Remembering Olympia

Remembering Olympia is a tribute and celebration of the life and career of the late Olympia Dukakis created in her loving memory by her brother Apollo. Consisting of a one-act play chronicling their turbulent but close relationship, the evening also salutes her films, stage work, and family and friends through a montage of film clips and photos. The brother and sister will be performed by Kandis Chappell and Apollo Dukakis. The evening concludes with a Q&A session with the audience, moderated by A.C.T.'s Artistic Director Emerita Carey Perloff.

KANDIS CHAPPELL (The Sister) has appeared on Broadway and in most of the prestigious regional theaters across the country. On Broadway she had leading roles in Stephen Sondheim’s Getting Away With Murder and Neil Simon’s Rumors. She is an Associate Artist at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego where she performed in over thirty productions including Pygmalion, Romeo and Juliet, and The Winter’s Tale. She has also worked extensively at South Coast Repertory Theater in Costa Mesa most notably in the Pulitzer Prize nominated Collected Stories by David Margulies and as Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire. Here at A.C.T. she starred in Major Barbara and The Beard of Avon. Kandis is a four-time winner of the Best Actress Award from the Los Angeles Drama Critics. 

APOLLO DUKAKIS (The Brother) a professional actor for over fifty years has worked off-Broadway and in regional theaters across the country including the Actors’ Theater of Louisville, Trinity Repertory Company, Mark Taper Forum, and Pasadena Playhouse in Los Angeles. Along with his sister, Olympia Dukakis, he co-founded the Tony Award–nominated The Whole Theater Company of Montclair, New Jersey where he was Associate Artistic Director, Actor, Director, and Teacher for fifteen years. In Los Angeles he was a company member of the award winning Antaeus Theater Company for ten years and is currently a long-time resident artist with the acclaimed A Noise Within of Pasadena, founded by graduates of A.C.T.'s MFA Program. With A.C.T. he appeared in Hecuba with his sister and in Scorched, both directed by Carey Perloff. He has received awards from the Los Angeles Drama Critics, Dramalogue, and an Ovation Award nomination. In 2019 he was awarded Best Actor in a Short Film (Mr. Segur) from the London Greek Film Festival. 

OLYMPIA DUKAKIS performed in more than 130 stage productions, more than 60 films, and in 50 television series throughout her esteemed career. Best known as a screen actress, she started her career in theater. Not long after her arrival in New York City she won an Obie Award for Best Actress in 1963 for her off-Broadway performance in Bertolt Brecht’s Man Is Man. She later moved to film acting and won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award, among other accolades, for her role in the classic film Moonstruck (1987). She received a Golden Globe nomination for playing Frank Sinatra’s mother in Sinatra (1992) and Emmy Award nominations for Lucky Day (1991), More Tales of the City (1998), and Joan of Arc (1999). Her favorite and most beloved role remains the San Francisco transgender landlady, Anna Madrigal, in the multi-series Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin. Olympia’s autobiography Ask Me Again Tomorrow: A Life in Progress was published in 2003 and reached the New York Times Best Seller list. In 2018 a feature length documentary about her life directed by Harry Mavromichalis titled OLYMPIA was released theatrically in the United States and is currently available online. At A.C.T. she collaborated with Carey Perloff and appeared in Hecuba (1993), Singer’s Boy, Hecuba (1998), Mother, For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again, Vigil, and Electra.