WUKY broadcaster, performer returns to Lexington stage a year after cancer diagnosis

Karyn Czar believes being in a play last year may have saved her life.

It was AthensWest Theatre Company’s production of William Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” and things weren’t going like they normally do for the veteran Lexington stage performer, known to many people in the Bluegrass as an on-air journalist for WUKY FM-91.3.

Czar had never had so much trouble retaining lines, retaining blocking. She could rehearse a scene, and an hour later, it was like she had never seen it. There were other episodes, like the time she couldn’t get out of her car because she forgot what a seatbelt was or how it worked; not the first time she got confused in the car.

Was she tired? Czar had just invested a lot of time and energy into covering the tornadoes that struck Western Kentucky in December 2021. Was it ghosts of old injuries, including a terrible fall during coverage of the 2003 ice storm in Lexington?

It all came to a head several weeks into “Twelfth Night” rehearsals when an excruciating headache — “like a firecracker went off in my head” — sent her to the emergency room a few hours before rehearsal. Director Drew Fracher told Czar to take the day off, even if she got out in time for rehearsals. And when they talked a few days later, he asked the question Czar couldn’t bring herself to ask: Did she need to step away from the show?

“I’ve never left a show in my life,” Czar says.

It took a diagnosis of multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that affects plasma cells, to break that streak.

In the last year, it has taken Czar off the stage, even off the air for a while, necessitated treatments including six rounds of chemotherapy, and affirmed that a community she has cared for over nearly two decades would care for her in her time of need.

Saturday night, Czar is slated to make her return to stage emceeing and singing a few numbers in “On My Way — A Celebration of Female Composers & Lyricists,” presented by the Lexington Theatre Company at First United Methodist Church in Lexington. In the show, directed by Brance Cornelius and music directed by Nathaniel Beliveau, Czar will be joined by fellow performers Katie Feola, Tammie Harris, Courtney Hausman, Katie Owen, and Kelli Jo Summers.

“When they asked me to do this concert, I immediately said, ‘Yes!’ and then I went, ‘Oh, wait a minute. I forgot, I do have limitations,’” Czar says, citing a number of concerns including “chemo throat,” a condition caused by chemo therapy.

“They were all in,” she says of the Theatre Company. “They said whatever you need, we’re going to make it work. I said ‘I might need a cane.’ ‘I might need oxygen.’ I don’t know what I’m going to need that day. I may feel great. Everything may be perfect. They didn’t care. They said, ‘We’re going to make it work.’”

Lexington Theatre Company artistic director Lyndy Franklin Smith says, “We’re in awe of Karyn’s bravery and strength as she navigates everything she is going through right now. We were already planning this concert and had her in mind for it before we knew about her diagnosis. When we asked her to be a part of it, we wanted to be sure she felt up for it, and it was ok with her medical team. Having her as part of our shows has always been special, and we are prepared to help her get back on stage again, whatever that means.”

Returning to the stage is a moment Czar feared might never come when she left “Twelfth Night.” And at that point she still had not received her full diagnosis, which came in early September. The issues with the show and other episodes prompted Czar’s doctor, Dr. Lauren Craig of UK HealthCare, and others who became involved to keep digging.

Czar says it has taught her people need to make sure they get medical attention and push for complete answers when they become ill, because there were some explanations she could have accepted and treatments that may have made her better for a while, but that also would have allowed her cancer to grow and could have had more catastrophic consequences later.

As it is, Czar has been getting treatment, and there have been improvements, though she still has a long road ahead of her, including the possibility of bone marrow transplant.

Czar is telling her story publicly, including an extended conversation with WUKY medical correspondent Dr. Greg Davis about her treatment and diagnosis. In the past couple weeks, she has covered her own journey to obtain medical marijuana to address some of her symptoms under the criteria in an executive order from Gov. Andy Beshear. A reporter and videographer from WLEX TV-18 also accompanied Czar on a trip to Illinois to legally purchase marijuana.

Czar says, “I’ve had to interview people whose child has been murdered, just in the last year who’ve lost their homes to devastating floods and tornadoes. If I didn’t share this journey, I felt like it would be hypocritical of me to ever go out in the field again and put a microphone up to somebody and ask them to share their most private moments, if I wasn’t willing to do it myself.”

Working a job that can bring her face to face with incredible sadness and strife, she says theater is, “where I go to kind of decompress. It’s where I go to step away for a couple of hours. It’s where I don’t have to think about anything bad that’s happening, and I get to completely immerse into a character and step into a new world. It’s like magic.”

But theater is also a place where we grapple with life, including its sorrow and tragedy.

“What Karyn brings to the concert is her years of wisdom from life and from the theatre,” director Cornelius says of “On My Way.” “I want to embrace those stories.”

Czar says the difference between now and this time last year is knowing.

“Once I realized what was happening, it actually was easier, because I could cope with it and there was a plan,” Czar says. “But what I learned is, if I ever go through this again, where we’re not sure, I just have to find the joy, through the sadness.”

One of the joys for Czar, who has no immediate family, has been an outpouring of support from friends and colleagues, including a Go Fund Me that has to-date raised more than $34,000 to help her address her mounting medical bills.

“I feel so loved and cared for and supported,” Czar says. “That has been the most amazing thing of all is realizing how many amazing people there are in this community, who are just really there for each other.”

“On My Way: A Celebration of Female Composers and Lyricists”

What: Concert presented by the Lexington Theatre Company

When: 7 p.m. Feb. 18

Where: First United Methodist Church, 200 W. High St.

Tickets: $25, eventbrite.com/e/on-my-way-a-celebration-of-female-composers-lyricists-tickets-419809400217