Man of 1,000 roles

On the stage of the Walnut Street Theatre’s Studio 3, six actors are presenting a high-spirited musical, Pump Boys and Dinettes, set at a roadside diner and gas station in South Carolina.

The Pump Boys are four gas-station attendants and the Dinettes are two sisters who run the Double Cupp Diner. Not only do all six sing and dance throughout the production, but the Pump Boys also serve as the band, playing varied instruments while they perform.

"It’s really fun — and challenging — to do all this in one show," says Aaron Cromie, one of the Pump Boys.

The Pennsport resident thrives on theater challenges, and this show is giving him new ones. For instance, he’s never before done a tap dance while wearing cowboy boots.

"It’s not easy — but it sure looks good," says Cromie, 31, who also plays the guitar while tap-dancing.

In all, the show involves 20 musical numbers, and the six actors are onstage almost the entire time. That’s just fine with Cromie.

"I always prefer it when I’m really active," he says. "So I like to be onstage as much as possible. That’s when I feel most connected to the audience and the time really flies."

The performer is certainly connected to audiences this theater season. It’s been a whirlwind of varied roles, starting with his performance at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival late last summer in a hat-juggling vaudeville piece.

Then Cromie was off to a theater in Roanoke, Va., to perform in a comedy, The Complete History of America, Abridged. Back in Philadelphia, the actor’s comic talents were on full display at the Lantern Theater, where he delighted audiences with his portrayal of the spitfire 80-year-old Aunt Augusta in Travels with my Aunt.

Next came a role as a recruit in Neil Simon’s Biloxi Blues at the Walnut, and another as the stumbling servant Dromio in Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors at the Lantern, where Cromie’s stage action included pratfalls and acrobatics.

Behind the scenes, too, Cromie showed his versatility. He was the co-sound designer for the Mum Puppettheatre production of A Christmas Carol. And he choreographed a tango for an Arden Children’s Theatre show.

But one of Cromie’s most specialized theater skills is mask design. For Comedy of Errors, he designed 14 masks — plus a puppet. He also created a number of masks for two plays presented by Hotel Obligato, a theater company he cofounded in 2001. And Cromie recently completed eight masks for the Center City-based Azuka Theatre Collective’s current production, An Artist’s Workshop.

He cooks up his creativity in his kitchen, where he keeps a large bag of clay for the masks, plus a sack of plaster for molds. First, Cromie makes molds of an actor’s face. Then, in his living room, he uses clay and papier-m�ch� to sculpt masks from the plaster molds.

They vary from full face masks to partial ones — "anything from mustaches to old wrinkled faces," he says. When Cromie is finished sculpting, he sets the masks out to dry in his dining room. It usually takes several days to complete each one.

"I enjoy the solitude of making the masks alone, knowing that they’ll have a life onstage," says Cromie. "And I especially enjoy the moment when the actor gets the mask and begins to work with it. I love to watch their reactions."

Besides creating masks, he also teaches courses in using them. This spring, he’s teaching two 15-week courses at the University of the Arts. One is titled "Mask Characterization."

"It involves creating a very specific larger-than-life character through three different types of masks," Cromie says.

In the other course, "Neutral Mask," students wear masks to hide their faces so that the emphasis is on physical communication. "By not relying on their faces, they’re more aware of how their body communicates," the teacher explains.

Cromie honed his own movement skills at the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre, which he attended three years ago through an Independence Foundation fellowship.

Another fellowship, this one in acting, brought the native of Kinnelon, N.J., to the Walnut Street Theatre in l995. Cromie has been active in the Philadelphia theater scene ever since. But in 2000, he took a hiatus from area stages to tour nationally with Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story.

The whirlwind tour took Cromie to 35 cities in 40 weeks: "It was awesome!"

Returning to Philadelphia, he resumed his busy life in the theater.

"I don’t relent at all," says the high-energy theater pro.

For instance, soon after Pump Boys and Dinettes ends July 3, Cromie will teach a pre-college seminar at the University of the Arts, and he’ll also teach summer workshops for gifted students attending the New Jersey Governor’s School of the Arts.

Then, in August, he’ll be on the stage again — this time in Italy — where he’ll perform in an Italian opera version of Midsummer Night’s Dream.

The producer, Karen Saillant Bygott, lives in Philadelphia and invited Cromie to audition. Now that he’s been cast, he’s getting a crash course in Italian. "I’m learning — fast!" he says.

The European gig will be quite an adventure. But when it ends, Cromie will be eager to return to the Philadelphia theater scene, which he’s found so satisfying over the past nine years.

"In Philadelphia, I get work that exercises all my skills and interests as a theater artist," he says. "Here, I have the highest quality of life as an actor."

Aaron Cromie performs in Pump Boys and Dinettes at the Walnut Street Theatre’s Independence Studio on 3 through July 3. Tickets are $24. Call 215-574-3550 or visit www.wstonline.org.