Theaters Around the Brandywine Valley Boast a Wealth of Talent

Photos by Jim Graham

Career actors and directors bring professional experience to the region’s theaters.

It’s a sunny Friday afternoon in late April, and the University of Delaware students on the sidewalks outside a Newark coffee shop have already mothballed their heavy winter clothing for something much lighter and considerably briefer. Inside, Elizabeth Heflin and Lee Ernst are assessing their lengthy acting careers, which will soon come to a pause for the summer as they wrap up the final performance in the UD Resident Ensemble Players production of Ira Levin’s Deathtrap. The two are playing husband and wife Sidney and Myra Bruhl.

“Lee and I were in grad school together at UD in the professional theater training program,” says Heflin of her early-’90s tenure as a student there.

Each went their separate ways to become a resident professional actor elsewhere—she at the Alley Theatre in Houston and he at the American Players Theatre in Wisconsin, among others. Both returned to campus years later to join the newly formed REP.

“Sandy Robins, who headed the program when we were at Delaware, had just started the REP at the university and began contacting former students who were professional actors elsewhere,” says Ernst, who frequently leases out his mellifluous voice for voiceover work.

I like to present plays that start a conversation or make people feel good.
—Matt Silva, Delaware Theatre Company

When the calls from UD came in 2008, Ernst waited a few more years for the sake of his children’s schooling, then returned to Newark with his wife, Sandy, also a professional actor, who currently serves as associate producing artistic director at UD. Heflin, meanwhile, quickly decided to change companies. “Most REPs were doing eight shows a week and working year-around,” she says. “I had a 3-year-old daughter, and UD was doing five shows a week following the school schedule. We also have holidays off.”

While no two stories are alike, Heflin’s and Ernst’s acting sojourns are generally similar to those of other professional performers, directors and administrators who form the backbone of the Brandywine Valley region’s three primary regional theater companies—careers that, in their early days, crisscrossed the country as jobs became available and career advancements beckoned.

Professional regional theater flourished nationally in the postwar era of the 1950s and ’60s, as actors flocked to star in plays off Broadway. While several of these theaters are still active, their numbers have diminished. In our area, the three at the forefront are all dependent on professional casts, while each has a different operating structure. In addition to UD’s REP, which just finished its 16th season, there’s People’s Light in Malvern, celebrating its 50th year, and Delaware Theatre Company, which began in 1979.

After Bud Martin retired from Delaware Theatre Company in June 2023, his second-in-command, Matt Silva, took over as executive director and is just finishing his first season in that role. “I caught the acting bug at 6,” Silva says. “In graduate school, I figured out that people wouldn’t pay to see me act. Then I worked six years in directing until I decided I couldn’t make a living doing that—and so I studied marketing and theater management.”

DTC presents five shows annually. “Not anything too political or with any deep moral themes,” Silva says. “I like to present plays that start a conversation or make people feel good.”

By contrast, People’s Light presents nine or 10 plays on a year-round basis with lots of allied education and experimental activities, as befits its budget of around $5 million and full-time staff of 50. “I like to think of us as a civic center with a theater at our core,” says general manager Erin Sheffield, who combines a background in acting and theater management with a stint in New York finance.

Perhaps your idea of a theater company is more like a traveling troupe of veteran actors who’ve worked together for years, whether in the bawdy theaters of Shakespeare’s day or with a modern Broadway national tour. You get that vibe with UD’s REP company, just without the travel. “We have seven actors in our company, all officially university employees and all of us teachers as well as actors,” says Sandy Ernst.

In addition to the staff performers, who each have a leading or supporting role in every production, the REP hires additional professional union actors and directors to fill out the casts. As with the other theaters, the university has a permanent stage crew. “The only nonunion actors we have are in the plays that feature children,” Sandy Ernst says.

All three companies rely heavily on actors in the Philadelphia or New York areas who can commute more easily. But sometimes artists do come from farther away. As with any business that hires talent on a freelance basis, there are some repeat performers. Others are invited to audition on personal recommendations. “We’re required to do auditions, which we can do in person or virtually,” Sheffield says of People’s Light’s process.

I like to think of us as a civic center with a theater as our core.
—Erin Sheffield, People’s Light

Occasionally, a nationally known talent will make an appearance, as in the case of award-winning actor David Strathairn this past summer in Off By One at People’s Light. In putting their seasons together, artistic directors often look for the new and different. Strathairn’s Off By One was a world premiere written by Emmy-winning producer/writer/director Joseph Dougherty. “The analogy of a chef putting together a restaurant menu is a good one for putting together a theater season,” Sheffield says. “You offer something for everyone.”

Sandy Ernst reads at least five plays a week—sometimes more. “It’s like a Rubik’s Cube,” she notes. “We ask, ‘Can we afford it? Is it a REP-style play?’”

There can also be a financial advantage to world premieres. For Delaware Theatre Company, in addition to bragging rights, it provides a passive income of 1.5% of the profits from future productions of the show. “We did the world premiere for the Dolly Parton musical 9 to 5,” Silva says. “It’s now on a tour in London’s West End.”

Sandy Ernst reads at least five plays a week—sometimes more. “It’s like a Rubik’s Cube,” she notes. “We ask, ‘Can we afford it? Is it a REP-style play?’”

In addition to steady employment and benefits, REP actors have the professional opportunity to stretch themselves in a variety of major and minor roles. “Being a part of a REP company is a coveted job, because there are so few REP companies,” says Heflin.

Working with the same people all the time doesn’t allow for personality conflicts. “There is no rank within a company,” Lee Ernst says. “If you have a problem with someone, you have to sort it out for the good of the company.”

His wife agrees. “A company is a little like a family,” she says. “You may have an occasional squabble. But all in all, you have each other’s backs.”

Visit rep.udel.edu, peopleslight.org and delawaretheatre.org.

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