If you went to the theater a lot in the late 80s and early 90s, you probably saw Jenny Bacon at Remains, Lookingglass, and the Goodman, rising from small parts like a milkmaid in Puntila and His Hired Man to starring roles in The Arabian Nights and Dancing at Lughnasa. But as a student at the University of Chicago’s Lab School in the 70s, Bacon was so terrified of attention she would do everything she could to blend into the background.
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“I was extremely shy as a little girl,” she says. “My teachers would have trouble getting me to engage.” The only time she really felt connected in class was when she was chosen to read aloud. Then in the seventh grade she discovered theater. “It was a big relief to suddenly have it scripted, what I was going to say,” she says, “and then to know what the other people were going to say. That provided the safety net that allowed my fears to be assuaged.”
Bacon enrolled at Columbia University in 1987 with a major in Russian. But after a year she dropped out and moved back home. “My brother dropped out of high school the same year. My mother was extremely patient with both of us. I was working in a restaurant and I was going, ‘What am I doing? What am I doing?’ And my mother said, ‘You’ll figure it out. Just take your time.’”
Stop Kiss, presented by the Naked Eye Theatre Company, opens Sunday at 7 at the Theatre Building, 1225 W. Belmont, and runs through February 7. Call 773-327-5252 for tickets.
