Candace and Raye Birk are Here for Family and the Theatre

Written by Melissa Karen Sances
Photos by Nikki Gardner

Published in Northampton Living (January 2024)

 Instructions for living a life:

Pay attention

Be astonished

Tell about it

- Mary Oliver

The scene played out so naturally, I felt like I was at the theatre. As I stood with the lifelong actors on their deck in late November, they were on a stage of sorts, responding to cues from our photographer so she could capture our next cover. Candace and Raye Birk leaned against the rail of their patio with their hands in their pockets; it was chilly, and the sun was on its way down.

“Okay, so let’s look at each other, and just, ‘Ha ha,’” said our photographer.

“Just ‘Ha ha?’” said Raye, and the couple couldn’t help laughing.

“Yes, you just met. He’s a little sketchy, but you’re okay with that.” More laughing.

Tell me about how you met, I suggested while the camera clicked away. I receded into the imaginary audience.

Candace (facing Raye): We met at college.

Raye (facing the audience): We were at Northwestern.

Candace: We actually didn’t like each other very much. I don’t know, it was weird.

Raye: Yeah.

Candace: And we had to do this little dance together –

Raye: In a play –

Candace (rolling her eyes): And it was like, ‘Okay, really?’

Raye: Ugh.

Candace: Yeah …

Raye: And then, in my senior year, I discovered her.

Wait. You discovered her talent or her general awesomeness?

Raye (not missing a beat): Her awesomeness.

Candace (unphased, as if she’s heard it all before): And we went to 'A Hard Day's Night.'

And everything changed after that?

Raye (with a laugh): Oh yeah. Yeah.

End scene.

As the day went on, their ease with each other spoke for itself. While navigating the backyard labyrinth that they built, stone by stone, with their grandchildren, the actors, who have graced stages at the Guthrie Theater and the American Conservatory Theater, took turns describing how they fell in love with storytelling. Before Raye took on Shakespeare, he was a high school jock whose breakout role was the titular character in “The Man in the Dog Suit.” The man dons a disguise and comes into his own, and after slipping into his skin, Raye never looked back. Candace was cast as Peter Pan in a third-grade play – a short-haired role she fully inhabited by sawing off her braids with blunt-nosed scissors. She hasn’t had long hair since.

Soon the darkness ushered us into their warm kitchen, where Raye whipped up cappuccino and Candace plated pastries from Small Oven. She admitted that she hadn’t cooked in 50 years, a duty Raye gladly assumed after they’d moved from the Midwest to Los Angeles, where he would spend long days waiting for callbacks. A character actor, he landed roles in the “Naked Gun” series, “The Wonder Years” and “The Golden Girls.” Meanwhile, Candace reinvented herself as the director of the Children’s Museum of Los Angeles, the content creator of a museum of world mythology, and a health coach. The jobs were all, at heart, just another way to tell stories until she inevitably made her way back to the stage.

With our coffees in hand, we descended into the basement and their adjacent offices, where playbills and stills on the walls spoke to decades of work. “I never put lots of photos up until I was working in LA,” Raye explained. “Most of what you do, especially if you’re in television, is highly disposable. So I had to put pictures up to remind me that I did a lot of theatre that was really, really good.” While roles as Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear and Ebenezer Scrooge wouldn’t grant him the notoriety that came with being on TV, each photo pays tribute to a storied career.

But that doesn’t mean there weren’t unforgettable moments related to television. Raye recalled being asked one Thanksgiving to act in “the cockroach episode” of the X-Files, a cult favorite from Season 3 officially known as the “War of the Coprophages.” He and Candace flew to Vancouver, where, in a drafty crane factory, Agent Mulder (David Duchovy) had to confront Dr. Jeff Eckerle (Raye) over piles of dung that were crawling with cockroaches. “The day came for the big climactic scene,” said Raye, “and they said, ‘Okay, bring the roaches out!’ and it turned out—”

“They were all just laying on their backs, with their little feet up,” said Candace.

“The temperature was too cold,” Raye continued. “So one of the makeup girls said, ‘Do you think if we used a hair dryer on them it would wake them up?’ So they got all these hair dryers, and these big grips were underneath the tables, like whoosh and they wake up and start moving around. And we’re like, Action!”

Of course I rushed home to watch the episode. But first we finished our tour upstairs, where, in the dining room, a slideshow of images played across a computer screen. Candid shots of their family – their son, Josh; daughter-in-law, Angela; and 3 grandchildren, Indigo, Sebastian and Hannah – showcased the couple’s reason for moving to Northampton 3 years ago.

That doesn’t mean they’re done with acting, though. Their son, a professor of medieval history at Smith College, introduced them to the college’s chair of the theatre department, who invited them to be part of the Chester Theatre Company. A college friend introduced them to Huntington’s North Hall where they are now on the Program Committee. And Raye is teaching an acting class at Bombyx Center for Arts and Equity in Florence. The couple, now in their 80s, continues to hone their craft as they pass the torch to the next generation.