UZIE PAYNE and
Stephen E. Miller
have the typical
two-career, dual-income
marriage — nice suburban
home, 12-year-old kid, cat
on the front porch — but
there is a key factor that
separates them from their
yuppie contemporaries: both
are actors.

tenets?

SPOTLIGHT FEATURE

“There were a lot of times
when | had to say to myself,
‘Should | really be working in
theatre or should | be preparing
myseli to actually enjoy being a
supermarket cashier,’ ’’ says
Payne.

“That question keeps coming
up and you have to ask yourself,
‘Is there anything else I should be
doing?’

“But we've been doing it for 25
years now,” interjects Miller.
“We finally realized there wasn’t
anything else we could do.”

As fate, luck and talent would

|

|

PAYNE AND Miller met at UBC in 1968 where he was doing a

was in the theatre department.

have it, both Payne and Miller
have been able to make respect-
able livings at their craft. Each
boasts a lengthy resume and,

while Miller is currently at work on,
his first love, writing, Payne is

wa
aver,

poised for the opening of her
one-woman Tamahnous Theatre
production, Raw Materials, cun-
ning from tonight, Nov. 17, to
Nov. 27.

Co-written by Payne and direc-

ta Values

NEWS photo Paul McGrath

degree in creative writing and she

tor Brenda Leadlay, the show
evolved from an unstructured, im-
provisational work three years ago
into a more accessible production
tracing the lives of three genera-
tions of women in a family.

abe an

“It examines the unpleasant
facts that people live with every
day and tend to want to shove
aside,’’ says Payne.

Meanwhile, hubby Miller has
been biding his time between his
extensive character work in film
and television by finishing a histo-
ry on the Russian Revolution and
developing his novel, Wastefall
(for which he won the Pulp Press
three-day novel contest), for film.

But their history as an artistic
couple goes back much further,
jong before they took up residence
in the comfortable Deep Cove cot-
tage they renovated and now call
home.

“Stephen and | met at UBC in
1968 when he was there doing a
degree in creative writing and |
was in the theatre department,’’
recalls the North Vancouver-boin
Payne, who recently appeared in
the feature film, The Lotus Eaters,
and completed a run of the Arts
Club production, Prelude to a Kiss.

“Actually, | can’t honestly say |
was doing a degree — | was
basically learning everything !
could about theatre when | should
have been doing my degree.”

As for Miller, the Vietnam war
was reason enough for him to
relocate to B.C. from his
hometown of Durham, North
Carolina ~ though a draft dodger
he was not.

“had been attending a mili-
tary college in Durham and | ap-
plied to come up here and go to
graduate school at UBC,” he says

See Uniqueness page 48