Photo Assistant: Ryan Van Ert; Groomer: Traci Fein

Chicago leading lady Hollis Resnik works constantly, but rarely in Chicago.

“The past four years I’ve been away a lot. A lot,” she confirms. Resnik has logged thousands of miles with touring Broadway shows like Les Miserables and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, as well as regional theater work (most recently in the Minneapolis premiere of Sarah Ruhl’s The Clean House). But the actor says she loves all the travel, and it enables her to do what she likes when she does work here, such as recent back-to-back stints in Titus Andronicus and Carousel for Chicago director Charlie Newell.

“I kept [Chicago] as my base, because I was always working. Now I do go out of town to work,” Resnik says. “The older you get, and the more established, you get relationships with other theaters, and I’m able to be called in for other things outside Chicago.”

A Cleveland native, Resnik moved to Chicago in 1980 shortly after graduating from Denison University and got her first acting gig almost immediately, in the long-running Jane Byrne spoof Byrne, Baby, Byrne! at Zanies. She quickly established herself as a full-time actor (her first day job in Chicago, two months waiting tables at R.J. Grunt’s, would also be her last), showing an ability to balance serious drama at the Goodman and Body Politic with musicals at the Marriott and Candlelight Dinner Playhouse.

It’s a balance she maintains today, between Shakespeare at home and, say, 12 months of traveling with Scoundrels. “It’s the best of times and the worst of times,” Resnik admits. “A lot of times you’re traveling every week, or two weeks…. I really have to save my voice and my stamina. It’s not the same as when you were 25.

“But I’ve gotten to see the country and do wonderful things and have made great friends. And it’s wonderful financially,” she adds, laughing. “I will not lie, it’s great for retirement.”

Next gig She’s leaving (again), traveling to Long Wharf, CT, with Court Theatre’s production of Carousel.

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