In the first of a new series exploring Chicago through an international lens, we meet expats who have made the city home and ask what brought them here, what has surprised them and how they have adapted to Chicago.
Actress and singer Isabelle Caroline van Randwyck, known as Issy van Randwyck, has built a fascinating career on stages and film sets around the world. In 2024, her latest creative chapter brought her to Chicago, where she has become part of the city’s vibrant theater community. She recently played Mistress Ford in “The Merry Wives of Windsor” and this fall joins a 14-actor repertory company for the centerpiece of Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s 40th anniversary season, playing Paulina in “The Winter’s Tale” and Starveling in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
Born in Hong Kong to a Dutch family and educated in England, Issy brings an unusually international perspective to questions of home, identity, art and community. Here, she talks about her unconventional path into performance, building a new life in Chicago and what she has discovered about the city along the way.
Rob Murphy: You were born in Hong Kong to a Dutch family, lived and worked in England for decades and now have made a home in Chicago. When someone asks where you are from, how do you answer?
Issy van Randwyck: Well, it depends whether I feel that they’re able to digest the full story or the abridged. It seems to be rather too confusing for some to get their head round the fact that I was born in Hong Kong, lived in the Far East and Africa, and then was sent to boarding school in England and, you know, having Dutch parents, everyone goes, “Ooh, how does that work?” We Dutch are a nation of travelers, after all, who colonized New Amsterdam, sorry New York? My father, returning to Holland in 1948, having fought in the Indonesian National Revolution, found Holland still economically traumatized after five years of German occupation with opportunities scarce. So as citizen No. 000146, courtesy of the Eighth United States Army, he began his career in shipping working in Japan, a career which would take him from the Far East to Africa and back again many times.
Rob Murphy: Where in Africa did you live? I’ve spent considerable time in Africa myself, for work-related matters.
Issy van Randwyck: South Africa. We lived just outside of Durban in a village called Westville on the east coast near the Indian Ocean.
Rob Murphy: I have been to South Africa many times, but in the Western Cape mostly near Cape Town and Stellenbosch. Beautiful area and the wine is fantastic.
Your Dutch roots have remained important to you throughout your life. What did your family and upbringing give you that you still carry with you today?
Issy van Randwyck: I have an incredible loyalty to Holland, even though I have never lived there, and have a very strong sense of being Dutch. This entails putting up orange bunting outside the house on “Koningsdag” or wearing orange anytime the Dutch are playing in a World Cup match. Ridiculous really, but it’s the little things.
The Dutch have a very strong sense of right and wrong and can be quite — they call it “bot.” Blunt. I have noticed I’ve got a touch of the ‘bot’ whether I like it or not, even with an English education and all that politesse. I get very tweezer lipped when people behave dishonorably or immorally.
Rob Murphy: You are a Baroness, is that correct?
Issy van Randwyck: Yes, though I very, very seldom use it. It means nothing here and I would only really use it for say the Royal Enclosure at Ascot. I am proud of my family. We can trace our family back to the 1300s with a certain Rutger. The vR’s come from the east of Holland and were a part of William of Orange’s court in Nijmegen and for several hundred years were either in the military, government or both. There have also been a fair few ladies and gentlemen in waiting. Sadly, the house that would have been ours back in the day was destroyed in the bombing of the medieval center of Nijmegen by the US Eighth Air Force in February 1944. Likewise, the family house, Het Slot, in Rossum, a small village that lies between the Rivers Maas and Waal was severely damaged and looted by both the Allies and the Germans in 1944/45.
Rob Murphy: Do you speak Dutch?
Issy van Randwyck: Yes, I do. I speak the Dutch that my parents spoke when they left Holland in the ’50s. When I go back to Holland and speak Dutch, everyone's, “Ooh, very old-fashioned. You use very old-fashioned words.” It’s a constantly evolving language but I only know the Dutch that I grew up with.
Rob Murphy: Did you always want to sing and act, or was there a particular experience that led you to a life in the arts?
Issy van Randwyck: I didn’t know what I wanted to do.
When I arrived at my little boarding school, West Heath, in Kent, we all had to audition for the choir. “Oh, you hit top C. Only you and Tilda Swinton have done that.” (Tilda Swinton being at the same school and four years older than me.) Before I knew it, I was playing Amahl in the school production of Amahl and the Night Visitors. A far cry from having been thrown out of my prep school choir for giggling with my best friend.
After four years of singing the classical repertoire, I started to rebel. “I don't want to sing this stuff. I really don't. I want to sing pop stuff, rock stuff.”
On leaving school, I missed the music and got into a band. One thing led to another.
Rob Murphy: Are you a Eurovision fan? I have to ask.
Issy van Randwyck: I'm a huge Eurovision fan. My first introduction to the Eurovision Song Contest was in 1974 when we'd come over from Hong Kong and we were staying with some friends in Sussex. It was the year that ABBA won with “Waterloo.” I have been a lifelong fan ever since.
Rob Murphy: I love Eurovision, which for the uninitiated, is a great and wild musical contest in mid-May of every year where each European country puts forward one singing act and then they are judged by each country (but they can’t vote for themselves) and also by call-in votes that viewers pay for. It’s absolutely crazy and fun. Celine Dion won for Switzerland early in her career and she’s not even Swiss. Australia, Israel, Armenia and Cyprus are not even in Europe, and Australia is many thousands of miles from Europe. Go figure.
Your career in Britain took you from the National Theatre and the West End to film, television and cabaret. What were those years like, and which experiences most shaped the performer you became?
Issy van Randwyck: Well, I would not say my career was linear in any shape or form. I started as the only “real girl” at Madame Jojo's, the drag club in Soho, from ’89 to ’91, which for me, I think, was my drama school.
It taught me about Drama in capital letters. There was a lot of drama amongst the drag queens. But politically it was a really important time, with Section 28, the poll tax riots, the first Gulf War, the end of Thatcherism and, of course, AIDS. Though the specter of AIDS hung over us, life was lived to the full and then some. Many of my colleagues and friends would end up passing away, and it was a sad but an extraordinary time.
Coming from a sheltered puritanical background working there was the making of me. Though for my father, it was akin to me working in a brothel and he forbade me from using the family name but bless him, he was then living in Rome, me in London, so …
From that, I started working with Larry Adler, the world's most famous American harmonica player who had lived the Hollywood life before being hounded out of the US during HUAC. We recorded “The Glory of Gershwin” an album produced by Sir George Martin, of the Beatles fame, with all sorts of people like Sting and Elton John. We ended up touring the world with the concert version of the album for the last 10 years of his life. From there I joined Fascinating Aïda, the award winning British three girl satirical cabaret act, touring the U.K. on multiple occasions and taking the show to Berlin, Australia, New Zealand, Africa and New York.
I also managed to squeeze in other work, such as “A Little Night Music” at the National and a lot of work at Chichester Festival Theatre and Regent's Park Open Air Theatre, doing a lot of Shakespeare there. I left ‘Fascinating Aïda’ in 1999 and started a new chapter in my life.
Rob Murphy: You are married to award-winning director Edward Hall, who is now the artistic director of Chicago Shakespeare Theater, and you have two daughters. How is living in such a creative household? Does the theater ever really stay at the theater?
Issy van Randwyck: No! In capital letters with exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point. It does not. Our children grew up in rehearsal rooms, which is a great leveler. So did our dog Dennis. While Ed was running Hampstead Theatre he programmed over 100 new plays, ranging from Stephen Karam’s The Humans, directing Chariots of Fire during the London Olympics of 2012 and the Olivier winning Sunny Afternoon.
Being in the theatre as often as they were, our children are incredibly rounded human beings and emotionally grounded. Theatre is our church, where complex moral discussions can be had.
Rob Murphy: In 2023 and ’24, your family left London for Chicago when Ed became the artistic director of Chicago Shakespeare Theater. What excited you about the move, and what was the most challenging aspect about starting over in yet another new city?
Issy van Randwyck: Ed had directed Rose Rage, his adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry VI Part 1, 2 and 3 at Chicago Shakespeare in 2003 which ended up transferring off-Broadway. We knew the city a little and on another Stateside trip coinciding with a Propeller US tour, Ed’s all male Shakespeare company, we had popped in to say hello to Barbara Gaines and Dan Hess, all falling in love with the city anew.
It's the lake that does it for me. It's the light on the lake, the constantly changing view of that lake and the architecture. When the possibility of moving here came up, I said to Ed, “Yeah, why not?” I'm always up for an adventure. Life is for living. And then the mundanities of actually moving and packing up a six-bedroom house and all of that hit and moving schools for our daughter Savannah. That was my greatest fear. Finding the right school for our daughter and hoping that she would find a nice group of friends. For us, we're adults, we can deal with it. But for a 13-year-old, it's a difficult age to move and I believe the school she’s at now, Francis Parker School, is the right fit. Our elder daughter, who had always had dreams of attending an American university inspired by her godparents Richard Goodwin and Doris Kearns Goodwin, went to Davidson College in North Carolina. A perfect fit for her and a university whose sticker I proudly display on the back of our car! She's now working for Bloomberg in London.
Rob Murphy: Both my kids went to Francis Parker, they really loved it, all 14 years. What a great school: a model home, a complete community, an embryonic democracy…and many an actor has sprung from that well including Daryl Hannah, Billy Zane, Anne Heche, Jennifer Beals and none other than Celeste Holm!
After experiencing London's cultural life from the inside for decades, what has struck you about Chicago as an arts and theatre city?
Issy van Randwyck: People talk about the kindness of the Midwesterners, and it's genuine. London can get a bit much with all those competitive pointy elbows both socially as well as creatively and I’ve found none of that here.
The store-front theaters here are amazing, all 250 of them. As the old joke goes: ‘What do you call three actors in Chicago having a coffee? A theatre company.’
And guess what - Katy Sullivan, Scott Aiello and I, calling ourselves Exit, Pursued by a Play Reading gather some of Chicago’s finest for monthly playreadings at The Understudy in Andersonville. We only do comedies because we all feel the need for a good laugh (and a drinking game) especially now.
Of course, I miss London, I miss my friends, I miss my family. But the Midwest kindness goes a long way.
Rob Murphy: What has surprised you about Chicago socially? Were there particular people, traditions or parts of the city's cultural community that helped Chicago begin to feel like home for you?
Issy van Randwyck: I have to say, introductions to people like you from friends back home have made the transition easier.
The school parents’ association has been very welcoming. I don’t know if it is a Parker thing or an American thing, but we’ve been encouraged to be a lot more involved with the school than we would otherwise be if our daughter was at a British public school which is great.
The other morning a group of us found ourselves being a part of the Parker Celebratory 125th Birthday aerial photo before welcoming Governor JB Pritzker to the first Morning EX of the Semester.
The friends I have made here do not fall into any categories except perhaps that they tend toward the more European and more travelled with similar sensibilities and humor.
Rob Murphy: Take us into your Chicago life away from the stage. What does a perfect Saturday look like for you? What kind of places do you go to eat, wander around and shop? And where do you take friends who are visiting from out of town?
Issy van Randwyck: Our Saturdays normally revolve around Savannah and her horse riding at Johnson’s Equestrian, a barn outside of Chicago.
Should we have guests to entertain it might be dinner at Nomi, or one of the three Goats – Girl & The Goat, Duck Duck Goat or our local eatery, Little Goat Diner. We also like to go to Volare in Streeterville not only for its fantastic service and Italian cuisine but Benny, the owner, who back in the day worked in the Italian restaurant in Stratford close to the Royal Shakespeare Company, and knew my father-in-law, Sir Peter Hall, founder of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
If it is just us then it’s Shine, a Chinese restaurant off N. Halsted on Webster, owned by a Parker parent, a favorite and our local haunt du jour.
I love going to the ballet. I mean, I truly, truly love going to the ballet and the Joffrey Ballet is my happiest of places thanks to the talent and amazing artistry of the company led by Artistic Director supreme, Ashley Wheater.
We really enjoy going to the cinema and being able to put our feet up (in reclining chairs), it’s a far cry from the Streatham Odeon back home let me tell you. It’s a treat we still get a kick out of. Forgive us foreigners.
Weather permitting, we like swimming in the lake or cycling down to the Art Institute or catching a game at Soldier Field. Not a clue what’s going on but I can’t get enough of the atmosphere, people watching and the fashion. Grown men in dungarees. Who knew? When friends come to visit from out of town, of course we take them on an architecture tour, preferring Shoreline Tours leaving from Navy Pier. You learn something new every time. Then there’s tea at the Drake Hotel with its splendid architecture and history.
Two destinations on my Chicago Bucket List I have yet to visit are the Obama Centre and Chicago’s Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures at the University of Chicago which boasts treasures from ancient Egypt, Persia and Syria which is so up my strasse.
For anyone coming to visit Chicago, I insist they read Erik Larson’s Devil in the White City for its forensic attention to detail concerning Chicago’s social history, making all that it is now make sense. Plus, it’s a most marvelous read.
I would say the same for anyone planning a trip to London and a visit to the Churchill Rooms, Larson’s The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance is essential reading.
Rob Murphy: You are about to appear as Paulina in “The Winter’s Tale,” which Chicago Shakespeare Theater is presenting in repertory with “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The same company of actors will perform both plays, switching roles from one production to the other. What excites you about taking on Paulina and about pairing these two plays?
Issy van Randwyck: Both plays are about love and jealousy. There is much comedy in both plays, but the tragedy is greater in The Winter’s Tale and goes deeper and darker. The audience are asked to consider the ‘what ifs’ - if jealousy runs unchecked what might happen, the damage it can do not just to family but to the State. On the flip side there is much joy and laughter – involving sheep. There'll be a lot of sheep onstage. Paulina is the one person who dares stand up to the king and call him to account. I then spend the next 16 years making sure that the oracle is upheld, that King Leontes shall not have an heir until the lost child, his lost child, be found. It all ends up happily. There are still going to be questions asked by the women at the end of their men. It is not an easy, wrapped-up-in-a-bow ending. But it is a happy ending, and they're great plays to do in rep. They'll be lovely together.
Rob Murphy: You've had a career full of rewarding experiences and now find yourself beginning yet another chapter here in Chicago. What still excites you, and is there anything in particular you would like to do next?
Issy van Randwyck: I don’t know – work? I just want to work with nice people who want to put on a good piece of work together whether that be in film or theatre.
Rob Murphy: When your Chicago friends say, “Hey, we're going to London for a few days,” what should we do in London? Where do you tell them to go?
Issy van Randwyck: Borough Market. The Tate Modern. Go see the fabulous Marilyn Monroe exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. Walk across the Millennium Bridge and look at St. Paul’s, look down the river, look up the river to the Tower of London, look across to the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern. Have tea at Claridge’s. That’s a definite must.
At Christmas time, go to the “Ever After Garden” at the Duke of York Square off Sloane Square. Entrance is free to this memorial garden displaying over 30,000 illuminated white roses where visitors can dedicate a rose in memory of a loved one. This year the garden opens from the 3rd November to the 21st December.
It was started in 2019 by Dame Anya Hindmarch and the author of Red Carpet Legends, Camilla Morton as a tribute to our dearest friend, the production designer Michael Howells, famous for such films as Shackleton, Ever After, Nanny McPhee. All funds raised go to the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity. It’s a place for quiet and reflection at a time of year that can be overwhelmingly difficult for those who have suffered the loss of a loved one.
You should also head to the Anya Hindmarch Village on Pont Street, off Sloane Street. When in London do what London does best - go to the theatre. Go to the Orange Tree Theatre, Jermyn Street Theatre, the National Theatre or any of the West End theatres.
In the summer, one of the best things to do is to take a speedboat up the Thames that leaves from the Embankment and heads all the way to the O2 at Greenwich and back again. It’s such fun, and you can pretend you’re in a James Bond film. If you need green, there’s the Physic Garden in Chelsea or Kew Gardens further out west which currently boasts the largest collection of Henry Moore sculptures ever exhibited.
And, of course, our national museums, 12 of which are in London and are free to all unless you are going to a specific exhibition. In that case book in advance, as more often than not, they’re sold out especially if you’re heading to the V&A.
The Bayeux Tapestry, all 70 metres of it, and its depiction of ‘1066 and all that’ is back on British soil after nearly 1000 years of being in France and available to view at the British Museum until next July. I urge you to book ahead for this one.
Lastly, this is the must of all musts. “Queen Elizabeth II, Her Life In Style” at The King’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace which has been such a phenomenal success, it has been extended through to April next year. If you do nothing else, go to this. It’s the “largest and most comprehensive exhibition of her fashion ever mounted.”
There is so much to do!
Rob Murphy: Thank you Issy for sharing your story with us. It’s been incredibly fun getting to know more about you. I look forward to seeing you soon on stage, in two roles no less!
See Issy van Randwyck this fall at Chicago Shakespeare Theater in “The Winter’s Tale” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” two Shakespeare classics performed in repertory as part of the theater’s 40th anniversary season.
