Drew Seltzer is laying perfectly still, eyes wide open, staring up at bright lights and a television camera. He has to be still. He is playing the dead body of character seen murdered in the opening sequence of the CBS series, “Elsbeth.” The scene, though simple in nature, takes a while to shoot , hours in fact. That’s because Carrie Preston, who plays the whimsical title detective, cracks up laughing every time she looks at Seltzer’s staring, motionless eyes. “It was funny. Carrie’s face was inches from mine, examining the corpse in the case she was handing,” Seltzer said as we sipped coffee at the Bala Starbucks. “She’d look, she’d laugh. She’d apologize while laughing. One time she said, ‘This is really creepy.’ It was a great experience.” And one that seems to be repeating itself. Seltzer, who hails from Wayne and grew up in Media, is on a roll. His guest appearance on “Elsbeth” aired on Oct. 16 and is bound to rerun this spring, and forever. Seltzer followed it with a Nov. 17 guest appearance on CBS’s “The FBI,” this time having some intense dramatic moments playing a father held hostage by a violent man whose son Seltzer’s character adopted. This winter, including this month, Seltzer completed a significant supporting role in Bo Brinkman’s movie, “Gettysburg 1863,” which features Stephen Lang and Bruce Boxleitner as people who develop the memorial park and cemetery following the July battle that, along with a parallel battle in Vicksburg, changed the tide of the U.S. Civil War in the Union’s favor. The movie, which leads up to Abraham Lincoln coming to Gettysburg to deliver his famous address, is in post-production and expected to be released to theaters and for streaming in time to celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence. Seltzer was up for another role that was given to someone else just before Brinkman cast him in “Gettysburg 1863.” Drew Seltzer with Bruce Boxleitner on the set of the forthcoming “Gettysburg 1863.” (COURTESY OF DREW SELTZER) The steady skein of television and film work fulfills a goal Seltzer’s worked towards since taking his first acting lessons and spending a year in residence at Hedgerow Theatre 25 years ago. His experience includes a lot of stage work, including eight years playing various roles in “Tony Tina’s Wedding” off-Broadway. It also includes working with auteur director David Fincher, who Seltzer says shoots about 100 takes for each scene being filmed and doing his first movie, one line in “The Men Who Stare at Goats” (2009) opposite George Clooney. As Seltzer speaks about Clooney, Preston, Boxleitner, and other stars he’s worked, he confirms something I’ve found doing 55 years of celebrity interviews, “The bigger they are, the nicer they are.” He speaks of Clooney telling jokes to relax everyone on the set before cameras rolled, of Preston’s good nature, of Fincher’s perfectionism and intensity, and all his castmates do to make him feel welcome. “They don’t come across as celebrities, just people working together to make a scene happen,” he says. At the same time Seltzer is booking roles, his wife, Tiffany-Leigh Moskow, is appearing in a locally shot show, “Tires,” about an auto repair shop in West Chester. The Seltzers’ creative streak has expanded to writing. They are developing scripts and character for a pilot called “Nine U. Diaries,” based on their travels with their older son, Dylan’s, baseball team. “Nine U” stands for age 9 and under, and the show depicts the various players on a youth baseball and, Seltzer says, “the parents who are sure their child is the next MLB or NHL or NBA star. There’s even a role based on the Seltzers’ younger son, Aiden, who is not interested in sports like his brother but is the bat boy for Dylan’s team, for which he earned the nickname, Li’l Seltz. Seltzer’s career in the theater and in TV has been steady. He says the residuals from his film and TV work go a long way to supporting his family. Drew Seltzer (COURTESY OF DREW SELTZER) He is buoyed and encouraged by the recent string of work he’s been getting. Between acting roles, he works in a family business. His great-grandfather invented the T-slot bolt, and his family’s company has been supplying it for the better part of a century. Acting has been in Seltzer’s blood since his age was in single digits. Going into fifth grade at Rose Tree Elementary School, Seltzer, a good Catholic, lit a candle and prayed he would be assigned to Mrs. Mitchell as his teacher. “Mrs. Mitchell was known for directing her class in a play. The whole school saw it. I wanted to be in that play. It was a takeoff on ‘Snow White’ called ‘Joe White and the Seven Dwarfs.’ I got the lead role. It meant everything to me. Being good in it gave me confidence. “When I was 13, I started classes at Hedgerow. My first role there was the younger brother in Eugene O’Neill’s ‘Ah, Wilderness.’ I stayed at Hedgerow until I was 18, studying with Gay Carducci — now connected with the Curio Theatre Company run by her husband, Paul Kuhn — and eventually living for a year at Hedgerow, working in the garden and the box office while doing other chores between roles. “I learned so much from Susan Wefel and Zoran Kovcic and received invaluable training in Shakespeare from Penelope Reed and her son, Jared Reed.” At Hedgerow, Seltzer also met the late casting director Mike Lemon, who started many local performers in their front-of-camera careers and started Seltzer thinking about film and TV. College was at Rutgers’s prestigious Mason Gross School in New Brunswick, which included a course in Shakespeare at London’s Globe Theatre, where he attended master classes with Mark Rylance and learned the British style of letting emotion come from voice and text from renowned voice coach Stewart Pearce, who also worked with Princess Diana and Margaret Thatcher. A move to New York, sharing a three-room apartment with five of his Rutgers classmates led to eight years in “Tony Tina’s Wedding,” which Seltzer says might be looked down upon by other actors but provided a steady living. A summer job at Cape May’s East Lynne Theatre is where Seltzer met Tiffany. A revelation came when he realized how much more money came from being in film and TV. “The difference was not only being able to receive residuals, but how actors are treated. “When I booked ‘The Men Who Stare at Goats,’ I not only had a scene with George Clooney and met Jeff Bridges, Kevin Spacey and others, but I was flown to Puerto Rico first class and lodged at a five-star resort. “At the bar, George Clooney and others were like pals. They were so friendly and accepting. “I could never forget the theater, but I couldn’t help thinking, ‘Forget the theater.’ ” Seltzer has been able to attract supporters like Mike Lemon and get taken on by agents. His first in New York had an impressive client list and wasn’t interested in anyone whose bookings didn’t earn her six figures in commissions. He found the right agent in Jenkintown. He also learned a lot about auditioning, different now because it involves submitting tapes to casting directors. “The good part is you can do as many takes as you like until you do the one you choose to send. The bad news is you don’t have personal contact, and you’re hoping to be one of the 1,000 applicants to make the cut to 100, and then the cut to five. That process led to ‘Elsbeth’ and ‘The FBI.’ I have stuck to what I’ve always wanted, and it’s so gratifying to see all that’s happening because of it.” ‘Steel Magnolias’ at People’s Light Almost 40 years in the theater, connected the whole time with Malvern’s People’s Light Theatre, and Susan McKey came to People’s Light with no intention of being an actress. McKey, originally from a small town on Cape Cod, Mass., was working toward a degree in art history at Swarthmore College. One of her professors was Lee Devin, one of People’s Light’s founders. Through him, she met his wife, Abigail Adams, a director and once artistic director at People’s Light, who offered McKey a job as her assistant. Susan McKey (COURTESY OF HEDGEROW THEATRE) Nothing on stage, just administrative help as Adams directed, cast plays, and did other managerial and artistic functions. Eventually, McKey was asked whether she’d liked to act. She said she’d think about it and ended up onstage. She’s remained on stage for decades and through Sunday, Feb. 15 is appearing with other longtime company members as M’Lynn, the mother in “Steel Magnolias,” directed by Abigail Adams and featuring PLT stalwarts Marcia Saunders, Janis Dardaris, Teri Lamm, Claire Inie-Richards and Brynn Gauthier, making her first appearance there. “We’ve all done so many shows together, ‘Steel Magnolias’ makes the third time I’m playing Claire Inie-Richards’ mother. It’s about time I’m playing a middle-aged mother. I am age 60. “It’s also good to be playing a contemporary of Janis and Marcia. I can’t count the times one of them has played my mother or aunt or dominating figure in my life. I like that I’ve caught up. “Brynn, like her character, Annelle, is working with all of us, and at People’s Light for the first time, but it took no time for her to chime in with the rest of us. We get to know her as the other characters get to know Annelle, and things could not have gone better. “It’s a relief to play a middle-aged part. I’ve done so many characters in pantos over the years. Last year, I was a 10-year-old girl. Other years, I was a squirrel or a crazy man. In this play, I’m back to playing my age. I can relate to so much of M’Lynn’s situation, because like her, I’m the mother of children in their mid-twenties.” People’s Light is unique is having a long-standing company of actors and directors who have been in dozens of plays over decades of seasons. McKey said there is a sense of community and friendship that People’s Light fosters. “When I was Abby’s assistant, I would go to New York as she was casting actors for plays. I’d see the anxiety and desperation in people’s faces and thought, ‘I don’t want to be like them. I don’t want that level of anxiety. “Then I’d return to People’s Light, and I found people like Marcia, Janis and Tom Teti, who were leading normal wonderful lives in a community that supported them. Coming from a small town, I was used to being in a small pond, big fish or not. “The actors and company members I saw were just people telling stories. Being an actor was not what I saw among the auditioners in New York. “Everyone was so giving. I learned so much from Carla Belver, and really enjoyed the camaraderie from being among colleagues who were wonderful to work with on stage and were friends in my offstage life. People were level. “I learned acting by doing it. “Acting relates well to art history. All of my art history teachers would present a painting or other work and ask, ‘What is the most interesting story you see here?’ “Plays tell a story. As my teachers coached, I look for the most interesting story. At People’s Light, I’m able to tell out in a comfortable, safe environment. Also, I don’t have to go through an audition process. “The artistic directors choose parts for us. Most of us only do one show a year. When I was asked if I wanted to do ‘Steel Magnolias’ or another year be in ‘A Christmas Carol,’ I didn’t have to think. “For one thing, there is the cast. We know each other so well, we can shortcut to the heart of the play.  Then, there’s the play itself, which is a true story about things that happened in the writer, Robert Harling’s, life. “Many people are familiar with the play and the movie, which was set in Robert Harling’s hometown. But in acting it, you can’t take what happens for granted. People in the audience might know the outcomes of the story, but M’Lynn as she’s living it doesn’t. “Abby stresses that. She cautions us not to tip what’s coming. She trusts us, we trust her, and we see how it pays off. There’s also the setting of the beauty shop where most of the play takes place. “For M’Lynn, it’s a place she can speak freely to her friends, say things she can’t say when she’s next to her daughter, Shelby. “In acting, we are taught to show our characters’ vulnerability. Around Shelby, M’Lynn has to be a strong as possible, to compartmentalize her vulnerability and hold it in. It’s really interesting playing opposite Claire. As I said, I’ve been her mother in three plays.” Asked whether the theater has changed much during her career, McKey said the world has changed, but People’s Light has remained a place of community and relationships, and storytelling remains the important. As an actor, I present the story and am curious about parallels in the play that relate to real life.” The snow coverage Early Sunday morning, I was lulled into thinking I might see something I hadn’t seen on television in years: wall-to-wall coverage of a major regional snow event. My first clue that I might be wrong was Channel 10 did not join Channels 3, 6, 29, and even Channel 17 in presenting live coverage of the snow. It aired NBC’s “Weekend Today” as scheduled. When 9 a.m. came, everything reversed. Channel 17 went to a paid program about real estate, Channel 3 went to “CBS Sunday Morning,” and Channel 29 to a Fox News roundup. Channel 6, with a local newscast scheduled, kept up their weather reports. Looking again, every station went to regular programming at non-news time slots. The only exception I saw was Channel 10, at 1 p.m. showing the snow accumulation and beginning of the sleet instead of the sports program listed in Comcast’s directory. Oh, yes, one of Channel 6’s reporters had a ruler, another blast from the past. ...read more read less