When Richard Nash-Siedlecki '92-'93 got married last summer, he made sure to include Winsome S.M. Brown '95 in the wedding party--as the groomsman.

Sporting tails and a mane of auburn hair, Brown maneuvered through the ceremonies with aplomb, carrying off the role with her typical ebullient charm.

"This was still a wedding in the Catholic Church, and obviously had to be very dignified," Nash-Siedlecki explains. "Still, we realized that this was something Winsome could carry off."

Nash-Siedlecki is no stranger to Brown's theatrical talents. He first became aware of her abilities when he watched her play the male character Edmund her first year in Eugene O'Neill's A Long Day's Journey into Night; since then, he has directed her many times.

"I generally find cross-casting very tiresome, campy and uninteresting," Nash-Siedlecki confesses, "but there was something honest about the way Winsome played Edmund. She wasn't trying to do anything but play the part. Her focus was what made her so effective."

Whether it be her debut her freshman year in Salome, or her more recent finale as Oscar Wilde himself in her recent one-woman show, The Importance of Being Oscar, the award-winning actress has garnered a reputation for herself as one of Harvard-Radcliffe's most talented performers.

Winsome is one of the very few young talented actresses in this school," says Tanya S.J. Selvaratnam '93, who performed with her in several plays, including Jet of Blood and Skin and Bone during Brown's first year. "She's someone I would expect will do exciting things in the future with her acting. When I see Winsome act, it hits me in the womb--She's a natural."

Known on campus for her Irish-accented voice and gap-toothed grin, the Harvard senior has received many awards for her acting. Her first year, she was the recipient of the Independent's distinguished 1992 Newcomer of the Year award. Her Junior year, she won the David Mason Little Award, given annually to a promising Adams House junior who exemplifies the character of the house. And this past year, she was awarded the Jonathan Levy Prize, which is presented to the mosttalented actor on campus.

Next year, she will have a chance to showcaseher talents in the visual media, working for fX,the cable division of Fox T.V.

Still, brown remains modest about heraccomplishments. For her, acting is not just ameans of expressing herself; it is her way ofbringing more beauty into the world and making ita better place.

"There's a line from The Importance of BeingOscar," she says, "When Wilde, while inprison, writes his friend Lord Alfred Douglas totell him that their friendship was base, becauseit wasn't founded on the creation andcontemplation of beauty." As an actor, you'reideally creating and contemplating--and causingthe audience to contemplate--beauty."

Brown's activities are not limited to thestage. She served as vice president of the SignetSociety, Harvard's society of arts and letters,performing dramatic readings in the same roomswhere T.S. Eliot '10, George Plimpton '48 and JohnUpdike '54 once gathered. More recently, she won aprestigious Hoopes Prize for her senior thesis inEnglish and American Literature, which focused onthe political columnist William Safire.

"I originally wanted to write on the effects ofmedia and technology on writing," says Brown, "butit was far too grand. So I switched to essayists,and wanted to write on someone who handn't beeninvestigated. Safire, who considers himself both ajournalist and an essayist, seemed to be aninteresting choice."

Much of Brown's thesis centered around a closeanalysis of Safire's work, examining how hisphilosophy of independent responsibility wasrepresented through the careful construction ofhis words.

"It [the thesis] was grounded in Safire'stexts, " she says. "it was based on the idea thatwhen one says something, the words represent oneto the world, and one must therefore be carefulabout what one says, and deliberately mean it."

Thesis aside, Brown has made her presence feltin the academic community. Her theatricalendeavors have extended to the classroom, whereshe often has impressed professors with both herintellect and dramatic talents.