Bobbie Steinbach (appearing in Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s upcoming Timon of Athens has been a longtime member of Boston’s very special theatre community as an actor, cabaret performer, teacher and most recently, a director. Founding Member/Resident Company Actors’ Shakespeare Project: Richard III, Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, All’s Well That Ends Well,The Winter’s Tale,  Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing,  Coriolanus (Volumnia). She is presently an ASP Artistic Associate. Regional credits include: Michigan Opera Theatre,  Boston Pops at Boston Symphony Hall & Tanglewood: A Little Night Music (Madame Armfeldt); Huntington Theatre Company: Rose Tattoo, Dead End,The Corn is Green; Commonwealth Shakespeare Company: Romeo and Juliet (Nurse), Much Ado About Nothing, (Dogberry), Lyric Stage Company of Boston: Follies (Carlotta Campion),The Importance of Being Ernest (Lady Bracknell), Arms and the Man, A Little Night Music,Spitfire Grill, Assassins, Lend Me a Tenor, Beyond Belief, Present Laughter; New Repertory Theatre: The Clean House  (Elliot Norton Award for Best Production) Romeo and Juliet, A Girl’s War, The Waverly Gallery, Stonewall Jackson’s House.;  Speakeasy Stage Company: Anna in the Tropics; Christmas Revels at Sanders Theatre; Boston TheatreWorks: Our Town, Coyote on a Fence, Merrimack Rep: A Funny thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, ChristmasCarol, Ring Round the Moon: Vineyard Playhouse and Jewish Theatre of NE: The Last Night of Ballyhoo, Directing credits: New Rep’s The Diary of Anne Frank, Third and Oak: The Laundromat, The Red and the Blue, Boston Theatre Marathon and Our Town at Boston Conservatory. She is the recipient of the Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Actress and the Independent Reviewers Best Supporting Actress Award.

What is your definition of misery?
Wearing a bathing suit.

What is your greatest fear?
That I don’t have enough time left to do all the things I want to do, like write a play, get really excellent at photography, travel, travel, travel, participate in a spoken word slam, direct, make collages and masks and still spend time with my family and friends, eating good food and laughing.

What was your first “real” job working in theatre?
I played Annabelle, a ten-year-old girl in Grunion the Grouch. I was thirty-five at the time.

Are you good at waiting tables?
Yes, if you don’t count the time I ran down the street in Provincetown chasing a couple of folks who didn’t tip me.

Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Goody Proctor.

Who are your favorite heroes of theatre?
All the actors who no matter how hard they have to work at other jobs, no matter how they struggle to stay afloat, arrive in the rehearsal room and on the stage alive, present and wonderful.

Who are your favorite heroes in real life?
People who have overcome amazing adversity in their lives.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Caution.

What do you consider the most underrated virtue?
Generosity of spirit.

Your favorite painter?
Stanley Spenser.

Your favorite musician
Laura Nyro.

Your favorite playwright?
Shakespeare and John Guare.

When and where were you happiest?
So many times…here’s one… Kayaking with my husband, our dogs Vangie and Roberto, our daughters and granddaughters in Maine.

What do you most value in colleagues?
Empathy, supportiveness and willingness to play.

Is there a class in which you wish you had paid more attention?
Piano lessons.

If you didn’t work in theatre, what would you do?
Photography, spoken word poetry, collage and mask-making.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
That Olivia (10) and Phoebe (5), our granddaughters, really love to spend time with me and my husband Bob.

What you’d like to be the world’s best at?
Discovering cures for terrible diseases, peacemaking.

What book would you read more than once?
Geek Love

Who would play you in a movie of your life? Why?
Harvey Fierstein

What sports teams do you follow?
Whatever Bob is watching when I get home from a show or rehearsal—usually the Sox, and tennis in general.

Where would you like to spend a vacation?
Paris anytime, Spoleto, Italy in the Fall, San Miguel de Allende (to go to one of the art schools there), Villefranche on the Riviera.

What car would you like to be seen driving around in?
I wish I could just walk or ride a bike everywhere.

What book is currently on your nightstand?
The Marowitz Shakespeare, Arden’s edition of Timon of Athens, Artaud at Rodez, latest New Yorker.

If you could see a great production of a classic play, what would it be?
Anthony Sher’s Richard III at Royal Shakespeare Company.

If you could travel back in time to visit or live in any time in history, when would it be?
I’d go back to 1969 and this time I would go to the Woodstock Festival, get naked and smear mud all over me, and dance my ass off!

What actor will you see in any project they do?
Charlotte Gainsbourg.

Timon of Athens • news wire
Actors' Shakespeare Project • actorsshakespeareproject.org • 866-811-4111

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