Richard The Third Lady Anne

A 'powerful' presence

Just last week Cinnamon Schultz and her husband, Brian Paulette, celebrated the 17th anniversary of meeting each other. In October, the two plan to have an intense argument in public.

But before Schultz and Paulette portray a fictional married couple for the first time, the Shawnee couple has other shoes to fill. Starting this week, Schultz is up first with her return to The Heart of America Shakespeare Festival at Kansas City’s Southmoreland Park as a witch in its production of “Macbeth.”

“This is an unusual kind of role,” Schultz said before one of the play’s final rehearsals, which ran from 3:30 p.m. well into the evening.

In Shakespeare’s 17th-century tragedy, three witches chant their prophesies in unison, becoming a collective entity. On the festival’s stage, Schultz rehearsed the opening scene with the other two actresses, slinking and scowling their way along the set.

“She’s very powerful,” said Sidonie Garrett, the play’s director.

Though petite, Schultz possesses a great deal of power onstage and offstage, Garrett said.

That intensity, concealed within her deep auburn hair and a small yet stout stature, seized the attention of Debra Granik, director of the 2010 film, “Winter’s Bone.”

Schultz landed the role of Victoria, a woman with a verbally abusive husband. Though she first said the opportunity was a product of luck, Schultz added that Granik cast her because, while intepreting a confrontational scene in the script, Schultz “didn’t back down.”

The Academy Award-nominated film plays a cameo on a resumé dominated by Kansas City-area stage productions — the most of which being at The Heart of America Shakespeare Festival, The Unicorn Theatre and The Kansas City Actor’s Theatre.

Schultz began acting as a child after begging her father, Charles, a now-retired theater professor at Northwest Missouri State, to allow Schultz a spot in a production of “Damn Yankees.”

Schultz, whose mother, Patricia, also retired as a music professor at Northwest Missouri State, quickly took to the stage.

“I soon realized if I wanted it to stay a part of my life, I needed to be in it,” Schultz said.

She went on to receive a bachelor’s degree in theater in 1994 at Kansas University— where as a graduating senior she met Paulette, then a freshman — and followed the acting bug to New York City’s Circle in the Square Theatre. Soon, however, Schultz realized the theater’s challenges did not prove rigorous enough and eventually earned a Master’s of Fine Arts in theater at the University of Iowa.

Ian Mckellen in 'Richard III'-Lady Anne mourns, gets wooed ...

McKellen delights in showing Richard’s humor and arrogance as he dances off at the end of this scene to the jazz music of the first. What Is Worth Dying For… Is Worth Killing For. Kristin Scott Thomas … Lady Anne from an interview with Sir Ian McKellen: —You’re not suggesting that the audience should have sympathy for him?— I’m not suggesting that they do anything, but if they don’t I’d be very disappointed. He’s very engaging. I think they will catch their breath, hopefully, at his bravado. I hope at times that they will be so convinced by his acting that they will forget what he’s up to, which is why he has to keep reminding the audience. “You know what I’ve just done…” I hope they’re going to see not just one person all the way through. They’re going to see the different facets of this man’s ability and his potential which he channels to absolutely the wrong purposes; but he is undoubtedly an attractive figure and that’s why Lady Anne is momentarily seduced by him. —Yes. I find that rather hard to believe.— You find it hard to believe on the stage but you won’t when you see it on the screen. The reasons are many, but one is Richard’s overwhelming force; the other is her own heightened emotion, she’s at a very vulnerable state emotionally. She’s exhausted with grief. She cannot keep it up even faced with a man who legitimately killed her husband in battle. She is totally destitute at the point when she was about to become First Lady, Queen of England. She …

@dajohnthomas69 Lady Anne is hypnotized by Richard because he is a manipulative sociopath. She also goes along with him as she is on the losing side of the War of the Roses and as such has nothing since all of her claim to nobility have been cut off. It is either marry Richard, or loose all of her status and money. There is more happening here than just his amazing voice.

The tragedy of Richard the Third, with the landing of Earle Richmond, and the battell at Bosworth field

The tragedy of King Richard the Third

The complete works of William Shakespeare

The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb: Miscellaneous prose, 1798-1834

The history of the life and reigne of Richard the Third