Remembrance: Chris Kayser was a role model, a collaborator and a believer in ‘Carpe fucking diem.’

Atlanta’s theater community mourns the loss of Chris Kayser, who graced stages for more than 40 years, leaving a lasting impression on colleagues and audiences.

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Although he was widely acknowledged as one of Atlanta’s preeminent actors, Chris Kayser never once took an acting lesson. In fact, his first onstage job came about unexpectedly in the late 1970s, when a colleague of an ex-girlfriend wasn’t available for a performance and he stepped in and thus began his decades-long passion for the craft. Kayser passed away at the age of 75 on December 3. 

Throughout a career that lasted more than 40 years, Kayser had a few film and television credits, but his true home was the stage, where he was known for his range in bringing all sorts of characters to life. He could handle difficult Shakespearean monologues at one moment, then move to contemporary work the next. Kayser called his big break working with Academy Theatre and its founder, Frank Wittow, in the early ’80s, when he met and worked with performers such as Rosemary Newcott, Lisa Adler and Kenny Leon. From there, he spent 25 years at the late, great Georgia Shakespeare, winning a lead actor Suzi Bass Award for Twelfth Night and becoming a fixture at the Alliance Theatre and other local companies, as well as performing internationally at times.

His longest-running acting gig proved to be playing Ebenezer Scrooge in the Alliance’s A Christmas Carol, reaching the masses every holiday season for 16 years. Newcott, who served as the Alliance’s longtime artistic director of Theatre for Youth, directed Kayser in the production many of those years and recognized early on how he struck a chord with audiences. 

“He had this great physicality and ability to become this crumpled man put down by his years of torment on himself,” she recalls. “He accomplished that so beautifully, and, of course, in the transformation you see Chris Kayser — this luminous, glorious, life-affirming person come through. He was able to give us both sides so brilliantly.” 

Eventually, though, Kayser decided to step down, with his 2013 “Bah humbug!” his last. 

Carolyn Cook was a frequent collaborator and co-star of Kayser. She met him in 1991 understudying for A Christmas Carol. By then, he’d already developed a great reputation in the industry; she knew who he was. The two clicked, and he wound up teaching her the Fezziwig dance.  Since then, she estimates the two worked on close to 50 shows together, among them Skylight and Time Stands Still, stand-out productions at Horizon Theatre. “We quickly became colleagues and partners in theatrical crime,” says Cook, who regarded Kayser as a big brother. Kayser was also part of Cook’s Théâtre du Rêve’ — Atlanta’s French-language theater company — and its first production in 1996. Cook credits Kayser for helping get the company off the ground. 

Other notable Atlanta shows for Kayser include The Grapes of Wrath; Art; Angels in America: Perestroika; Angels in America: Millennium Approaches; Glengarry Glen Ross; and Ever After, all at the Alliance; Skintight at Actor’s Express; Much Ado About Nothing at Georgia Shakespeare; and King Lear at Shakespeare Tavern. He and Cook appeared together in the Alliance’s extraordinary version of August, Osage County, directed by then-Artistic Director Susan Booth, alongside an all-star Atlanta cast that included Tess Malis Kincaid, Brenda Bynum and Andrew Benator.

Christopher Moses, co-artistic director of the Alliance, calls Kayser “The Godfather” of the Atlanta theater scene.

“It’s impossible to think of the Alliance Theatre without thinking of Chris,” says Moses. “He has been a part of every season for nearly 40 years here in some form or fashion. You can’t really talk about the Atlanta theater scene without mentioning Chris Kayser. He is a degree, at most, separated from every [local] working artist. He was a pioneer, the first to pave a way forward that you could be a working actor and work with dignity and grace in this city. He was a role model and natural mentor for countless actors who followed in his wake.”

Kayser was born in Atlanta and spent most of his life here. Before acting, he worked as a professional tennis player, carpenter and lifeguard, among other jobs. His wife Terri is the owner and artistic director of the Cartersville School of Ballet and artistic director of Cartersville City Ballet. Chris and Terri have two children — Noelle, who works as a choreographer, dancer and actor, and Jacob, who is not in the arts. Ever the professional, Chris only missed two shows in his life — both for the birth of his children, two years apart.

Terri and Chris could hardly go out without someone recognizing and talking to him, especially when A Christmas Carol was running. “Whether it was someone seeing him once onstage or a lot, audience members would come up to and tell him how much they enjoyed his performance,” Terri says. “Chris was humble — he would say thank you but always considered himself the blue-collar worker of the theater and that was his job. I feel Chris was so thankful to be an actor; he loved it so much, and he loved sharing that with the audience and the fellow actors with him.”

Some of Noelle’s happiest memories were going to Carol with her father. “It wasn’t just the pride of him as an artist but the way I saw him treat other people,” she says.

Kayser was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2022. Tinashe Kajese-Bolden, co-artistic director of the Alliance, directed him in Everybody not long after. “We knew in the weeks going into rehearsal about his diagnosis and were initially apprehensive,” she says. “We wanted to make sure he was going to be able to get through that subject matter, which is a story about how you live your life to the fullest as you know that death is approaching. What was so powerful was that he raised our collective humanity every single day. You witnessed this warrior who wanted to dance with life every minute that he was alive because he knew how precious it was.”

His last show was February’s Le Malade Imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid) at Théâtre du Rêve.’ Cook recalls Kayser had started chemo during rehearsals. “He came back and was a champ,” she says. “He added an essential element to the show, the self-inflating whoopee cushion that brought joy to all of us.”

Atlanta’s theater community remembers Kayser for always wanting to re-invent himself. When playwright Topher Payne came to town and was learning faces and names, it took him a while to recognize that Kayser was the same actor he’d seen in a number of productions and disappeared into his roles. Payne and Kayser later worked as co-hosts of the Suzi Bass Awards, and, when the actor agreed to take part in Payne’s improvised Y’allMark Christmas, he was an eager-to-learn collaborator.

The most fun Ann-Carol Pence, the co-founder and producing artistic director of Aurora Theatre, had with Kayser was in the company’s version of Mamma Mia!, where he played Sam Carmichael and danced nightly to ABBA’s “Voulez Vous.”  “No one in that cast took that show too seriously off stage, but man — they [sold it] the minute the lights came up,” Pence says.

Lisa Adler, co-founder and co-artistic/producing director of Horizon, wasn’t sure she’d be able to stage the Marquis de Sade play Quills but decided to, and Kayser was game for the lead role — and spent portions of the play naked and covered in blood. Once he shared his diagnosis, Adler recalls “carpe fucking diem” becoming a regular Kayser catchphrase.

At last month’s Suzi Bass Awards, both Kayser and Cook were honored with Lifetime Achievement Awards, but Kayser was not able to attend. Jacob attended and accepted the award for his father.

“The most important thing I felt — it was an honor to be honored with him,” says Cook. “I didn’t feel that it was my turn, but for [the Suzi Bass committee] to make the decision to name the two of us was so meaningful.”

A memorial service for Kayser will be held at the end of January — details to be determined.

For Bolden, Kayser represented all that was possible for an artist and human. “He showed us that you can choose a city that you love, you can choose a career that you love, but most importantly you can raise a family and do all of those things with such a full commitment to all of those areas,” she says. “For so many young artists who do put their personal lives on hold because they think they might miss the next opportunity, he lived the possibility of what we all hope to have. That is something we all reach for. He didn’t change who he was. To see him doing it with seeming ease and joy and to be able to work and to do it throughout his life, it was an honor to witness.” 

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