akimbo,\u201d which won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe show is about a 15-year-old turning 16 during the course of the play, who has a rare genetic disease that causes her to age four or five years every year. So even though she\u2019s turning 16, she\u2019s actually in the body of a 70-year-old. And that would be me,\u201d Morrison says, laughing. \u201cI am, by spirit, a 16-year-old in a 70-year-old body, so I usually just jokingly say, I just have to show up.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an era when so much emphasis on stage and screen is placed on young blondes, Morrison says she\u2019s neither, and it\u2019s a spectacular change of pace to be playing this part \u2014 at this level \u2014 as a septuagenarian.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s interesting because some people say they think I am a 16-year-old with older makeup on. Of course, when I\u2019m on stage, you can\u2019t tell, you don\u2019t see the lines in my face,\u201d she says. \u201cSo some people think I am young and they\u2019re shocked when I say, no, I\u2019m really 70.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over her accomplished career, Morrison has performed multiple roles on Broadway, Off-Broadway and London\u2019s West End. She says her love of the theatre started early when she was growing up in Sioux City.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dad was a professor at Morningside College and my mother also was an adjunct teacher there and they created a musical theater,\u201d she says. \u201cThis is back in 1950s and 60s because I\u2019m 70 years old and I lived on campus.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following in her parents\u2019 footsteps, Morrison now runs her own theatre company, SaraSolo Productions<\/a>, that\u2019s focused on young actors.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve started this company to help people develop their own solo theater, that means standing on stage by yourself and creating story, but in a theatrical way,\u201d Morrison says. \u201cAnd so we go into performing arts high schools, and I work with 16-year-olds. So my Kimberly for me is a conglomeration of all the 16-year-olds that I adore so much.\u201d<\/p>\n Morrison says the show is \u201cfull of heart at a time when we really need some heart.\u201d<\/p>\n The musical \u201cKimberly Akimbo\u201d is playing at the Des Moines Civic Center<\/a>, with eight shows next Tuesday through Sunday.<\/p>\n Hear Matt Kelley\u2019s full interview with Ann Morrison below:<\/p>\n