Mia Kaplan, senior musical theatre major at Texas State University, landed the lead role in the independent film Empire Waist alongside Rainn Wilson, Missi Pyle, and Jolene Purdy.
Kaplan plays Lenore, a teen who has a passion for fashion design but is insecure about her weight. Lenore struggles with bullying by her classmates and image-conscious mother, but through the support from her father, best friend, and teacher, she is encouraged to embrace her fashion design talent and to be confident in her own skin.
“I've never really seen multiple plus-sized people on screen together just existing,” Kaplan said. “I got to grow with the character in a time in my life when I was trying to figure out who I really was. I healed parts of my inner child that I sort of brushed past and expressed myself.”
Kaplan, who uses she/they pronouns, is from San Deigo, California, which is where she auditioned from via Zoom during COVID-19 in the summer of 2021. They received the news about getting the part after enrolling at TXST later that fall. She completed her schoolwork virtually for a couple of months while filming in upstate New York.
“My acting classes in school were giving me credit for acting professionally because I was doing the thing that they were training us to do,” she said. “I came back for finals week and performed an excerpt from the movie as my final. All my teachers were communicative and allowed me to submit videos because they knew I was really passionate about it.”
Kaplan credits Kaitlin Hopkins, former head of the Musical Theatre Program at TXST who revived the acclaimed program in 2009, for guiding her through the college process, and Tom Delbello, assistant professor of practice, for being supportive along her journey.
They attended a screening of the film at a film festival in Dallas where a teenager approached Kaplan after the viewing.
“It was scary because teenagers can be a lot,” they said. “One of them came up to me and said she had never worn a backless dress before. Since she saw me do it in the film, she said she felt like she could do it, too. That’s exactly why I do this. It was so lovely.”
If she could give advice to freshmen musical theatre majors, she would encourage students to take time for themselves.
“You don’t have to say yes to everything,” she said. “There’s going to be a lot of voices in your ear, but your gut is the most important in making a choice.”
Once they graduate, Kaplan plans to move to New York to continue working in both musical theatre and film so they can keep telling stories.
After a theatrical release in September, Empire Waist is now available on video on demand.