Theater is a funny business — both peculiar and ha-ha.
Kate Wetherhead knows this. She has lived with the quirks, the oddball personalities and unexplainable absurdities for 20 years. But rather than mutter under her breath about the latest indignity or weird meeting with an agent, Wetherhead has used the stories of her chosen profession as grist for a Web series that lampoons the casting and audition life of Broadway.
"Submissions Only," which she created with Andrew Keenan-Bolger, is a hit with theater people and has made Wetherhead, who stars in the Guthrie's fall production of "The Heidi Chronicles," an underground celebrity in her business. She writes the show and plays an actor who works for a casting director. The satire is couched with great affection, but the characterizations carry a delicious bite.
"If there are negative responses, people have been polite enough to keep them to themselves," Wetherhead said, when asked if she is soiling her theater nest.
Wetherhead moved to New York shortly after college. Her parents took her to a community theater production of "West Side Story" when she was 6, in Burlington, Vt., and that was it. She was going to be an actor.
When she came to New York, she had a plan: enroll in Circle in the Square theater school. It would give her a daily routine, a support system and instant friends in a town that intimidated her.
It took her many years, though, to fully understand the adage about talent not being enough. You gotta be tough; you gotta have moxie and smarts and drive.
"At a certain point, unless you have been sprinkled with fairy dust, you have to take matters into your own hands," she said. "Waiting for that magical job, that happens only for a small percentage of people. After years and years of highs and lows, I realized if I want any autonomy or control, I would have to make something of my own."
