Story and multimedia by Katie Tschopp

The scarcely decorated living room is scattered with baby toys. The walls are bare. A stroller sits ready by the front door and the whole place gives off a hectic lived-in vibe while also clearly expressing its temporary nature. For Kelly Atkins, an actress who currently stars as runaway stripper Pippi in “The Great American Trailer Park Musical” at the Hippodrome State Theatre, a temporary house is something she is well accustomed to.

Atkins normally resides in Ponte Vedra with her husband, Jason Charles, and their daughter, 1-year-old Daphne. During the musical’s summer run, she lives at the apartment in Gainesville during the week and commutes home after the Sunday night show for her day off. Sometimes Jason will drive to Gainesville on Friday after work to spend the weekend with his wife and daughter.

“You get used to that living-out-of-a-suitcase lifestyle,” Atkins said, though she does admit that it was easier to do when she was really young.

“It gets much more difficult to live like that when you’re older and settled into your life and family,” she said.

Atkins tries to do shows in Florida or nearby in order to keep her family’s life as normal as possible. She spent three years working in New York after she graduated from Shenandoah University in Virginia with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Music Theatre. Work was somewhat steady, although there was a one-year period when Atkins auditioned and auditioned but received no parts.

“I got really close to a couple of very big jobs — Broadway roles. That would have been life-changing, but I just missed out by a small fraction,” she said. “That was heartbreaking.”

When Atkins decided to move to Florida, she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to continue acting because she wasn’t sure how much theater existed in her adopted home state. Once she moved to Florida, she wound up working a lot more.

“I sort of rediscovered my passion because I was starting to lose it up there,” she said.

Though Atkins has been acting since high school and has performed in a wide variety of shows, she considers her role as Pippi to be a difficult one.

“It was easy for me to fall into this character, but the pole dancing part was the hard part just because of the physicality of it,” she said. “That was like learning a whole new skill.”

Hippodrome announced this week it has extended “The Great American Trailer Park Musical” through Aug. 16. After the show takes its final curtain call, Atkins will perform in the play “The Odd Couple” at the Alhambra Dinner Theatre in Jacksonville. Then, who knows?

“It’s sort of like you just go one show at a time,” she said. “You can’t really plan too far into the future doing this job.”

“The Great American Trailer Park Musical”
What: Musical set in Starke featuring a colorful cast of characters has been extended through Aug. 16.
When: Showtimes are 8 p.m. Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, 7 p.m. Wednesdays, 5 and 8:30 p.m. Saturdays and 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sundays.
Where: Hippodrome State Theatre, 25 S.E. Second Place
Tickets: $12-$30. For inforamtion, call 375-4477 or visit thehipp.org.