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Wednesday, August 30, 2000
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Xavier Rice, Roeland Park senior, looks over his notebook in front of Strong Hall. Rice has found many outlets for involvement at the University of Kansas from acting in plays to performing in drag shows. Portrait by Jamie Roper/KANSAN
Student finds bounty of opportunities in Lawrence as singer, actor, RA and drag queen
By Derek Prater
Kansan senior staff writer
avier Rice can barely keep still when he talks.
Xavier Rice can barely keep still when he talks. His hands spiral and gesticulate for emphasis. His face beams ebullently as he sinks his teeth into a subject. He feels compelled, he said, to perform. And sometimes, he just can't contain himself.
"If you've driven around Lawrence and you've seen this Black guy dancing and singing on the street with nobody around, that's me," said Rice. Roeland Park senior.
Rice, a vocal music and theater and film major, says that ever since he was in West Side Story in high school, performing has been in his blood. Somewhat to his surprise, the University of Kansas has provided Rice with a bounty of opportunities, roles and experiences
both on the stage and off. He has worked with renowned performers and directors; he has performed in shows ranging from opera to You're a Good Man Charlie Brown (as Snoopy); and he has performed in roles on campus ranging from a resident assistant at Oliver Hall to a drag queen at the KU Queers & Allies' Brown Bag Lunch Drag Show.
"The range of talents that he has is amazing," said Kim Fuchs, a Merriam senior who has known Rice since they both attended middle school. "He has so much energy, especially when he drags."
A Little Pearl in Lawrence
Rice said that back in high school, he didn't know much about KU. And he didn't think that it would be a place where he would flourish as a performer.
"It's in the middle of Kansas, so just by saying that you don't neces sarily say much, even though I was raised in Kansas," Rice said. "But KU is just this little pearl, I have found. I have had an opportunity to work with, at all levels—theater, music, my studies—some of the most intelligent, popular professors."
"I was like, 'I want to be a performer. I want to go to New York. I'm not staving in Kansas,'" he said.
But the cost of living in New York outweighed the benefits, and Rice decided on Lawrence.
Maribeth Crawford, associate professor of music and dance, has worked closely with Rice in his vocal studies and said he had benefited from the depth of instruction available at the University.
"He has a real respect for the art," Crawford said. "I think he has serious intentions and respect for what it takes to be a professional performer."
Rice, she said, may be playful, charming and carefree, but he is also very serious about performing and has many gifts.
The Awful Truth
Rice also is getting some unique opportunities and the kind of exposure that could help his career.
Last year, he worked with two nationally known artists: transgendered actor, novelist, playwright and activist Kate Bornstein and political activist and filmmaker Michael Moore.
Bornstein worked with the cast when the University Theatre put on a production of her play *Hidden: A Gender* last April.
Later that year, Rice answered a casting call to appear in an episode of Moore's television show The Awful Truth on the Bravo network.
Rice and three other KU students, along with area gay men, traveled around Topeka in the Sodomobile, a pink RV, making stops at the Fred Phelps compound, the Capitol site and other spots.
Rice said that the group, which was outfitted in stereotypically homosexual garb, sang along with Phelps' group and got them to do a chorus line dance.
"You can get them to do really dumb stuff easily, and that's what we did." Rice said.
The point, he said, was to find hateful, bigoted people and undermine their message with humor.
mingle their message with each other.
As for driving around in the big, pink Sodomobile, "I crown that as one of the things that I will look back at when I'm 30 and laugh at," Rice said.
To some extent, Rice's love for performing stems from his gregarious nature.
Never a Stranger
"He was alway an outgoing individual," said his mother, Ann.
"There was never a stranger."
"I have a real desire to perform," he said. "I love to be in front of people and I love to make people laugh and I love to sing."
There was never a stronger. Performing is one way that Rice connects with people
And there are few roles that Rice will turn down when he has the chance to perform. He's played serious roles in operas. He's played more lighthearted roles such as the World War I flying ace, Snoopy, and a singing piece of legislation in School House Rock.
One role in particular seems to follow him wherever he goes on campus. His drag queen character, Kahlua, has made him a recognizable face on campus since he began dancing at the KU Queers & Allies' Brown Bag Lunch Drag Show.
Rice said that he was a little afraid that people might come to associate him solely with the drag queen character, but that he had no regrets about giving life to Kahlua.
"Some people get into drugs when they're in college. I got into drag," he said. "It will totally be a Kansas-KU thing."
Performing allows Rice to connect with others, but it also is a highly personal experience for him.
"The thing I love about performing ... it gives you the opportunity to take your life experiences and put them to different uses," he
said. "All the characters I try to play are parts of me, parts of people I've come in contact with, parts of stories."
This semester, Rice is looking to take on new characters and new experiences. Wednesday, he learned he would play the role of Belize in Angels in America.
"If college is about anything, it's definitely about self-exploration," he said.
— Edited by Kimberly Thompson
Xavier Rice on:
Humor — "I can make an ass of myself because I love it. And if people laugh at it, that's all the better."
Drag — "I think it's something everybody should do. I think everybody should put themselves in a position that makes them completely different."
KU — "People think KU and they think KU basketball and Roy Williams ... KU rocks for that, but we rock for so many other things."
Singing — "People should sing every day, and people do. I know not one person who won't belt it out in the shower and just let loose. And I know not one person who can be angry or sad or mad ... while they're singing. It's a cathartic experience. That's a college word for you."
Acting — "Romeo is nothing more than everybody else that has fallen in love. You don't have to have found the one love of your life to play Romeo ... You just have to have loved, and then take it to the extreme."
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