Actress and Activist

12/09/2008 New York City: The street noise of Greenwich Village was no match for the boundless energy of 30-year-old actress and political activist Celia Keenan-Bolger. Keenan-Bolger, a Tony nominated actress, has had a very busy past couple of months and she is still readjusting to city life after spending six weeks earlier this fall entrenched in the Plymouth Meeting, Pa. office of Barack Obama for President.

“After having such an inspiring and fulfilling experience in Pennsylvania, I’m finding it hard to re-insert myself into my old life,” said Keenan-Bolger, who lives just blocks from Washington Square Park. “Pursuing acting feels so much more self-absorbed and shallow now compared to what I was doing this fall.”

A love of politics was ingrained in Keenan-Bolger very early in her life. Her parents first met at a Socialist Party meeting in Detroit, Mich. Keenan-Bolger was born and raised in inner-city Detroit, the oldest of three children.

“Everyone talks about Detroit with so much sympathy and despair,” said Keenan-Bolger. “But when I was growing up, I thought it was like any other place to grow up. My parents took advantage of every opportunity to give us a good life.”

Her father, a former Peace Corps volunteer, instilled in all his children a passion for community service. Keenan-Bolger’s mother, a teacher, was also a role model for the young Keenan-Bolger children. She ran a community-mentoring program in one of Detroit’s poorest neighborhoods.

In addition to Keenan-Bolger’s enthusiasm for civic affairs, she also has a love for the performing arts. She attended a fine-arts magnet high school in Detroit where she was one of only a handful of white students.

“It never occurred to me that being one of only three white kids was so rare,” she said.

Keenan-Bolger has put her talents as a performer and activist to good use. For the past three years she has spearheaded the organization of an annual New York Civil Liberties Union fundraiser called “Broadway Stand-Up for Freedom.”

“I was doing all these other benefits as a performer and I felt like it would be so nice to do something for an organization that I really felt strongly about,” said Keenan-Bolger. “Both my sister and brother are gay and the NYCLU does so much work on behalf of the LGBT community.”

When the opportunity arose this year to volunteer for the Obama campaign Keenan-Bolger didn’t hesitate, even though it meant removing herself from New York City and auditioning for her possible next job. Keenan-Bolger attended “Camp Obama,” a three-day training intensive, to prepare for the work she was about to begin in Pennsylvania.

“It felt like I was completely consumed by the election, it was the most important thing in my life at that moment, by a long-shot,” she said. “I was lucky that I have a profession that allows me to pick up and leave on a moment’s notice.”

Keenan-Bolger just finished performing as part of the “52nd Street Project,” a program that matches children in Hell’s Kitchen with professional theatre artists to create an original theatre piece.

“It couldn’t have been a better first job since returning from the Obama campaign,” said Keenan-Bolger, who received her Tony nomination for playing the role of Olive in the “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” in 2005. “It incorporated two of my favorite things, acting and giving back to the community.”

Keenan-Bolger continues to star in shows on and off Broadway and on television. She is leaving in a few weeks for San Diego, California where she will star in the new play, “Peter and the Star Catchers” at the La Jolla Playhouse.