• Letters from CAMP Rehoboth
    • Current Issue
    • Past Issues
    • Advertising Information
    • Where Can I Get Letters?
    • The Write Stuff
  • Events
    • Featured Events
    • SUNFESTIVAL 2022
    • Women's FEST
    • Block Party 2022
  • Programs
    • Arts & Culture
    • Education & Advocacy
    • Health & Wellness
    • Community Building
    • CAMP Facilities
  • About Us
    • Membership
    • Volunteers
    • Board of Directors
    • CAMP Rehoboth Staff
    • Reports and Financials
    • History
    • Employment Opportunities
    • Press
  • Resources
    • Beach Guide Directory
    • LGBTQ Resources
    • LGBTQ Providers
    • LGBTQ Delaware Data
    • Trans & Nonbinary Resources
    • BIPOC LGBTQ Resources
    • LGBTQ Local and National Resources Guide
  • Contact
  • Shop
close× Call Us 302-227-5620
close×

Search form

October 19, 2018 - CAMP News - Kay Cummings by Michael Gillies

Kay Cummings

 

Kay Cummings Brings Her Theatrical Talent to Baltimore Avenue

She has played leading roles off-Broadway, in national tours, stock, repertory theater, television soaps, series, and commercials, and has appeared in major motion pictures. She has created and directed works performed at venues such as the Joseph Papp Public Theater, Lincoln Center’s Serious Fun, and Off-Off-Broadway’s legendary La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club.

While that’s quite the resumé, there’s more!

She has written and performed a series of highly acclaimed one-woman cabarets and her work has been featured on Alive from Off Center on PBS.

And yes, there’s more.

Kay Cummings was the dance curator for New York’s Symphony Space for ten years and served another ten years as the Chair of the Department of Dance of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She continued to teach choreography and acting there as well as being the Associate Chair until she retired in 2016. She founded the Tisch Dance Summer Residency Festival. She was also awarded the NYU Distinguished Teaching Medal.

The great news is that now-local resident Kay Cummings is bringing this headlining background and experience to CAMP Rehoboth!

So how did Kay end up living in Lewes, sharing her talents as an actor, director, choreographer, singer, dancer, pianist, and educator with the community?

This transplanted New Yorker bought a home in Lewes six years ago with then long-time partner (and now wife) Ellen McKeon. They split time between New York and Lewes before Kay retired, eventually settling in Delaware full-time along with their beloved Yorkie.

Since moving to Lewes, Kay has taken up acting again. At the 2016 Baltimore Avenue Block Party, Kay met Russell Stiles, director of Stop Kiss, to be performed the following spring at CAMP Rehoboth. He cast her in the play and their friendship grew. Her experience in Stop Kiss led to a role in Last Summer at Bluefish Cove, and a special relationship with CAMP Rehoboth.

She is now teaching an acting class at the community center, bringing the same sensibility to her classes here that she had at NYU. Her class welcomes anyone who wants to learn.

Kay started her theater journey as a child in or around the New York area. She sang or acted as a baby (yes, an actual baby), and has never stopped. She continued on through high school and college, and suddenly her fun endeavors became a full-time career. Always a small but formidable presence, WNYU radio described her as “a small lady with boundless energy, and a dramatic range that is so wide it’s all but intimidating.” The magazine Michael’s Thing said, “The lady has guts and good humor.” After spending time with her, this author can verify all.

In Kay’s view of the world, teachers teach what they’ve learned from their own experience, so that what resonates in them ends up resonating in others. This results in a circle of learning that can last literally for a generation. And for Kay, it means that she can only become a better artist.

While the acting classes are going on this fall, Kay’s next project is directing the play In the Wake, by well-known playwright Lisa Kron. Produced by CAMP Rehoboth, the play is a funny, passionate, and ultimately searing script illuminating the assumptions that lie at the heart of the American character, the blind spots that mask us from ourselves, and how the past sows the seeds of our present reality.

Kay found the play after reading over 50 scripts to determine her next project. She was looking for something about the world now. It didn’t have to be about gay people or straight people. It needed to have a sensibility toward all kinds of people, because, in her words, “life is that.”

The Associated Press called the play “formidable.” That makes it even more fitting for the human dynamo that is Kay Cummings. ▼

[Editor’s Note: Auditions for In the Wake will be November 27 and 28 at 7 p.m. Auditions will consist of a cold reading and short interview. Performances are in mid-to-late February; rehearsals begin in January.]

‹ October 19, 2018 - CAMP Interview by Chris Azzopardi up October 19, 2018 - Out & About by Eric C. Peterson ›

Past Issues

Issues Index

  • November 16, 2018 - Issue Index
  • October 19, 2018 - Issue Index
    • October 19, 2018 - Cover-to-cover with ISSUU
    • October 19, 2018 - The Way I See It by Murray Archibald
    • October 19, 2018 - Speak Out
    • October 19, 2018 - In Brief
    • October 19, 2018 - CAMPmatters by Murray Archibald
    • October 19, 2018 - CAMP Out by Fay Jacobs
    • October 19, 2018 - President's View by Chris Beagle
    • October 19, 2018 - Out & Proud by Stefani Deoul
    • October 19, 2018 - View Point by Richard Rosendall
    • October 19, 2018 - CAMP News
    • October 19, 2018 - Straight Talk by David Garrett
    • October 19, 2018 - The Real Dirt by Eric W. Wahl
    • October 19, 2018 - It's My Life by Michael Thomas Ford
    • October 19, 2018 - Eating Out by Fay Jacobs
    • October 19, 2018 - CAMP Rehoboth Health & Wellness
    • October 19, 2018 - Intentionally Inclusive by Wesley Combs
    • October 19, 2018 - Community News
    • October 19, 2018 - CAMP Stories by Rich Barnett
    • October 19, 2018 - Volunteer Spotlight - Michael DeFlavia
    • October 19, 2018 - Volunteer Thank You
    • October 19, 2018 - CAMP Cheers!
    • October 19, 2018 - Remembering Joe Bowman (1945-2017)
    • October 19, 2018 - RB Film Festival Preview
    • October 19, 2018 - CAMPshots Gallery 1
    • October 19, 2018 - CAMPshots Gallery 2
    • October 19, 2018 - CAMPshots Gallery 3
    • October 19, 2018 - CAMP Interview by Chris Azzopardi
    • October 19, 2018 - CAMP News - Kay Cummings by Michael Gillies
    • October 19, 2018 - Out & About by Eric C. Peterson
    • October 19, 2018 - CAMP Arts by Doug Yetter
    • October 19, 2018 - Booked Solid by Terri Schlichenmeyer
    • October 19, 2018 - CAMP Dates - October 19 – December12
  • September 21, 2018 - Issue Index
  • August 24, 2018 - Issue Index
  • August 10, 2018 - Issue Index
  • July 27, 2018 - Issue Index
  • July 13, 2018 - Issue Index
  • June 29, 2018 - Issue Index
  • June 15, 2018 - Issue Index
  • June 1, 2018 - Issue Index
  • May 18, 2018 - Issue Index
  • May 4, 2018 - Issue Index
  • April 6, 2018 - Issue Index
  • March 9, 2018 - Issue Index
  • January 26, 2018 - Issue Index

Follow Us

Follow us on Social Media!

RECEIVE WEEKLY EMAIL

Information

  • Letters
  • Events
  • About Us
  • CAMP Center

Support CAMP

  • CAMP Membership
  • Volunteer
  • Contact Us
  • Donate
Copyright © CAMP Rehoboth, 2023
  • p. 302-227-5620
  • info@camprehoboth.com
  • 37 Baltimore Avenue, Rehoboth Beach, DE 19971