Uma Thurman on Her Summer Stage Adventure in Ghosts at Williamstown Theatre Festival

Until recently, Uma Thurman had only flirted with the stage. As a teen, she headlined The Crucible at boarding school, which inspired a fruitful Hollywood career, but not one in the theater. She made her stage debut off-Broadway in 1999 in The Misanthrope and finally made her Broadway debut another 18 years later, in The Parisian Woman last year.

That 141-performance run, which earned Thurman a 2018 Broadway.com Audience Choice Award for Favorite Leading Actress in a Play, seemed to have lit a spark in the star, who is now back on the boards for a run of Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts at Williamstown Theatre Festival, opening August 8 and running through August 18.

“I made a little vow to myself that I would try not to slip back into the darkness and let a year go by without going back on the stage,” Thurman told Broadway.com. “I couldn’t wait forever, like I did before.”

Of course, those long years away made Thurman into one of the most successful film stars of her generation—her long list of credits include blockbusters like an Oscar-nominated turn in Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, My Super Ex-Girlfriend, Batman & Robin and richer work in releases like Dangerous Liaisons, Henry & June, Mad Dog and Glory, Sweet and Lowdown, The Golden Bowl, Nymphomaniac and TV’s Hysterical Blindness. And, it would be foolish to not remind Broadway.com readers that she did her own singing as Ulla opposite Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick in the big screen The Producers and, of course, played Rebecca Duvall on Smash.

Calling the Williamstown run her “must-do summer adventure,” Thurman said she’s had a long-held dream of performing Ibsen, which started back in her school days, when she studied the Norwegian playwright’s more popular works like A Doll’s House and Hedda Gabler.

Although less known than Nora and Hedda in the above plays, Mrs. Henry Alving is another in Ibsen’s long line of great female characters fighting against the expectations of society. Ghosts is said to have shocked audiences when it premiered in 1882—at the start of the three-act play, Mrs. Alving is a devoted widow of a great captain and mother to the perfect artistic son. By show’s end, her survivalist nature is exposed as the truth of her marriage is revealed and she faces life or death decisions as a mother.

“It shook people up,” Thurman said. “It’s a very personal story against various societal issues and conditions, but in the end, it’s a family drama. And Mrs. Alving is just a tragic, beautiful, strong and prophetic woman. All of Ibsen’s women are really interesting, but I found her to be particularly moving for me.”

The Williamstown production of Ghosts features direction by Carey Perloff and a new adaptation from Ibsen’s Norwegian by Paul Walsh. Thurman headlines a cast of six, including Tom Pecinka in the juicy role of Mrs. Alving’s son Oswald (Kevin Spacey made his Broadway debut opposite Liv Ullmann in the role in 1982), Catherine Combs, Bernard White, David Coulter and Thom Sesma. Thurman is head over heels for her co-stars: “It’s beautifully cast by Carey Perloff—everyone is so good in their roles, and just wonderful people. It’s a massive play and huge undertaking, but it’s truly been a joy.”

Thurman first visited Williamstown Theatre Festival “a thousand years ago” (actually 20), when her then-husband Ethan Hawke was headlining Tennessee Williams’ Camino Real in 1999. “Williamstown has always been so romanticized to me,” she says. “Kind of a dream-like place. And I think it really lives up to that.”

Massachusetts is where Thurman’s love of performing was born—50 miles east of Williamstown is where she beat out countless older students as a 15-year-old sophomore at Northfield Mount Herman School in Northfield to land the plum role of Abigail in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.

“That was the first big thing because when I was in high school, sophomores never, ever, ever got the leading role!” she remembers. “That was just the rule of the drama department. When my drama teacher cast me, that was when I got the message: “Go break a rule! It’s there for the taking. Go for it!”

Although she “ended up doing film for 20 years,” Thurman held onto her desire for stage work, and still finds it to be a rule-breaking ride. “I think it’s the most spoiled, self-indulgent and elitist thing you can do—doing things only for love. We all have so many responsibilities and commitments and deadlines to meet… Rents to pay and people to take care of… To get to take the time and do this because you love what you do? It feels so good, like rebelling against the forces that convince you to make other decisions.”

Thurman would love to do more theater in New York City (she takes great pride in never missing any of the 140 performances of The Parisian Woman—“I know that’s a low bar, but I’m proud that we did it!”), and is hoping to make her West End debut as well.

For now, she’s enjoying the low-pressure, high-thrill of a summer theater run in the Berkshires. “I’m not doing this for any other reason than the sheer joy of it, and the love literature, drama, actors and directors. To get together up here in a place like this? It’s just the best.”

Ghosts runs through August 18 on the main stage at Williamstown Theatre Festival in Williamstown, MA. More info and tickets here.