Former North Shore resident Patricia Elmore Costa, 71, has spent the past 50 years as both a professional theater artist and an educator, a path which began at New Trier.
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In those 50 years, she has performed in, directed, written and produced a variety of theatrical productions all while teaching young up-and-coming actors the ins and outs of the art of theater. After going back for her master’s degree in communications at age 62, Elmore Costa ventured into teaching interpersonal communication for the San Diego Community College District, and she has no plans to slow down.
Elmore Costa became a substitute English and Theater teacher at her alma mater New Trier East following her graduation from Western Illinois University in 1973. After teaching, she would swap roles and head to downtown Chicago to study and perform under Del Close at The Second City Improv Group and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and author David Mamet. While in the Windy City, she performed Shakespeare alongside roles in television and radio commercials.
Asked about the most interesting commercial she was cast in, she said, “”The one that pops up for me is McDonald’s with Ray Kroc. I remember eating hamburgers, whatever the hamburger specialty was at that time.”
Kroc was a business owner, born in Oak Park, who purchased McDonald’s from its creators in the early 1960s and was instrumental in making the company the global force it is today.
Just four years later, Elmore Costa had a decision to make after meeting and falling in love with Joseph James Costa, a lieutenant detective with the San Diego Police Department she had met through her sister’s husband. When he asked her to marry him, Elmore Costa initially said no, wanting more time to explore and not feeling ready to marry. She went abroad to Europe for a seven-week trip but while away, she realized how much she missed Joseph.
“We carried on a long distance relationship for a few years,” she said. “When I came back, I told him I was ready.”
The couple was married upon her return and she has lived in San Diego ever since as she expanded her acting and teaching skills. Elmore Costa continued her commercial work but also became an original member of San Diego’s first improvisational comedy troupe, performed at the Marquis Public Theatre and the Comedy Stores in San Diego and Los Angeles and even directed several performances at theaters including the Diversionary Theatre and the North Coast Repertory Theatre.
Elmore Costa also spent time in leadership roles serving as the President of Screen Actors Guild San Diego and vice president of American Federation of Television and Radio Artists San Diego.
In 1985, Elmore Costa founded the San Diego Actors Studio, later to be renamed the San Diego Actors Theater, where she taught classes. The theater is still operating, but Elmore Costa is no longer teaching there. Her favorite classes to teach while there covered different acting styles and certain actors known for each style.
“Theater is my love,” she said. “The immediacy of it, where as soon as you go on stage you feel that unbelievable electric energy.”
Of her theater credits, Elmore Costa laughed explaining the plot of her most interesting production, “The White Whore and the Bit Player,” a dark comedy documenting the before and after of a young actress’s rising stardom. Elmore Costa was in college at the time and played a pre-fame Marilyn Monroe, a role she said was challenging but rewarding.
She said she especially enjoys playing strong female characters “who really know how to communicate and get what they need or want.”
Her next project is being held at the San Diego Museum of Art where she will be co-directing, co-producing and potentially acting in a Midsummer Night’s Dream-themed exhibition that incorporates artwork with monologue performances. Each performer chooses a piece of art and monologue that they believe represent each other.
Del Close once taught her a lesson she said she uses to this day, every day — the importance of taking risk.
“When you do take a risk and if you fall down, you need to just get right back up and do it again and make it work, make it better, make it funny,” she said.
As for giving advice to young actors, Elmore Costa said to get a really good picture and resume and join an acting union, a move she said helped her as she transitioned from Chicago theater to San Diego theater.
“Get as many credits under your belt as you can,” she said. “Go try and get some high school credits, college credits and after that community theater credits. A lot of people that I used to teach in my acting classes, of course, they wanted to get rich and famous and so they all wanted to move to Los Angeles without being a member of the unions, making it that much more difficult.”