Parish Spotlight: Cathy Albers, Actor and Teacher

In one of Cathy Albers’ earliest memories, she recalls standing on a box in a cowgirl outfit in elementary school reciting a poem with her mother. She’s been acting ever since. While her lifelong acting career has taken her from the Cleveland Playhouse to major Hollywood studio productions and back again, Cleveland has been her home for many years.

Albers taught theatre for several decades at Case Western Reserve University, where she headed up the school’s undergraduate program and taught students in the Master of Fine Arts program. Today, she continues to act and teach, and is also an active member of St. Paul’s, where she volunteers as a reading tutor at Roxboro and Fairfax Elementary Schools in Cleveland Heights.

“I think from my earliest years I wanted to perform – to reach out and engage people,” said Albers. “I’ve never wanted to do anything else. Other than my children, theatre has always been my joy and my passion, whether it’s teaching or being in a show.”

The actor, who lives in Shaker Heights, completed her undergraduate degree at Illinois Wesleyan University and obtained a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Minnesota before moving to Cleveland to work at the Cleveland Playhouse. In addition to acting and teaching at Case, she is also a founding director of the Great Lakes Michael Chekhov Consortium, whose mission is to help realize Chekhov’s vision of his Ideal Theatre, which is rooted in using the imagination.

When asked about some of the favorite productions she's been in, Albers cites “Wit” at Dobama Theatre, a play about a woman living with ovarian cancer. She spent months researching what it’s like to be a cancer patient while rehearsing for the role. Later, she got an email from playwright Margaret Edson thanking her and reminding her that Edson had once been a student of hers at Chautauqua Institution.

“The world is so small in theatre, and it all comes back,” Albers said. “It’s a wonderful thing to be able to share and have your students go out and populate the world and then years later send you a note.”

In addition to helping lead the tutoring program, Albers has also been a chalice minister and has taught Sunday school at St. Paul’s. “The community is so wonderfully accepting,” she said. “Everybody is welcoming, so I feel welcome. It’s grown into a very important part of my life.”

She feels lucky to be able to continue doing what she loves. “Years ago, when I first started acting, I told myself if I could reach just one person with my performance, just one person, then I was doing something in the world that was good,” she said. “So, it doesn’t matter the play, it doesn’t matter if I make you laugh or if I make you cry or if I make you angry, it’s if I reach someone. It’s the same with teaching. You want to enrich their lives or at least get them to think.”