Accomplished actress moves to CT, finds herself starring in ‘The Counter’ at TheaterWorks Hartford

Justis Bolding came to TheaterWorks Hartford‘s upcoming production of “The Counter” through an unusual route. The company often casts New York City performers in its shows, but Bolding recently moved from the city to West Hartford and was ensconced in another aspect of TheaterWorks’ business.

A professional New York actress for most of her life whose credits include over 150 episodes as Sarah Roberts on the soap “One Life to Live” and a role in the short-lived Broadway production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical “The Woman in White,” Bolding moved to Connecticut less than two years ago. While she still does a lot of voiceover and audiobook narration work in a studio set-up in her home, she was reconsidering acting as a full-time career due to the opportunities Connecticut offered for her other passion: Dog training, specifically the rarified field of dog agility trials, which requires an amount of space not easily found in New York City.

Exploring her new environs, she met people involved with TheaterWorks Hartford and liked the company so much that she became a member of its board of directors. The theater’s producing artistic director Rob Ruggiero and managing director Jeff Griffin asked if she could read a role in a play they were considering for TheaterWorks’ 2025-26 season, “The Counter” by Meghan Kennedy. The reading went well, and some months later Bolding was asked if she’d be interested in being the actual production of the play, which Ruggiero is directing.

“There’s something about my personality, my sensibility, where I do very well with contemporary plays,” Bolding said. “That’s my wheelhouse. This play is very contemporary — not in the sense that it’s about current events but it just seems very much from the 2010s or the 2020s. It’s about people every audience member would know.”

“The Counter” runs Feb. 12 through March 15 at the theater’s Pearl Street home base.

“The Counter” had its world premiere in 2024 at the Roundabout Theatre Company in New York. Connecticut had its own world premiere of a Kennedy play back in 2017 when her “Napoli, Brooklyn,” based on the real-life event of an airplane crashing into a New York neighborhood, was staged by New Haven’s Long Wharf Theatre.

“The Counter” only has two main characters. Bolding plays Katie, a waitress at a diner which the actor describes as “in a town in the middle of nowhere, north of Albany. It’s set far away from New York City, in a place someone would want to escape to. It’s also a town where people are born and raised and have never really lived anywhere else.”

Tim Dekay, the “White Collar” TV star who appeared in TheaterWorks’ 2024 production of Jeffrey Lieber’s relationship thriller “Fever Dreams (Of Animals on the Verge of Extinction)” plays Paul, a regular at the diner. There’s a third, small but vital role in the play, Peg. She is played in the TheaterWorks production by Erika Rolfsrud, whose previous appearances at TheaterWorks include “The Dazzle” and “Rabbit Hole.”

TheaterWorks Hartford has an affinity for small cast shows where characters unburden themselves in bars or restaurants. Recent examples include “Clyde’s,” “Primary Trust,” “King James” and “The Garbologists.” In “The Counter,” Katie and Paul share their personal struggles and Paul suggests a distressing pact.

Bolding’s personal move to prioritize her life differently is what took her out of New York City and, bolstered by a romantic relationship, to Connecticut. “Ten years ago my acting career started to become less exciting and more heartbreaking,” she said.

She was put off by changes in the industry such as the profusion of video-only auditions. She started training dogs as a “sideline career.”

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“I live in West Hartford now,” Bolding said. “I gave up my apartment officially a year and a half ago. Before I moved here I saw TheaterWorks’ production of ‘Fun Home’ and thought ‘These are the people I kind of want to know.’ I just started showing up. Now, because I’m on the board I feel I’m a part of them. I’ve seen so many shows there that I know the stage area quite well already. It will be exciting to actually get on the stage.”

Being on the theater’s board while performing in one of its productions had no precedent, so it was decided that Bolding would remain on the board but as a non-voting member.

“Acting never stopped being something I’m very passionate about,” Bolding said.

Changes in her life have allowed her to newly appreciate how she approaches life and work — not unlike her character in “The Counter,” though the circumstances are extremely different.

“The Counter” by Meghan Kennedy runs Feb, 12 through March 15 at TheaterWorks Hartford, 233 Pearl St., Hartford. Performances are Tuesdays through Fridays at 7:30 p.m., Saturdays at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. (except Feb. 14) and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. There are special performances on Feb. 14 at 4 p.m., Feb. 28 at noon and 4 p.m. and March 12 at 1 p.m. $25-$78. twhartford.org.

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