Buried Secrets

By Jen Banowetz
Appears in the May 2024 issue.

Buffalo Theatre Ensemble stages a world premiere

It’s 2017, and Kurt Naebig is in the audience at a Juilliard event where alumni are showcasing scenes from their new works. Three women get up onstage and starting doing a scene about sisters.

“I’m laughing because it feels like sisters—they’re mean, they’re loving, they’re funny, they have inside jokes—and I’m just having a grand time watching this,” Naebig says. “It’s hard to find plays with a number of well-written female roles.”

Fast-forward seven years, and Naebig is directing the May world premiere of this show, Into the Earth With You by Brian Watkins, for Buffalo Theatre Ensemble. “It’s pretty cool that nobody else has done it yet—I cannot understand why; neither could the playwright when I talked to him,” Naebig says. “It’s a cool show, I really love it. I think our audience is going to love it, too.”

The debut production of this quirky dramedy features Robert Jordan Bailey, Lisa Dawn, Laura Leonardo Ownby, Kelli Walker, and Norm Woodel (all BTE members), as well as original music and sound design by Christopher Kriz.

“It’s a funny, heartfelt, and sometimes spooky journey with three sisters through 21 years of their lives, with a couple of the most surprising moments I’ve ever seen onstage—I mean, I was reading the play, and my jaw is dropping—and you don’t get that very often when you’re reading a play,” Naebig says. “I guarantee you there’s going to be a couple places in the show where you’re going to be thinking, Holy crap! But I can’t tell anything more—I don’t want to spoil it.”

Watkins, the playwright, is probably best known as the creator and executive producer of the Amazon Prime show Outer Range. Naebig—a longtime Buffalo member who now lives in Lombard—is an actor, director, voice-over artist, writer, and monologue teacher. “I’m going on almost 40 years of making a living of this,” Naebig says. “I kind of fell into acting by taking a class senior year in high school that I thought was a blowoff, and I fell in love.”

So, what’s his best advice for someone who wants to break into the business? “You’ve got to love it for the art and not come at it with the belief that you’re going to make loads of money—and then you’re going to have to hustle,” he says. “It’s not just talent that does it. Like I said, I’ve been at it 40 years, but I’m still auditioning a few times a week. That’s the life.”

Like many careers, hustle is the key.

“If I meet somebody that I teach who is extremely talented, even genius-level talent, and doesn’t have hustle I know it’s not going to happen,” he says. “If I meet somebody that I teach who I think is maybe mediocre-level talent but has a huge amount of hustle, I have a pretty good feeling they’re going to do OK.”

Into the Earth With You, which contains adult themes and language, runs May 2 through June 2 at the McAninch Arts Center, 425 Fawell Boulevard in Glen Ellyn. Tickets are $44 for adults and $42 for seniors.

There will be a preshow discussion with the director and designers at 6:45 p.m. May 2; a postshow discussion with director, actors, and crew May 10; and an ASL performance at 8 p.m. May 23. For more information, visit atthemac.org.

Photos: Rex Howard Photography