Kathy Manfre

actress, peterborough players

By Lynn Tryba
NH Mirror Correspondent

Kathy Manfre’s been hooked on acting ever since playing a flower in Miss Mary, Quite Contrary’s garden in grade school. The experience gave her the attention she craved amid the chaos of being one of four children. Her career launched, she and her neighborhood friends began staging summertime plays with their fathers pitching in and building the scenery.

Courtesy Photo

In a sense, her summertime performances haven’t ceased. Except now she’s being paid for them. Manfre appears regularly in plays put on by the Peterborough Players, a professional theater company in the Monadnock region.

“As a kid I loved to perform. I had no dreams of being a star. I wanted to be a working actor. That’s what most actors want,” Manfre said.

Manfre achieved her dream early on, obtaining her Actors’ Equity card at 23, performing in regional theater in various parts of the country, and touring with the “Jerry Van Dyke Show.”

Along the way, she earned a master’s degree in theater education, which she now puts to use by teaching theater courses at Franklin Pierce College in Rindge. She moved from Long Island to Peterborough in 1994 with her husband, Brian, and focused on raising their two daughters. That’s when she discovered the Peterborough Players, now celebrating its 75th year.

She tried out for a couple plays with no luck, but the third time landed a role in “Later Life.” Her love affair with the Players had begun. Since 1998, she’s appeared in numerous professional productions, including “Dinner with Friends,” “Lettice and Lovage” and “The Winter’s Tale.” She’s also participated in the Player’s Ascending Stars program, which gives local high school students the opportunity to act with professionals.

This summer, Manfre will appear in the Ascending Stars’ production of “Harvey” and the Players’ production of “Our Town,” which gives her the chance to work with famous actor James Whitmore, who got his start in Peterborough. She worked with Whitmore in “Can’t Take It With You” in 2003, and finds the experience – and him – delightful.

The Players put on seven shows in the summer, with the curtains closing for the season in September. The schedule means there are only two weeks for actors to rehearse before each show begins its run. The pace can be anxiety-provoking but also exhilarating.

Manfre said she finds the experience of “taking another human being and discovering aspects of their personalities, and recreating them” enjoyable, and in a sense, part of what life is all about. (Of late, she’s found herself cast as a tortured housewife.)

“Art is a reflection of our lives. It’s very important. It helps you understand human behavior and the world,” she said.

With her older daughter, Katelyn, now at New York University, Manfre has the chance to stretch her wings beyond Peterborough. Earlier this year, she performed in “Plays on Tap,” a series of short restaurant/bar plays that ran at the BCA Black Box Theater in Boston.

Five years from now, she’d like to be doing commercials and more of the voice-over and corporate video work she currently does. Maybe a bit part in a movie. But she still sees herself performing at the Peterborough Players in the summertime. Because it’s there that Manfre’s found her place in the sun. Maybe she’s not a big star, but she’s a professional working actor, just like she’s always wanted.

Just the other day, she was riding her bicycle to the Players to rehearse her lines. It was a beautiful spring day in a town she loves, and she was getting paid to do her favorite thing in the world. “I can’t think of anything better,” she said.

Lynn Tryba is a freelance writer who lives in Peterborough.