Elena and JD Madsen, who met while doing theatre in their undergraduate years at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, have always shared an affinity for the arts — the best example of that being the naming of their three children.
So, it seems only natural that some of that culture — that love for the theater that JD used to become an associate professor of scenic design at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln — would naturally be passed onto Huckleberry, Harper Jo and 3-year-old Hemingway.
It also explains how Huck, 14, and Harper Jo, 10, have found their way to the Lincoln Community Playhouse for its production of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," which raises the curtain for the first of six shows Dec. 9.Â
It seems logical that years of exposure to the family business has sparked an interest among the children.
People are also reading…
It's the same with 12-year-old Gracie Kathman, another cast member in the holiday classic whose father, Ryan Kathman, teaches theater at Nebraska Wesleyan and has been a working actor most of his life.
In the cases of both families, it happened organically, without any kind of pressure for the children to follow suit by performing on stage.
"We never really pushed," said Ryan Kathman, who said he and Jenny instead went in the opposite direction by signing up Gracie and 10-year-old George in everything except theater. "We were enrolling them in sports regularly and also piano lessons and some dance lessons."
But when some of your first childhood experiences take place near the stage — laying in a car seat while dad worked his magic — the passion is bound to rub off.
Huck Madsen, an eighth grader at Lux Middle School, remembers being 6 years old and watching his father build sets at the University of Maryland, where JD was working on his masters of fine arts degree.
"I wasn’t really old enough to understand it, but I thought it was cool," he said. "He showed me how actors used the sets to create whole new worlds."
That's the magic of acting, said Huck, who relishes his opportunities "to be a shape shifter."
He plays Yukon Cornelius in the stage adaptation of the Rankin-Bass television special that premiered in 1964 and has become an annual Christmas staple.
"Being Yukon is a great experience," he said. "You get to be a larger-than-life character. You don’t get to do that at a public middle school. I get to be loud and be annoying and be funny. Those are all things I’m not going to do in middle school.
"I get to do them all on stage and have fun with it."
Meanwhile, Harper Jo, a fourth grader at Maxey Elementary School, is having fun playing Hermie the elf.
"He’s generally a happy character, but I don’t think he’s jolly," she said. "He’s not sad all the time, but he wants to be a dentist. He doesn’t want to make toys. He’s stuck there."
And somehow, this band of misfits — a reindeer with a red nose and an elf that wants to be a dentist among them — find a way to answer every challenge. It's a story that reminds us that what makes us different makes us special.
(If you've never seen the TV version, climb out from under the rock that you live and check out the Playhouse production).
Tying it all together is Gracie Kathman, who plays Sam the snowman, the narrator of the story and the comic relief to a production not lacking in light moments.
"I like getting people to smile when I am on stage," said Gracie, a seventh grader at Scott Middle School.
At first blush, Sam — the gatekeeper of the show — inspires orderliness, not laughter, even Gracie admits.
"Sam doesn’t have the funniest lines, but I’ve found a couple of ways," she said.
One way she's done it is by becoming a fan girl to Rudolph. The first time they meet, she gushes all over him, making the reindeer feel like a celebrity.
She says it's just something she came up with on her own while researching the role. Her father, says he's "mystified" by her on-stage instincts — especially because it's something he tries to teach each day to collegiate actors.
With Gracie, those instincts seem to come naturally.
"i don't know know where she learned it," Ryan Kathman said. "She has some natural instincts. … She has an innate understanding of how to be funny and how to tell a story.
"It's all pretty crazy."
Or, like the second-generation athlete who is blessed with great genes and is immersed in it their entire life, it seems pretty natural that they'd be good at it, too. Nature AND nurture.
There's nothing crazy about that at all. It makes perfect sense.