Christine Bendorf

“I’m still getting over bronchitis and my show opens tomorrow!” A statement like this doesn’t sound so incredulous coming from Christine K. L. Bendorf ’10, a Quincy House senior whose passion for theater would never allow her to be stopped by something so trivial.

Bendorf is a theatrical powerhouse by any standards. Not many undergraduates, even the most artistically driven, can say they’ve performed in nine theatrical productions, assisted with another 18, and even directed one—all while being a member of the Radcliffe Pitches, VoxJaxx, the Harvard-Radcliffe Gilbert and Sullivan Players (HRG&SP), and other performance-minded campus groups. This spring, alongside Jordan A. Reddout ’10, Bendorf has been awarded the Radcliffe Doris Cohen Levi Prize, which recognizes students with outstanding talent and enthusiasm for musical theater.

Dana Knox, the Production Coordinator of the New College Theatre, believes her near-omnipresence in Harvard’s theatrical world is no accident. “Christine has shown such amazing dedication to the arts scene at Harvard that it is no wonder that she rose to prominence very early,” he says.

All four of Bendorf’s years at Harvard have been centered on honing her craft. “Freshman fall I discovered that I didn’t want to be a math major,” says Bendorf, who proceeded to create a special concentration: Dramatic Literature and Practice. She describes the concentration as over 50 percent English Literature, with supplementary courses in acting, stage design, dramaturgy, and other performance-based classes. She even enrolled in a one-on-one tutorial about Stephen Sondheim with her advisor, Professor Robert Scanlan. “What other Dramatic Arts courses are there?” says Bendorf. “I’ve taken them all!”

Amidst involvement in such an extensive number of productions and performance groups, Bendorf has been able to find two main points of artistic focus: Stephen Sondheim and Gilbert & Sullivan. She had a lead role in a HRG&SP production her freshman fall, and subsequently joined the company’s board.

“My main passion in life is for Stephen Sondheim,” says the actress who, since enrolling at Harvard, has performed in four Sondheim productions. “I’m making the focus of my final concentration project Stephen Sondheim and the process of putting up one of this shows.” This project is certainly applicable to her extracurricular work; she is currently performing the role of the Baker’s Wife in the production of Sondheim’s “Into The Woods” on the Loeb Mainstage.

Sondheim was instrumental in what Bendorf considers her most positive artistic experience on campus—performing the role of Johanna in “Sweeney Todd” during her sophomore spring. “It really felt like my first show that could be professional,” she says, recalling how the production sold out the Loeb Mainstage—something the American Repertory Theater’s professional productions rarely accomplish. “We joked that we could’ve taken it to Broadway,” she says.

For Bendorf, who is in the process of transitioning to the stage name Christine Lacey, this joke may become a reality. She will spend her summer performing nine shows in ten weeks with the College Light Opera Company on the Cape Cod, and then plans to give acting in New York a try. She debated over the idea of going to graduate school, but decided soon after auditioning that she was using it as a safety net. “I need to try it out, be scared. It’s scary but I know I’m going to be doing what I love to do and what I’ve wanted to do my whole life.”

Despite her apprehensions about the future, Bendorf is as determined as ever to succeed: “I plan to move to New York, tutor, and wait tables to move my way up to Broadway!”