Reporter’s Note: Each summer, Chautauqua Theater Company opens its stage doors to young actors and theatermakers for a fully funded fellowship. This summer’s conservatory includes 14 actors, four design fellows and one directing fellow. They will work alongside CTC staff and visiting professionals, and serve as the core of the theater company for all CTC shows. To help readers get to know them, interviews with CTC conservatory members will run regularly in the weekend edition of the Daily throughout the summer.
Who: Moses Ingram, Chautauqua Theater Company conservatory actor.
She started the season with CTC’s “Young Playwrights!” performance and was also seen in “The Community Engagement Project.” Later this season, she will appear in Building the Wall, part of the New Play Workshop, and Romeo & Juliet.
Her main role this summer, though, will be as Chelle in Detroit ’67, which opens this weekend. Ingram called “The Community Engagement Project,” which featured a series of vignettes based on or inspired by conversations with community members, “a great precursor to Detroit ’67.”
“This world that we live in is changing, and everybody should be made aware that it’s changing,” she said.
Where she’s from: A Baltimore native, Ingram left school at Morgan State University to pursue an M.F.A. at the Yale School of Drama.
First theatrical memory: It was a field trip to the theater with her performing arts high school that solidified acting as the career of choice for Ingram. Her class went to see A Raisin in the Sun at Everyman Theatre in Baltimore, and she was especially impressed with D.C.-based actor Dawn Ursula’s portrayal of Ruth.
“I believed everything she did,” Ingram said. “And I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, she’s not even acting.’ I think I was like 16. I was like, ‘Yeah, if I can do it like that, then that’s what I want to do.’ ”
Theater credits: Her first major role was as Salima in Lynn Nottage’s Ruined.
Why Chautauqua: Ingram said that most of the people she considers phenomenal actors passed through Chautauqua, naming Jonathan Majors, Leland Fowler and Juliana Canfield as recent CTC conservatory members who inspired her.
“I thought it would make me sharper,” Ingram said. “It is keeping me on my toes every day.”
How she winds down: Ingram is not much of a chef, but she loves to binge watch those 30-second instructional “Tasty” videos.
“I can’t cook, I cannot cook at all, but I love to look at those,” she said. “One time, I actually did try a Buzzfeed recipe, and it turned out really good.”
Favorite food: “You can’t go wrong with French fries.”
Currently reading: Kindred by Octavia Butler
Thankful for: “I’ve been really blessed to have opportunities that blessed me with access, that grant me a key card into all of these amazing things that I would never otherwise have an opportunity to if I wasn’t blessed with this gift,” Ingram said. “And I think it’s also important to note that I’m only here because of the generosity of other people in my life, and so I just encourage people to be generous because generosity, no matter how small, really can change somebody’s life or life path.”
