We were lucky to catch up with Matthew R Kerns, MFA recently and have shared our conversation below.
Matthew R, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.
Learning to love is a big risk. Life changing.
I was living alone and resigned to own the moniker: Confirmed Bachelor.
Buried in work, staying late, and never feeling great, surrounded by toxicity.
Solitude. Sadness. Frustration.
Until that afternoon of pride,
and evening of Verdi,
On a dime, it was all different.
I risked to love and learned to trust.
Married on the day of Fools.
Under the Arch, on zoom.
Our risk was featured on page six of the NYT,
For everyone to judge and see, “Would they be divorced by next June?”
Our band of fools was forged.
Fours years later.
We proudly fly the stripes of pride to share with neighbors, tourists, and the ice-cream savvy,
Because pride, for us, is not a bar but rather making a home being a family.
Marriage is verb and the best risk I have ever taken.
“Dad, Dad, Dad… Open the door, Open the door!”
“Go poop!”
“Where to poop, where to poop? Decisions, decisions…. I can’t wait anymore I must POOP NOW!”
“I knew you had to poop, good boy.”
“Dad, I pooped. Let’s go inside, I need a treat.”
Love won.
Matthew R, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Matthew R. Kerns, MFA
President & Artistic Director
St Lou Fringe
Matthew is a John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts award-winning educator, critically acclaim theatre performance artist featured in American Theatre Magazine, and a 2020 St. Louis Business Journal Diverse Business Leaders Award recipient.
Matthew has been an Executive Producer, Director, and Artistic Director for Off-Loop Theatre [Chicago], Off-Broadway Theatre [New York], Reparatory Theatre [California], Regional Theatre [Iowa, Missouri, Colorado] and Educational Theatre [Chicago, California, Colorado, Iowa, Missouri].
Matthew’s artistic portfolio includes original performances [Xmas Carol, Chicken, Life in the Fastlane], Immersive events [Gay Fantasia, Home], and standard plays and musicals [Noises Off, For Colored Girls…, Frost/ Nixon]
Students that have trained with Matthew have gone on to work in television, film, major motion pictures, and on Broadway. From Saturday Night Live to Gotham, and from Six: The Musical to Jake, the State Farm Guy and beyond.
Matthew is an expert in the performance practices of Stanislavsky, Meisner, Grotowski, Somatic Movement, Improvisation, Roy Hart Vocal Technique, Moment Work, and Viewpoints.
He has presented at the NAIS Conference, National Writing Conference for Youth, Missouri Conference on the Younger Years, TCG National Conference, and at TEDx.
Matthew holds an Associate degree in Communications and Theatre from St. Louis Community College, a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Eastern New Mexico University, and Master of Fine Arts degree from Naropa University.
Matthew has a commitment to making original works that elevate and celebrate voices from underserved communities.
He married the love of his life, Mr. Sean Gottlieb, in a simple service under the St. Louis Arch in April of 2020. They reside in the Lafayette Square neighborhood in St. Louis, Missouri with their dogs Lewis, and Harvey Milk.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
For me, creating beautiful stage pictures is the one of the most rewarding things about being an artist and creative.
Spacial relationship, in my artistic work, is key to the watcher experiencing kinesthetic visual delight. When directing, I strive to partner with the writer’s language to create an aesthetic based in the simple elegance of a stage picture.
I love to block performers in knowingly eye-catching formations and then wash them with moody, warm, saturated light, that allows the unconfined emotions to flow out of the story and freely through the audience.
Writing, lighting, language, and picture married together in a single moment are theatre magic, and I find it extremely rewarding to create those moments for the stage with a collaborating team in my artistic work.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
I have always believed that artists comment on the times they live in, and make work based on those times.
In 2020, St Lou Fringe was one of the first performing arts companies in the nation to create a virtual festival series. I understood early on that there may be a need for a quick pivot in order to ensure our artist could continue to share their work. I spent time with other leaders from all over the world as we began to create and develop this concept of virtual performative arts.
By August, 27 brave artists had made performance spaces out of walk-in closets and the like while we were on the ready with Zoom theaters and new protocols for audience members.
The pandemic was terrifying and tragic. The work from that era was pioneering and transformative.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.stlfringe.org
- Instagram: stlfringe
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stlfringe
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-r-k-8a9baa126/
- Twitter: StLouFringe
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnGDWXMmwpQ
Image Credits
Photo #1 – Christine Tannous | St Louis Post Dispatch Photographer Photo #2 – Harvey Milk the Dog | Sean Gottlieb Photo #3 – Matt & Sean | Sean Gottlieb Photo #4 – Matt in Performance | Naropa University Photography