“I want to stir people up. I want to be stirred.”

Leila Navidi

Cynthia Vodovoz plays the neurotic Franz Kafka in “Morphotic” at the Onyx Theatre. The cross-gender part is physically, emotionally and mentally demanding, which the native Las Vegan says she loves.

By Kristen Peterson (contact)

Monday, Nov. 17, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Name: Cynthia Vodovoz, actress

Company: Member of Insurgo Theater Movement

Age: 28

Day job: Middle school drama teacher, modeling on the side

Synopsis: Vodovoz, who prefers extremes in acting, performs the role of Franz Kafka in Insurgo’s “Morphotic” at Onyx Theatre, in which the miserably neurotic Kafka wakes up in one of his own stories and confronts his life.

The role is physically, emotionally and mentally demanding, something Vodovoz loves. A 1998 graduate of the Las Vegas Academy of Performing and Visual Arts, she started acting at age 8 when she enrolled in Saturday morning classes with the Rainbow Company Youth Theatre.

Vodovoz spent eight years in its ensemble and dabbled in other local theater opportunities, including musical theater (Annie Oakley in “Annie Get Your Gun”).

She learned of Insurgo five years ago when the company was still in Southern California. She joined the company, which produces experimental, alternative and original works, after it moved to Las Vegas. Her first role with Insurgo was Lysistrata in “Lysistrata.”

Other Insurgo roles include Hippolyta in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and Polly Pry in Trey Parker’s “Cannibal! The Musical.”

Hobbies: Fire performing, belly dancing

On theater in Las Vegas: “The answer is different than the one I would have given a year ago. I consider theater in Las Vegas to be blossoming. Before, I had no hope for it.

“I’m proud of where the theater community is going. It seems to be taking theater more seriously, raising the bar. It helps that this town is constantly growing and that we get more and more diverse people.”

On acting: Prefers the experimental, fringe, raw (“sushi theater”), risky, black box stuff. Like many actors, she would like to get people back into theater seats. “I want to stir people up. I want to be stirred. You can sit at home and drool in front of the television and not feel anything. This is where life happens. In acting, we’re given the chance to revel in the emotions that we deny ourselves on a daily basis.”

Most challenging role: Franz Kafka: dealing with the physicality of being male and Kafka’s weaknesses, dealing with scenes about the Holocaust (Vodovoz is Jewish) and being true to the tormented writer by indulging in self pity, weakness and fear.

“He wallowed in his exquisite pain. He was brilliantly aware of the outsider that he was, but he didn’t want to belong.”

Dream role: Shakespeare’s Juliet, Lady Anne and Margaret

Sticking around? Would like to head to another city, study at conservatory or do summer stock theater. “I want to see what’s out there. At the same time I don’t want to miss something that Insurgo does.”