Jack Danforth, Jane Smiley '67, Carrie Kemper '02, Ellie Kemper '98 & Jon Hamm '89
Jack Danforth, grandparent, and alums Jane Smiley '67, Carrie Kemper '02, Ellie Kemper '98 and Jon Hamm '89 were interviewed for the January 2012 issue of St. Louis Magazine as five of 35 'celebs' included in the My Hometown feature. Here are some comments made about their Burroughs experience:
Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Jane Smiley — What about John Burroughs School? "I truly did have what you would call 'an intellectual waking' there... You read a book every two weeks. The books were challenging... As we became adjusted to reading these great books, though, it really formed the way I saw the world."
Actress Ellie Kemper —"When [Jon Hamm, who was briefly on Burroughs' faculty] taught theater, we had a few weeks of improv, and he taught that portion. I remember him saying this thing that I think is sort of the key to improv and maybe all of acting, which is just listen and then react. It's so simple, but it gives you over to the scene, so you're serving the whole scene and not just doing what you need to do."
Actor Jon Hamm —"Acting was the last thing that Jon Hamm did at John Burroughs School — not the first — according to his former drama teacher and Burroughs' current theater director, Wayne Salomon. In 1988, his first year at John Burroughs, Salomon directed Godspell. Looking through the student body, he lit upon Hamm as the best person to play Judas — but Hamm, then a senior, declined to audition. 'He Just wanted me to give him the part,' Salomon recalls. 'I knew him as a football player and baseball player.' ... The only other acting Hamm had done at Burroughs was in the dancing chorus of Carousel. 'But I think the Carousel thing was more about being with girls than being in the play,' Salomon says. Salomon did make him Judas, after all, and Hamm attacked the role with gusto. 'He had a kind of self-confidence that you don't see in anyone,' Salmon recalls. 'He was always the most prepared actor in rehearsal.' ... Hamm was cast as dashing ad exec Don Draper in AMC's Mad Men in 2007, and he's gone on to star in films including The Town and Bridesmaids. 'It's a great story, and it couldn't happen to a nicer guy.' Salomon says. 'I've been in the theater forever, ad he is one of the five nicest guys I have ever worked with. Although he can't tap dance.'"
