By Christina AmorosoPLAY Writer

Kate Arrington says she learned many lessons as a performance studies student at Northwestern but, wasn’t prepared to play a still despised character in King Lear.

“It’s first time I’ve been willing to be hated on stage. It’s kind of a leap for an actor to play a despicable character,” Arrington says.

Arrington, who graduated in 1997, plays the conniving Regan, one of King Lear’s daughters, in Robert Falls’ adaptation of the Shakespeare masterpiece. It’s currently playing at the Goodman Theatre.

“The audiences here are great. I think they’re very well-versed. They get to go to a lot of good theater in Chicago,” she says.

Arrington says NU’s method of teaching theater helped her prepare for her role in King Lear.

“It’s funny, I haven’t done Shakespeare since college,” she says. “The way (Falls) approaches it is extremely character driven, and that was how I was taught. The language is really helping me create the character. She has almost no poetry. She has a lot of two-word sentences, three-word sentences. She has no opinion throughout the play.”

Most of her activities at NU were theater-related, but Arrington says some of her best memories as a freshman came from living in 1835 Hinman.

“I pretty much lived in the theater department,” she says. “I did everything I could when I was there.”

Many of her influences come from her acting teachers at NU, Arrington says. She notes she often sees Mary Poole, her acting teacher, in her head when she’s on stage.

“I pretty much contribute everything I am as an actress to what I learned at NU,” she says.

Mary Zimmerman was also influential.

“I snuck into one of her grad classes freshman year,” Arrington says. She was the youngest student in the class, but Zimmerman let her stay.

Arrington also recalls learning about rejection, taking risks and developing a deep appreciation for theater. She says she learned to appreciate darker shows.

“It definitely gave me a taste for more experimental, dark work,” she says.