by Frank Burd

“Stella!” Say the name aloud, and most theatergoers will know the play and the playwright — “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams. Next month, “Streetcar” will be performed at the Arden Theatre, and Stella will be played by Mt. Airy resident, Emilie Krause.

“I only moved here this past fall,” she told me, adding that she grew up in Ambler in the house built by her grandfather. Having lived all over the city — in Kensington, South Philly and Center City, among other neighborhoods — she chose to buy her first home in Mt. Airy. “I fell in love with the environment here,” she said during a conversation last week at the Morina Café at Germantown and Mt. Airy Avenues. “The spooky mansions, the overgrown gardens, but mostly the energy.”

Emilie started acting when her parents enrolled her in a theater camp for kids in Lansdale. She was in the 4th grade. “I felt like I belonged.” Through high school and college, she performed in a variety of plays — “Caucasian Chalk Circle,” “The Devils” and “Measure for Measure.” But she is quick to point out that it wasn’t just on the stage where she learned. She is most appreciative of the mentoring and support of the older graduate students at Temple University who guided her. “They were active learning relationships.”

By the spring of her junior year, she began working professionally. “I almost couldn’t believe that someone would pay me to act.” 

A look at Emilie’s resume, and you can’t help but notice that’s she’s acted with just about every theater in the Philadelphia area. She’s worked with The Wilma, Theatre Exile, Horizon, People’s Light, Simpatico, Ego Po, Lantern, Delaware Shakespeare and Arden. When she steps on the stage at the Arden in “Streetcar,” it will be her seventh time there.

It isn’t only the big mainstage stuff she enjoys. She talks enthusiastically about Devised Theatre, an ensemble-generated theater where the director and cast put together challenging, creative new works. She loves working with Whit MacGlaughlin at New Paradise Laboratories, where they specialize in those collaborative productions. 

During her senior year, she was cast in roles around the city. In fact, she missed her own graduation because she was performing in a play for Philadelphia Theater Workshop, where she was playing a character who was graduating.

At first, Emilie avoided going equity, even though she had more than enough points. But the benefits and higher salary led her to change her mind four years ago. Still, she must augment her acting income with restaurant work as a server at Wm. Muhlerin’s Sons in Fishtown.

I asked her the same question I ask others actors: How do you prepare for a role? She didn’t surprise me when she told me of all the research she’d done uncovering things about Tennessee Williams, including the thick biography by critic, John Lahr. “I knew nothing before.”

Even after studying the legendary Stanislavski Method and the approach of Uta Hagen, Emilie realized that acting for her wasn’t just a question of getting inside a character. “What’s in front of you, rather than just what’s inside. As we discover who we are, we must strive toward creating the connection.”

She credits much of this approach also to her Quaker upbringing. “It’s about listening. It’s about empathy.” Her relationships in “Streetcar” with her sister Blanche and with her husband Stanley are so complex, she points out. “I’ve played medical patients with Standardized Patient. We are with doctors in training, and we are given a list of symptoms before we sit down, one-on-one with the doctor.”  

As Emilie explores the character of Stella, she is also exploring the Mt. Airy/Chestnut Hill environment that is her new home. Though she grew up just a few miles away, she has a new opportunity to target the neighborhood — with her actor’s eyes.

“Streetcar Named Desire” will begin its run at the Arden Theatre on March 12. For more information about Krause, visit emiliekrause.com. For more information about the play, visit ardentheatre.org