October 11, 2012

Karnish and 25 other cast members will bring the Tony Award-winning “Titanic: The Musical” to the Milwaukee Theatre on Friday and Saturday.

It will be Karnish’s first time performing on a stage where, as a high school student, he watched many other touring companies perform.

“It’s wonderful to perform in my hometown, but it’s particularly thrilling to perform on the same stage where I watched others perform.I will be on the stage where I watched people doing what I knew I wanted to do,” Karnish said.

However, his fate as an actor was set well before high school. Karnish, 26, accompanied his mother and grandmother to Chicago to see a national tour of “Showboat” when he was 4.

“I was totally mesmerized the whole time,” he said. “Prior to that day, I didn’t know you could make a living by being an actor. I had no idea this wonderful art form existed. But from that day, I knew this is what I need to do with my life and I’ve stuck with it.”

Following graduation from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse with a degree in musical theater, Karnish took advice from “some very wise people.” He followed a suggestion to get performance experience and build a rˇsumˇ by doing regional theater before heading to New York City. It led to stints at the Northern Stars  Playhouse in Hazelhurst, Broadway Dinner Theater in Lake Delton and The Fireside Theatre in Fort Atkinson, as well as in Cincinnati and Alaska.

But moving to New York City has always been one of Karnish’s dreams. Last year, he decided the time was right to act on it.

“I decided that if I wanted to move to the next step of my career, I needed to move to New York and start auditioning for larger theaters,” he said.

It hasn’t been easy. Most days Karnish went to three open-call auditions before heading to a night job as a waiter.

But that might changed after getting cast this summer in “Titanic: The Musical,” which launched in late September and runs through November.

“When I got ‘Titanic,’ it was very rewarding,” he said. “It felt like all of my hard work paid off.”

Karnish plays Lt. William McMaster Murdoch, a Scottish sailor who was first officer aboard the RMS Titanic. Murdoch was the officer in charge on the bridge when the Titanic collided with an iceberg in theAtlantic Ocean on April 15, 1912. More than 1,500 people died when the oceanliner sank.

The show is not based on the blockbuster “Titanic” movie and tells a more historic account of the ill-fated voyage, Karnish said.

“This is a very emotional show,” he said. “We are trying to tell the story of the people aboard the Titanic, to let people know that we won’t forget what happened.”

The experience is one Karnish won’t soon forget. Getting subsequent jobs should be a little easier with a national tour on the resume, he said, and eventually he would like to land a role on Broadway.

For now though, being on tour with “Titanic” is a dream come true.  

“I am so lucky to be able do what I love,” he said. “This is what I was meant to do. For me, there is nothing else.”  

At a glance

What: “Titanic: The Musical”
When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday
Where: Milwaukee Theatre, 500 W. Kilbourn Ave., Milwaukee