Ask an Apprentice: Erin Mendez Stapleton

Last, but certainly not least, in our 2023 Ask an Apprentice series is the dazzling Erin Mendez Stapleton. A sweet epilogue to the 2023 apprentice interviews with several full-circle moments sure to warm the hearts of all dreamers everywhere. Read on for more!

APT: Hi, Erin! Thanks for taking some time to chat! How has your first summer at APT been so far?
Erin Mendez Stapleton: Hey! This has been a summer for the books. And I LOVE books. So that has extra weight for me. Seriously, though, this summer has given me an immeasurable amount of growth and goodness: in life, in creativity, in career, in community.

APT: That's great! In your bio in the playbill, you talk a little about how this summer is a "dream come true." Do you want to share a little bit about your theatrical journey and how that connects to APT?
Erin Mendez Stapleton: So I can’t take full credit for that idea for my bio. I went to see Wicked (for the umpteenth time) on Broadway and was reading through the Playbill and got to Brittney Johnson’s, the then G(a)linda’s, bio and felt more seen in a theatre and in my dreams than ever before. She literally took the time to dedicate her performance to the dreamers in the audience and that was the most profound gift to me as a dreamer on the other side of the lights. I wasn’t invisible and aching. I was seen and acknowledged and headed towards something great and worthy. I saw it and I literally said to Andrew, whenever I finally get hired, I am going to put this in my bio. So that was a long segway, but a story that means a lot to me and directly applies here! I err on the verbose so thank you for giving me your time to share!

Growing up in Milwaukee, I started in front of an audience as an Irish Dancer. Loved it. Nothing was better than being onstage. Then I saw Annie and immediately went gaga for the drama of Carol Burnett’s Miss Hannigan and would ~perform it~ to anyone who would let me. My parents always nurtured that electric connection I inherently had to the theatre and performance and surrounded me with incredible opportunities to see whatever came to town.

APT had been a fave date spot for my Dad back in the day. He still has a souvenir coffee mug from the 80s with an older APT logo on it. So he and Mom brought the family for the first time to this special spot in 2006. The play? Watch out for this full circle: Romeo and Juliet. And, I kid you not, the experience and the feeling of being there is imprinted in my head forever. I can still see the lights and the actors throwing themselves around the stage and feeling the whole audience all suspending on their every word. It was a classic Elizabethan take and I absolutely felt transported in time. The acting, together with the seclusion of the place, made that happen.

So from then on, we came almost every summer to see something! It wasn’t until 2012, however, that this place truly changed me. Richard III. I can’t impress upon you enough how much this production impacted me. It is still my favorite performance to date. Ever. And I am yet to share this with her personally, but it matters too much not to put it in print here. Tracy Michelle Arnold’s Margaret made me HAVE to be an actor. Between the first time I saw "Defying Gravity" live and Tracy’s cursing the court in Richard III. I knew. She transfixed me. She literally stopped time and space and the world froze. The air even seemed to work for her. I remember her descending and seeing the breeze take Margaret’s haggard, tired hair and withered dress right with it. Her words cut and I felt them. If THAT is what theatre can do. I needed to be a part of that. So #1 fan here. I saw a fleck of myself and the big feelings I’d always felt channeled into her story and Tracy’s take on it and felt empowered.

That whole production really. Every part of it. I had a major actor crush on Jim Ridge after that. Still do. He knows. But, seriously, we try to see a Broadway show once a month in NYC and, consistently, the level of storytelling at APT is my standard. That Margaret monologue was my go-to until college when I finally found her in a younger moment in the canon. Now, THAT is my go-to. And am actually working on an early Margaret scene with Andrew for the Apprentice project!

We have been submitting to APT since 2018 when we graduated from Webster Conservatory. 5 years of trying and aching and dreaming and not giving up and here we are! And bursting with gratitude.

APT: That's amazing! With that in mind, what's something you've learned this summer that has made an impact on the way you work as an artist or as a person in general?
Erin Mendez Stapleton: Honestly, it was a MAJOR flip coming here directly from Harlem, NYC and adjusting to the starkly different pace and scheme of life. It has allowed me space and time to ~find~ things again. In NYC, it's all go, go, go and you HAVE to know all of who you are and what you’re selling and it very much feels like you have to have a very specific, defined and ready-to-go package in order to be seen. Here, though, that couldn’t be less of the case. It has been a big paradigm shift for me to see these actors, who I have looked up to since 5th grade, and hear them speak of curiosity and questioning and still learning. Like, that’s real? I didn’t think that was an option. But this space and community actually foster such work. So that has been a gift I didn’t see coming.

APT: You have a pretty hefty understudy track this season! With roles like Isabelle/Sabine in The Liar and Juliet in Romeo & Juliet, what’s your process been like as you prep for these parts?
Erin Mendez Stapleton: It sure is hefty! It’s like the best Sunday Roast giant dinner–hefty, but rich and full of so much. (Can you tell this place had reignited my love for poetry?)

Two TOTALLY different plays and tracks. Keeping it real, I have never understudied before. So this has been a major learning curve for me. Frankly, a big lesson in humility and pride. My job is to learn these roles as they have been shaped and created for these, specific productions. What may have been MY initial understanding of the character or of a specific moment is, by the nature of life and different perspectives, not going to exactly line up with these other brilliant actresses’ personal choices. And that is ok! My job is to support the story being told by this community. If the actress I am covering should ever need to be out of the show, I need to be able to step in and hold up that character’s part of the machine so that the story can continue to be told. Now this isn’t to say that I as Erin cease to exist. Kelsey Brennan shaped how I see understudying in a very helpful way: If the actor you’re covering is making a choice that is Royal Blue, your job, as understudy, is to then still make a choice that is Blue, but might be Periwinkle Blue or Peacock Blue. So that helped me not lose myself in the mix!

At the very bare minimum, I have the expectation for myself to fully KNOW their track. Lines, blocking. That is the least I can do. That itself is no easy feat, though. It is different knowing in my head and then doing it out loud and in my body with other people. My best process is surrounding myself with the story and the track as much as possible. I have made attending rehearsals a priority so that I can really get to know THEIR journey for the character.

APT: As we move into the fall, do you have any favorite onstage or in-rehearsal memories from this summer?
Erin Mendez Stapleton: I was so nervous that we would get here and meet all of these people I have looked up to as idols for years and have a total Wizard of Oz moment. Like, look behind the Emerald Curtain and totally be disillusioned. That did not happen in the way I feared, but in a different way. Meeting these people, they, too, are PEOPLE. Like you and me and the person in front of you in the drive through at Culvers. To get to know them as people who have children and partners and love making bread and love pretty sparkly things and have real insecurities and battles continues to be an honor for me. Honestly, I always LOVE an opening night. So all of those are highlight scenes in my movie. Specifically, though, for our first preview of Merry Wives of Windsor, all of the Core Company members who were in the production came around and congratulated all of the first timers on their first APT audience. They really shared in the bubbling excitement of that moment and I felt that it meant something to them, too.

APT: You're working alongside fellow apprentice and your fiancé, Andrew Oppmann! What’s it been like planning a wedding while also acting, directing, taking classes, etc!?
Erin Mendez Stapleton: Nuts. Absolutely not how I pictured wedding planning would be! I have been wedding-obsessed since I first started cutting out dresses in wedding magazines when I was a little girl. But our dreams are big and life really does have a funny way of bringing you everything at once. So really, when it gets stressful, we just both remind each other that the stress is not coming from anywhere other than abundance. We are getting married in Milwaukee, where we met, which makes acting on wedding details pretty doable, though. Honestly, it’s probably more stressful for our parents! Andrew literally has a performance of Romeo and Juliet at 8 pm the night before our wedding. You know, truly, I couldn’t think of a scenario of our wedding more quintessentially us than this.

It will be the biggest, most precious bow to this summer’s chapter. I cannot wait to marry him. If you’ve met him, you know how blessed I am.

APT: Oh wow. So, in your non-existent free time, what do you like to do when you’re not performing or working on your next project?
Erin Mendez Stapleton: I’m still taking regular voice lessons with my teacher in NYC. Love me a karaoke night. I find great joy in cooking and good wine. I have come to really love the local businesses here in Spring Green. If I could live in Arcadia Bookstore, I would. Bookstores are one of my most comforting spaces. Convivio, Nectar (they are making our wedding cake!), Wander Provisions, Slowpoke, all of it. Please go visit them!

APT: Okay, Erin. Here's your Wild Card Question: You’re a big music theater buff! If you could have a time machine and go back and watch 3 opening night performances of any Broadway show in all of history, what performances are you catching?
Erin Mendez Stapleton: Oh yes I am, and not ashamed of it one bit.

1. The original Broadway cast of WICKED. As a hopeful G(a)linda, I would love to see her in her first form. I feel like that role has shifted so much over the years and I have heard Kristin Chenoweth’s recording so much that I would just love to sit in that audience and see the gut-swing at it.
2. Katie Rose Clarke in THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA. Another performance that made me need to be an actor. There was a PBS recording of it, but to feel that music in the space would be incomparable.
3. Anything Bernadette Peters. I would love to have a career like hers. I feel like she gets to play the most wildcard roles with the most heart and spirit. She is so unique and so commanding. As someone who has a less mainstream voice, I look up to her as someone who never apologizes and sees and embraces her own greatness. I would save up for years to get to see an opening night of hers. I also feel like she maybe might be an opening night lover, too. And to see an opening night-lover’s opening night is always the best.

APT: Thanks for chatting, Erin! Anything else you'd like to share?
Erin Mendez Stapleton: Thank you so, sincerely much for taking this time with me and allowing me to share some of my story! My biggest share is to simply not give up on the thing you feel called to do. It is brutal. And thankless. Until it isn’t and it is everything you dreamed of and more.

Follow me on Instagram to keep up with me and catch wedding pics in October! @erinmendezstapleton

Thank you to every single person at APT for loving this place as much as I do. And for welcoming me into your circle. I will always give you my best.