Rising Stars
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Georgia Lyman
In the Lyric Stage Company’s recent production of Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Georgia Lyman spent most of the show in an ivory slip of a dress while she slinked and skulked, sulked and seethed. In the lead role of Maggie, recognized as one of the most sultry Southern belles in the American theater canon, she pulled off a striking balance of cool Southern comfort and red-hot ferocity, as if she could barely contain Maggie’s impulse to scream at her sloshed husband.
Lyman, 31, has been just as forceful a presence on Boston stages since she returned to her hometown in 2005, landing roles she’s relished for their smart, saucy, and stinging qualities — like that of Crystal in SpeakEasy Stage’s The Women. “All I had to do was sit in a bathtub, look flawless, and deliver bitchy one-liners,” quips Lyman.
In choosing acting as her career, the BU grad was following in the footsteps of her father, Will Lyman, a mainstay on the Boston theater circuit and the voice of PBS’s Frontline. The younger Lyman’s work is hardly limited to the stage, either. For three seasons, she delivered an unforgettable performance as the hard-edged Cassie Giggs on Showtime’s Brotherhood, a series loosely based on the Bulger brothers. Set and shot in Providence, it was a harbinger of the upsurge in filmed work now seen in Boston — an upsurge in which Lyman has already taken part, having recently appeared in Bride Wars.
Though looking forward to future opportunities from this influx, Lyman maintains an unflagging commitment to theater, which inspired her and a cadre of actor friends to form the Orfeo Group in 2007. The company’s sophomore effort last summer was a free production of John Osborne’s classic Look Back in Anger at the Factory Theatre. Yes, free. “The idea is ‘theater for all,’ ” says Lyman. “The arts are too important to let finance be in the way. We’re in it for the art, the experience, and to remind people that theater is a necessity, not a luxury.”
