Interview: Emily Ota of GEORGIANA AND KITTY: CHRISTMAS AT PEMBERLEY at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley

TheatreWorks Silicon Valley is returning to the world of Jane Austen this month with the heartwarming, music-filled tale Georgiana and Kitty: Christmas at Pemberley, written by Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon and directed by Giovanna Sardelli, the same team behind last year’s hugely popular Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley. So it’s back to the Regency era for another story in Gunderson and Melcon’s Christmas at Pemberley series. Perfect for the whole family, this charming yuletide adventure features favorite characters from Pride and Prejudice. 

Emily Ota stars as accomplished pianist Georgiana Darcy, alongside Kushi Beauchamp as eternal optimist Kitty Bennet. Tired of living in the shadow of their siblings’ romantic affairs, the pair are now fast friends, eager to embark on their own life journeys, prompted by an admirer’s visit to the Pemberley Estate. I spoke with Bay Area native Ota by phone recently when she was happily immersed in rehearsals. Given her graduate training at the famed London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, she was feeling right at home in in this English period piece.

Ota recently finished a run as Meg in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women at Theatreworks as well, so there’s clearly something about her that just naturally resonates with 19th-century stories. I asked her about that, as well as what she loves about the character of Georgiana, and what it was like to venture off to England on her own for grad school. Ota also brought up her mixed heritage and how she hopes to be an example to others who might see her onstage and feel inspired to follow in her footsteps. In conversation, she comes across as exceedingly smart, a little nerdy and quite charming. In short, perfect casting for a Jane Austen heroine. The following has been condensed and edited for clarity.    

You’re in the thick of the rehearsal process right now. Do you love that part of the work, or are you more the kind of actor who’s chomping at the bit to play to a live audience?

I love rehearsals. I love this part of the process where we can really dive into the emotional landscapes of the characters and their relationships, and then of course because it’s a period piece, the rules of the world and society. Also, because humans make mistakes and we don’t always follow the rules, what happens when we break those rules, especially in a very strict society. That’s really, really fun. Of course, I love our wonderful audiences, too, but I’m definitely a nerd for that kind of stuff. [laughs]

How exactly does this play fit in with Jane Austen’s oeuvre?

What’s really cool about what Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon have done is they’ve written incredible fan fictions and turned them into these wonderful plays, taking minor characters and putting them in the spotlight. I’m a huge fan of Jane Austen. I’ve read the books and watched the different adaptations, and I’ve even been in a couple different productions of Sense and Sensibility. It’s really exciting to be able to get to know these kind of minor characters and see what’s going on for them.

Georgiana and Kitty picks up right after the end of Miss Bennet. At the end of that play, Georgiana and Kitty have just arrived to Pemberley, so with Georgiana and Kitty it’s like literally the page turns to the next part of the series. It starts focusing on Georgiana, who’s come to Pemberley with information that she’s been corresponding with a gentleman, and without telling anybody in her family she has invited him to Christmas Day at Pemberley. She hasn’t even told her Best Friend, Kitty Bennet, and so it’s even a surprise to her. Kitty, being the wonderful supportive friend and sister-in-law that she is, is like “That’s okay. Yeah, you made a mistake, but here we go. We’re gonna make it work.” So that’s where we start the show.

Georgiana is a minor character in the book so people might not be that familiar with her. How would you describe who she is?

Georgiana is definitely an introvert, very shy and not one to take up space. I think that’s partly her own personality and also partly because of the world that she lives in. She is a member of the gentry, so being a woman in that society she is trained to be a certain way from birth. And given the fact that she is the younger sister of Mr. Darcy and he is deeply protective of her because of the events in the Pride and Prejudice of her almost being ruined by Wickham, she’s like a bird in a gilded cage. I think a lot of women at that time were experiencing that kind of being stuck in a place where you’re not supposed to work and your only currency is being able to be married and the dowry you offer.

We see that version of Georgiana at the beginning of the play where she still defers to her brother in all things. But because of her friendship with Kitty and also just her experiencing the world a little bit more [she evolves]. She has been away from Pemberley for a while living in London, and so she’s getting a bit more world experience and life experience. And she’s gotten a little bit older, a little bit wiser, and we start to see her come out of her shell.

My favorite part of Georgiana is that the thing she loves most in the world is music. While she may not be the life of the party like Lydia or the smartest person like Mary (although she is quite intelligent), she navigates the world through music. And what’s really special is it’s not just through her playing, but her own creation of music. She is a brilliant composer herself, which we find out along the way.

You’ve appeared in two different stage adaptations of Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, and you’re just coming off Little Women, also at TheatreWorks. Is there something about you that just reads as “period”?

I don’t know, but I kind of love that. I was actually talking with one of the members of our creative team and I was like “I feel like I don’t get to do a lot of period pieces, but looking back on the last couple of years, I guess I do.” I do a lot of Shakespeare and classical pieces, and I think that’s also partly because of my training. I was very fortunate to get to go to grad school in the UK, so it’s a part of my bread and butter, and whenever I get to play these parts it feels like coming home. I do love this period in time, so it is very fun and such a treat to be able to be in this world.

You know, I’m a mixed woman and yes, so many things have changed in the world and in our industry in really positive ways, but there are still some obstacles in place for women of color in the business, and so whenever I get to do these period pieces it’s quite exciting. These stories are universal and it gives people an opportunity to look at things through a different lens, and also gives audiences of different backgrounds the opportunity to see themselves onstage.

What is your heritage specifically?

I’m half Japanese, a quarter German and a quarter Irish.

I get requests to interview theater folks all the time and I’ve noticed that while even a few years ago the opportunities to speak with artists of Asian descent were few and far between, that’s not so much the case anymore. I don’t mean to suggest that we’ve “arrived” in terms of equity, but it does feel like something has shifted.

Yeah, totally. I feel the exact same way and it’s so encouraging. When I was growing up, I didn’t have any examples of people in the Arts or even in the world really to see myself in. Even with the Asian performers that I looked up to, and I still look up to, like Sandra Oh, Michelle Yeoh, Lucy Liu, they’re all full Asians, not mixed like I am. So my experience with the world is very much like “Okay, I’m gonna take this piece from this person and this piece from that person.” I’m a patchwork of my incredible mother and father and my wonderful extended family, so that’s kind of how I’ve approached the world and work.

And as you said, no, we haven’t arrived, but what’s so wonderful is there has been a lot of work that’s been done from the generations before me that we’re really seeing pay off. And I think what’s really cool, too, is that every part I play is now a mixed role. I hope that that gives people the confidence to go out and audition for those parts as well, to be like “Oh, well, if she can do it, then maybe I can, too.”

I’m really glad you brought that up because my own family is becoming increasingly mixed, and I often feel like we aren’t really a part of the discussion around representation.

Definitely. I think these period pieces and the wonderfully diverse casting that we’re seeing, especially at TheatreWorks and [elsewhere] in the Bay Area, is so wonderful. It’s opening more doors for anyone and everyone - and not just actors but playwrights, directors, producers, musicians, composers - to come forward and go “Okay, let me try and create something, because now I’m feeling inspired and I’m feeling seen. Maybe I can do something that is reflective of me.” I think there are other people out there who are like me, who maybe don’t have exactly the same family history and background, but understand that mixed experience, or understand that different experience, and that they’ll enjoy what I have to say and show them.

Where did you grow up and where are you currently based?

I grew up here in the Bay Area, in Menlo Park, so I grew up going to see shows at TheatreWorks and A.C.T. and Berkeley Rep and SF Playhouse. I actually went to the conservatory at Foothill College for a couple of years before I went off to grad school in the UK. It’s really cool to be able to come back home and be a part of the professional world as an actor here, which I hadn’t really done. I am currently based in Los Angeles, but I would say that I’m bi-coastal. I’ve split my time between LA, here in the Bay Area and New York for the last several years.

You went to grad school at the prestigious London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art [LAMDA]. How did that come about and what was that experience like, especially as an American?

I was just finishing the conservatory and I knew that I still wanted to study, I didn’t feel like I was quite ready to step into the professional world. So I went on a big audition tour for both undergrad and graduate programs, and nothing was sitting right. At the time I was 20, and so it was this kind of weird no man’s land where if I went undergrad I’d be starting with 17 or 18-year-olds, but if I went to grad school I’d be working people who were maybe in their 30s or 40s.

I went to Carnegie Mellon for auditions and got through all the way to their final callbacks. After I finished my audition, I sat down with the head of the school and some of the professors, and they said, “So why aren’t you just working professionally now?” And I was like “I just don’t feel ready. I feel like I need more time, more guidance, I need to marinate a little bit more.” And they were like “Yeah, you’re young, but you’ve already had two years and change of training so if anything you should be looking at graduate programs or conservatory programs.”

Around that same time, my Best Friend was at Boston University and they were like “We have an opportunity to study abroad at this place called LAMDA. I don’t know if you’re still looking for places to apply, but maybe you should look into it.” That kind of opened a door that I didn’t even think was possible, but I’m so glad I did. LAMDA was doing auditions and final callbacks in the UK so I flew with my dad to the UK to do a final callback and was there for about a week. On the flight back to San Francisco, as we were taking off my dad turned to me and said, “Omigod, Em. What if you got in? That would be so, so cool.”

A couple months later I got a call from the head of the Drama school there and he said, “I hope you like the rain, cause you’re gonna be here for two years.” [laughs] I was just floored. So that fall I flew one-way to England and found myself in grad school at one of the greatest and oldest drama schools in the world. I still look back on it like “Omigod, how did that happen?” It was incredible, two of the best years of my life, but it was definitely weird being an American over there. It was a huge culture shock, which as a 21-year-old I wasn’t expecting, but looking back on it now I’m like “Of course it was going to be a culture shock. Just because you spoke the same language didn’t mean this was going to be easy.”

Even though I was the only East Asian person at the school, I was never made to feel othered, which I really appreciated. What I loved about the teaching philosophy at LAMDA is that they are not there to mold you into a specific type of actor; they meet their students where they are. They see your natural talent and raw ability, and say, “Okay, here are all these tools, and our goal is to make you a phenomenal universal actor where you can do anything and everything that you want to do.” They really kind of create that environment, so I felt like I was seen, I felt like I was heard, and prepared in a really wonderful way to then come back to the U.S. industry and try and take it by storm. 

In addition to Georgiana & Kitty being your third Jane Austen production, you’ve also played Juliet in Romeo & Juliet at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Does your having been steeped in British culture for two years, not mention your specific training at LAMDA, give you a leg up playing British roles?

It feels like it does. After two years of living in London, I moved to New York when I got out of grad school and for the first six months there, people thought that I was British because I had like a mid-Atlantic accent. [laughs] You work naturally in your own accent, but when you’ve been surrounded by the sounds of the UK, people thought I was British, which was wild. And the accent work served me very well because it’s almost like a second accent that feels very natural for me to work in.

And I think there’s just that kind of deep understanding that you can only get when you live in a certain place, and in and amongst a certain culture, and then become very familiar and intimate with it. Actually, in preparation for that season [at Oregon Shakespeare Festival], because I played Juliet and Marianne [Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility] that year, I had taken a trip back to the UK in the fall of 2017 to do research, and I had the chance to go to Jane Austen’s house in Chawton. I was able to walk around in her house which was so beautiful, and I actually sat at the Austen piano that was in one of the parlors, which is really special.

This is TheatreWorks’ holiday show, so lots of folks will be attending as part of their celebrations. How are you planning to celebrate the holidays?

I’m so glad that I could be here in the Bay Area because it means that I get to spend the holiday season with my family. My parents, my sister, my brother-in-law and I are wonderfully close. We have some things planned, although because I’m working, I won’t get to all of the typical normal things. But we’re excited to go see the lights at Christmas Tree Lane in Palo Alto, and I think we’re going to Filoli to see the beautiful grounds and holiday celebrations there.

My parents are retired now, but they’re ocean and marine scientists so one of our kind of wacky family traditions is that every year we go to Año Nuevo to see the migration of the elephant seals. [laughs] We’re environmentalists, so we love that and it’s just a natural part of our holiday season now. And then we’ll do New Year’s probably down in LA. We do a typical Japanese New Year’s, so we’ll have a lot of delicious, amazing Japanese food that day.

(all photos by Tracy Martin)

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