Brooklyn Eagle interview with ‘Napoli, Brooklyn’ co-star Elise Kibler
A writer needs a computer (or if she’s old school, a pen and a pad); a photographer needs a camera and film; a painter, canvas and paint. But for an actor it’s not that simple: She needs an audience. She also needs a thick skin, a sense of humor, stamina and inexhaustible confidence.
Elise Kibler, currently co-starring as Vita Muscolino in Meghan Kennedy’s “Napoli, Brooklyn” at the Roundabout at Laura Pels Theatre, would seem to have all four. Since graduating from NYU, she’s gone on countless, often-times (as with any actor) fruitless auditions. Check the “thick skin” box. In the Playbill for “Napoli, Brooklyn,” Kibler, who plays one of three Italian-American sisters growing up in 1960s Park Slope, describes herself as “a female with brown hair and a strong immune system.” So, check the “sense of humor” box. On Broadway, she’s played three roles in the same play: Becky, Clara and Denise in “The Heidi Chronicles.” Check the “stamina box.” She understudied Tavi Gevinson in “This is Our Youth” — but never went on. Check the “inexhaustible confidence” box. It therefore comes as no surprise that, when asked who her favorite actress is, Kibler immediately answers “Barbara Stanwyck,” an actress who once famously said: “I hate whiners. You have to fight life and make it work for you.”
On a recent Sunday, before the 2 o’clock matinee of “Napoli, Brooklyn,” I sat down with Kibler, who lives in Williamsburg, to discuss her career trajectory after graduating from NYU, how she deals with the grind of auditions, her mechanisms for coping with rejection and what keeps her energized and positive.