Throughout her life, Kelley Barton has had a creative urge. At the age of eight she was on stage, alongside her father, playing Helen Keller in a community production of The Miracle Worker. Since then, she has sought out creative outlets most of her life. She continued to pursue acting in high school and college.
She moved from her home town of Madison Heights, just outside Detroit Michigan in hopes of a professional career. It didn’t pan out, but she met her husband Jeff Barton and the two settled in Old Town Seal Beach. He worked as a graphic designer and she started a bookkeeping firm, catering to small businesses.
They raised two boys, Trevor and Garrett, and have lived in Seal Beach for nearly 40 years. Kelley can’t imagine living anywhere else, she said. Their sons are grown and living nearby in Long Beach. Jeff is retired and Kelley is making a slow transition into retirement. So she decided to start looking for roles in local theater productions.
Her third audition with the Long Beach Playhouse finally yielded a role. A Doll’s House 2, opens this weekend with Kelley in the role of Anne Marie. The show picks up where the original 1879 Henrik Ibsen’s play ended. And Kelley couldn’t be happier that her persistence paid off with this role
“I thought, I’m just going to keep trying, eventually they’re going to put me in something,” Barton said.
The story involves the return of Nora Helman, 15 years after she left her husband and daughter to pursue her own success. Seeking a divorce from her husband Torvald creates tension between the people she left behind, including Anne Marie, the nanny who stayed to help care for the daughter Emmy.
“I’m having a blast, I’m really enjoying it,” Kelley said.
Pagan Urich plays Nora, Shawn Plunkett plays Torvald and Caitlin Durkin plays Emmy. The script was written in 2017, by Lucas Hnath and premiered at South Coast Repertory that same year. It premiered on Broadway the same year as well and garnered eight Tony nominations.
Kelley said the four actors in the LB Playhouse production have worked well together and rehearsals have developed a great report. Heading into the final week, she says the cast and crew are ready to go.
“We can’t wait to have an audience,” Kelley said.
Even while she ran her business and was raising small boys, she continued to find ways to scratch that creative itch. She would get involved in church productions and was once enlisted by Esther Kenyon to direct a staged reading of a Neil Simon play.
In the ‘90s she wrote a screenplay that she said got some interest from production companies for possible movie optioning. But it didn’t sell. “It was so close,” she said with just a hint of disappointment still in her voice.
She recently started re-working the script with the intention of turning it into a novel. She put it aside when she was cast in the show, but plans to get back to it when the play’s run ends. And she wants to keep pursuing other roles.
At 68 years old and nearly retired, Kelley sounds like she is nowhere near slowing down.
“I’ve always loved doing something creative,” she said.
A Doll’s House 2 has a preview show on Friday and a gala champagne opening on Saturday, both at 8 p.m. It runs through Aug. 15, with Friday and Saturday shows at 8 p.m. and Sunday shows at 2 p.m. in the playhouse’s Studio Theatre.
For more information visit lbplayhouse.org, or call 562-494-1014.