It’s late in the afternoon at the Brown County Playhouse as Casey Kersey sits toward the rear of the dimly lit theater with her left arm resting on the back of a bench.
She’s waiting for “Believe: The Magic of Christmas” practice to start. Kersey is playing Elfie this year who is in “charge” of the show and is Santa’s helper.
Golden Ticket Productions produces “Believe: The Magic of Christmas.” The production company is co-owned by Russell Moss and Brad Zumwalt.
The annual holiday variety show is for all ages and features Christmas songs, dancing, comedy, special lighting and holiday characters, including Kersey’s Elfie. Santa Claus also makes an appearance.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]“It’s a lot of fun to be on that side of the stage. … It is fun. The people are great. Russ and Brad are wonderful. They really help out,” Kersey said of the show. She has been a director at the Playhouse for around five years.
“It has everything. It has comedy. It has some seriousness. The vocals are amazing.”
But this time last year, Kersey was unable to use the left side of her body — let alone play Elfie — after having a stroke.
On Nov. 6, 2017, Kersey was helping out at Center Grove High School with a theater production there. She was supposed to come down to the Playhouse afterward for practice for the holiday variety show.
She was about to leave when she decided to go help a few students with their parts.
“I ran up the ramp and I felt a little dizzy. I thought, ‘Oh, from sudden exertion.’ I was fine and then I walked out in the hall to start teaching kids,” Kersey said.
But she started to get dizzy and had difficulty breathing.
“I had no idea what was going on. Then all of a sudden my body felt like I was vibrating. I said, ‘OK, I am going to take a step and fall down. …’ I took a step and fell down. Fortunately, I didn’t break anything, I didn’t hit my head and I never passed out,” she continued.
Kersey was able to sit up, but did not feel as if she could stand.
Her students immediately jumped to action and asked if she needed anything. A friend was walking down the hall and her students went to get her for help.
“My leg was kind of cock-eyed,” she said.
“My whole left side was numb. …The kids were wonderful and this one kid he goes, ‘I’ll carry you to wherever you need to go.’ I thought, ‘Oh how cute. But that’s OK.’”
A nurse who was at the school instructed them to call 911.
“I just thought maybe I pinched a nerve or something. … Then the ambulance came and I heard him say, ‘She’s had a stroke.’ I went, ‘What? I had a stroke?’ I just overheard him say that and I went, ‘Oh, this is kind of serious.’”
Kersey, who is 70, had suffered a brain bleed that caused the stroke.
She was transported to St. Francis Hospital where tests began immediately.
“The nurses, they were unbelievable there. … I think that really helped my recovery. They kept sending me good vibes. I could not move,” she said.
“The next morning I wanted some coffee. I was very cognizant, but I couldn’t open the sugar packet. … The brain is saying, ‘You can do it.’ I threw it. I got mad, you know, how you do,” she said.
Luckily, the brain bleed healed on its own and Kersey did not need surgery.
“I was really, really lucky,” she said.
“I couldn’t get out of bed. I couldn’t roll over. They (the nurses) were so nice to me. I kept thinking, ‘Man, I’m in a hole here (in the bed).’ They’d go, ‘Yeah, we do that.’ But it wasn’t that. I didn’t have any core muscle to get up.”
She was in the hospital for four weeks, including two weeks of rehab. She then went to stay in Michigan with some friends for three months before coming back home to Unionville where she has lived for 20 years.
“I wanted to get back to my house. I got to a point where I could walk with a walker, which I hated. It’s for old people. Then I was in a wheelchair. I couldn’t do anything for myself. I couldn’t bathe myself,” she said.
After arriving back home in Indiana, Kersey was able to walk with a walker and then with a cane. She completed more rehab through St. Francis.
But she is still recovering. She still limps and has to wear a brace to prevent her left toe from dropping while she is walking.
“It’s a day by day thing,” she said.
She still uses a cane, so Elfie now has a cane dressed up as a candy cane.
“I do limp a little bit, but I figured I’m 700 years old anyways. The elves are 700 years old,” she said.
Kersey returned to directing at the Playhouse this past summer by helping run the youth theater summer camp.
“When I first got it (the brace), because I had shorts on, one of the little girls had a scarf and put it in on her leg so I wouldn’t feel bad. We had our picture taken,” she said.
“The kids were fine. If I dropped something they would run down to pick it up. I always drop my cane.”
Kersey was also a co-director for the Playhouse production of the musical comedy “Platinum Girls.”
“One thing I noticed in the last couple of years is I get real kind of dizzy when I get worked up, hyperventilate a little bit. But it didn’t happen (while co-directing),” she said.
“I said, ‘OK, OK. I can do it.’ They asked me if I would do the Elfie thing. … I think that (“Platinum Girls”) really rejuvenated me. … That really pumped me up to say, ‘I can do this.’”
‘You just keep pushing’
Kersey has directed five shows at the Playhouse including “Nunsense” and “Steel Magnolias.”
But if you ask Kersey, she has been involved with theater since birth.
“I came out of my mother’s womb and I said, ‘So, where’s the stage?’” she said with a laugh.
Her first role was when she was around 6 years old in a production put on by her brother in the basement of her family’s home.
At the time, Kersey had long hair that her mother had spent almost an hour braiding and her brother took it down for the show.
“He put me in a dress and everything. My hair was huge. My mother was so mad. He said, ‘Mother, it’s for the theater,’” she said with a laugh.
Kersey double-majored in English and in theater at the former Lea College in Minnesota.
After college, Kersey’s love of theater took her to New York City where she played both the Easter Bunny and Frosty the Snowman in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. She was offered a job in soap operas, but ultimately turned it down and started teaching at a private school in Massachusetts.
She returned to Indiana to get her master’s degree from Ball State University. While earning her degree, she started teaching at St. Pius X School in Indianapolis.
One day, Center Grove High School called her about an opening for a theater director and in their English department.
“The rest is history,” she said.
She taught at Center Grove for 35 years with the last 10 or 12 years being mainly in the theater department where she managed their new auditorium.
In 2010, Kersey semi-retired, but still worked as an adjunct professor and teaching dual-credit classes at Center Grove.
Kersey volunteers with the Brown County Humane Society, and one year during the Chocolate Walk, they placed her at the Playhouse to hand out goodies.
At that point, Kersey and Playhouse Executive Director Suzannah Zody began talking. Zody asked if Kersey would direct their production of “Love, Loss and What I Wore.”
“I fell in love with it, going, ‘Whoa, this is fun,’” she said.
As she sits and waits, Kersey said she has learned to appreciate everything since her stroke.
“I am happy if I can get up out of bed. You don’t even think about that — or walking or opening a door, turning on the light,” she said.
“You can walk out of here and you don’t have to think about it. I have to think about first getting up then moving this leg. I have to think about moving this leg. … You just keep pushing.”
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What: “Believe: The Magic of Christmas” an annual holiday variety show
When: 7:30 p.m. Dec. 21 and 22; 2 p.m. Dec. 23
Where: Brown County Playhouse
Cost: $21.50 for adults, $20.50 for senior/student/military. Children and younger are free with a paid adult.
Tickets: Call 812-988-6555 or visit browncountyplayhouse.org.
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