Watching actress Megan Anderson on stage is like watching a kite loop about the sky in a brisk wind.
When that scrap of brightly colored paper zooms through the air and twists in unexpected directions, the scene is as joyful as it is unpredictable. Like the kite, Anderson only appears to be untethered. In reality, she's anchored firmly to the ground.
Anderson's particular patch of turf is Baltimore. The city is where she was born, went to school, married actor Kyle Prue and is raising their 6-year-old daughter, Zoe. It's in Baltimore where Anderson mourned the death of her beloved father, and where she eats dinner every Sunday with her extended family.
And Baltimore is where Anderson found her performing home — she's a member of the Everyman Theatre ensemble, which she joined right out of college. She also played the recurring role of Baltimore first lady Jennifer Carcetti in the HBO series, "The Wire."
"When I was younger, being on stage was about getting attention," Anderson says. "But now it's about the work. When I'm performing, all my senses turn up a notch. I'm hyper-aware."
Tonight , Anderson tackles one of the most challenging roles of her career, that of the badly maimed and desperate young heroine of David Harrower's "Blackbird." (Everyman officials emphasize that "Blackbird's" adult subject matter makes the show unsuitable for children.)
"I thought I knew what Megan could do," says Vincent Lancisi, Everyman's artistic director. "And then I saw 'Blackbird's' final dress rehearsal. Megan was crazy good, even by her standards. The audience won't know what hit them."
Though she's been performing professionally for 11 years, Anderson is just 32 years old.
"Megan has a gift," says Everyman ensemble member Carl Schurr. "There are well-trained actors who are disciplined and can muddle through a play. Megan works hard. But she seems to have been born knowing what to do."
If Anderson wanted to see her name on a Broadway marquee, she probably could make that happen. But the actress seems happiest honing her craft in her hometown. She tells a funny story about her foray into the New York performing world that includes a characteristic joke at her own expense.
A few years ago, Anderson scraped together the train fare and made an appointment to audition for an agent in the Big Apple.
"The agent said she loved me and that I was talented," Anderson says."But she basically told me that if I wanted to go anywhere with my career, I'd have to stuff chicken cutlets in my bra.
"I couldn't get back to Baltimore fast enough."
Despite the actress' reference to her purported lack of curves, she exudes comfort with her physical self. As one of five siblings and the only girl among triplets, she grew up playing sports and climbing trees. Perhaps the actress' tomboy past gives her both a sense of ease in her own skin and ready access to her emotions – which, after all, are somatically based.
Lancisi easily recalls Anderson's initial audition for the troupe in 1999 — a day when the actress' life changed direction as abruptly as a kite hitting a wind shear.
The troupe was seeking an ingenue to play a Jewish Southern debutante, circa 1939, in Alfred Uhry's "The Last Night at Ballyhoo." A colleague who taught at Towson University recommended Anderson, his most gifted student.
The fledgling actress was so green that she came to the audition without having read the script.
"Megan was wearing jeans and lace-up boots, which was woefully inappropriate for the role she was auditioning for," Lancisi says.
"Then, she opened her mouth and blew us all away. She put up no barriers. She seemed to have a direct pool of emotions that she could draw on, channeling them when she needed them, and controlling them when she didn't. We were all smitten, and I asked her to be part of the company less than a year later."
The director expected Anderson to perform with Everyman for a year or so, get some seasoning and move on.
"I was watching all that raw talent take shape before my eyes, and I thought, 'Oh, she's not going to be around here long,' " Lancisi says. "I thought, 'She'll be here for a year, and then she'll be gone.'
"Thank God, Kyle stopped that."
That audition didn't just set Anderson's career in motion. It introduced her to her future husband, who portrayed her character's romantic interest in "Ballyhoo."
"Kyle was so good-looking, and so smart and so kind," the actress recalls. "It was clear we had a lot of chemistry. It got so that I couldn't wait for him to show up at rehearsal. I had to fall in love with him for the show, but it wasn't that hard to do."
At the time, both Anderson and Prue were involved in long-term relationships. As a veteran performer, Prue knew how confusing acting can be for the performers, who must fool themselves into developing genuine feelings for a make-believe world.
"Intellectually, I realized that some of what I was feeling for Megan wasn't real," Prue says. "We talked about it, and we kept saying, 'This is wonderful, but this is not real life.'."
"Ballyhoo" closed the week before Christmas. Months passed, and the two remained close friends. Finally, during the summer of 2000, the two began dating.
Over the next several years, Anderson began appearing at such area venues as Rep Stage, the Olney Theatre Center and Woolly Mammoth Theatre. From 2004 to 2008, she was featured in 13 episodes of "The Wire."
"I've never seen so many people working so hard who were so happy," she says of the cable show. "The set was like one big family."
There's that word again — "family." Family is what moors Anderson, and she seeks to re-create that unit wherever she goes.
But in 2007, one of her main supports suddenly snapped, when her father was diagnosed with non- Hodgkins lymphoma. Six months later, at age 57, Charlie Amderson was dead.
"He was so brave," Anderson says. "He died in his own home and on his own terms. He was able to tie up loose ends, and to say his goodbyes."
It was Charlie Anderson who first predicted that his daughter would make it big. Early in Megan's career, the two established a cherished ritual. The morning after Charlie saw Megan's show, father and daughter would discuss the play in detail over coffee.
"I miss our talks," she says. "But I still feel him around me all the time, and I feel him the most when I'm working. It's celebratory."
The actress' mother, Patricia, has established her own way to support her daughter.
"She'll call or text me before every performance," Anderson says. "I'll open up my phone and find kisses in my hand."
With a family like that, it's no wonder Megan Anderson is flying high.
If you go
"Blackbird" runs through June 13 at Everyman Theatre, 1727 N. Charles St. Tickets are $18-$40. Call 410-752-2208 or go to everymantheatre.org for showtimes.