Clare Preuss
Clare Preuss is a Canadian actor, director, and community college professor.[1][2] In November 2018 Preuss became the artistic director of Calgary's Downstage Theatre.[3][4]
As an actor, and director, most of Preuss's work has been in live theatre, but she has played supporting roles in feature films. Her most prominent role was in the film "Mean girls".[5][6] Her character was the sole girl on the "Mathlete" team that faces the film's heroine's team, in a competitive showdown of math skills. In one of the film's pivotal scenes, in narration from the film's heroine, the audience hears her outgrow the kind of mean-spirited evaluation of girls largely on their measuring up to narrow standards of beauty.[7]
Over a decade after playing a character who wasn't beautiful Preuss described her feelings when a series of tabloids published stories informing their readers that the actor who played her non-beautiful character was actually beautiful.[7] Preuss described how she felt those writers were undermining one of the film's main themes, that surface beauty wasn't that important. She felt some of those articles implied that her character's lack of surface beauty implied that she was ugly, inside.
In an article entitled When You Tell Me I’m Pretty I Shave My Head" Preuss wrote about how the press coverage triggered her to organize an anti-beauty event.[7] Preuss and some colleagues did have their heads shaved, before an audience. In her article Preuss wrote that "I played Caroline Krafft as a fiercely intelligent, confident, accomplished teenager..." She wrote about how getting into costume, for this character affected her own feelings, and how members of the cast and crew treated her, off-camera. And she wrote about a conversation she had with the film's writer, Tina Fey, who told her that her character's appearance reminded her of how she felt when she was a teenage high school student.
Preuss has worked, as a director, at Gwaandak Theatre, in Whitehorse,[4] at Body Theatre, in Toronto.[8]
References
- ↑ "We Are Professionals: Clare Preuss". Humber College. https://creativearts.humber.ca/faculty/clare-preuss.html. Retrieved 2018-11-07.
- ↑ "Clare Preuss". https://www.volcano.ca/clare-preuss/. Retrieved 2018-11-07.
- ↑ "News (Calgary): Downstage Announces New Artistic Director". Theatre Alberta. 2018-07-17. https://www.theatrealberta.com/2018/07/17/news-calgary-downstage-announces-new-artistic-director/. Retrieved 2018-11-07. "After an extensive search, Downstage’s Board of Directors is thrilled to announce Clare Preuss as the next Artistic Director of Downstage."
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Downstage announces new artistic director". Downstage theatre. http://www.downstage.ca/adnews/. Retrieved 2018-11-07. "Clare grew up in Lethbridge, got her first acting job at the Empress Theatre in Fort Macleod and graduated from the University of Alberta’s BFA Acting Program."
- ↑ Christopher Rosen, Stephanie Marcus, Matthew Jacobs (2014-04-09). "Catching Up With The People Who Made 'Mean Girls' Your Favorite Movie, 10 Years Later". Huffington Post. https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/mean-girls-anniversary_n_5112299. Retrieved 2018-11-07.
- ↑ "The mathlete girl from "Mean Girls" is actually crazy beautiful in real life". Hello Giggles. 2016-09-28. https://hellogiggles.com/reviews-coverage/mathlete-girl-mean-girls-actually-crazy-beautiful-real-life/. Retrieved 2018-11-07. "As one North Shore’s rival mathlete superstars from Marymount Prep – and also the only other girl in the competition – Caroline (played by Clare Preuss) certainly made her mark."
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Clare Preuss (2016-11-01). "When You Tell Me I’m Pretty I Shave My Head". Spiderweb show. https://spiderwebshow.ca/when-you-tell-me-im-pretty-i-shave-my-head/. Retrieved 2018-11-07. "A few similar articles sprung up online in subsequent days: Cosmopolitan, Self, Mashable, Daily Mail and others. The mainstream entertainment industry is fuelled by evaluating the appearance of actors, so I’m used to the unsolicited commentary that the Hello Giggles offered. But, the article referred to more than just my personal appearance: in judging me to be beautiful, the article infers that the character of Caroline was therefore ugly."
- ↑ "The Theatre". Body Theatre. https://bodytheatre.wordpress.com/company/. Retrieved 2018-11-07.
