Digging Deeper...
by Kathleen Winkler
Digging Deeper...It doesn't happen very often in the theater world: a married couple playing a married couple. Sure Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne did it back in the 1930's, Norman Moses and Carrie Hitchcock have done it in Milwaukee. Now Acacia Theatre adds to that illustrious list with Mike and Patty Koscinski playing the husband and wife whose relationship is traced over the years in I Do! I Do!
It's somehow fitting that Mike and Patty met while he was doing a show, Man of LaMancha. "I met him through friends and that was it!" Patty says. They were married not long thereafter.
Since that fateful show they have performed together many times, in Camelot in Burlington, Dial M for Murder at the Sunset Playhouse, A Christmas Carol for Archangel Productions, as well as several Acacia shows including The Skin of Our Teeth. In addition they've done some shows for Acacia separately; Patty was in The Quilters and Opal and Mike in The Foreigner, Smoke on the Mountain and Summer and Smoke.
Mike says he is a "come lately" to theater, not having set foot on a stage until he was 40. Before that, he was mainly a singer. A friend encouraged him to audition for a musical and his first stage appearance was in Brigadoon.
"Patty and I have done a ton of stuff together, but not necessarily playing opposite each other," says Mike. "I wanted to do I Do! I Do! because I love marriage, I love my boys (Peter, age seven and Joseph, age three), I love Patty. It just seemed to be a great play for us."
Neither of the pair have professional training in acting; "It's just a hobby," Patty says. But both of them have taken voice lessons and Patty was a music education major in college. "We do it because we love it, it's fun and it's something we can do together." She points out that they now only take roles in shows they can do together. "With the kids, we don't have a lot of time for just the two of us," she says.
Both describe Acacia as a great place to perform. "The people here have a mission," Mike says. "In many theaters the motive is profit, but at Acacia they know God and share Him." "Acacia does things for different reasons, " Patty adds. "This show is all about relationships and good relationships are what God wants for us."
