The legacy of Lexington actress Alex Simpson

Off the Beaten Path with Sam Dick

When visitors step inside the new home of the Lexington Theatre Company on Alexandria Drive, they may notice a silver-colored plaque on the wall with a sketch of a young lady smiling.

Below her picture on the plaque it proclaims, “The Alex Theatre, lovingly named in honor of Alexandra Hudson Simpson.” Past the plaque, doors lead to a new black box theatre with mirrors lining one wall, and a piano in one corner.

It’s quiet on this afternoon, but normally it’s full of performers rehearsing, laughing, and focusing on their craft.

Alex Simpson, a Lexington actress, would have been right in the middle of all the action because she loved the theatre and all the pieces that make it breathe.

Lyndy Franklin Smith is a co-founder (along with her husband Jeromy) and Artistic Director of the Lexington Theatre Company.

“Alex was a force and a light. She was as kind and wonderful and loving and giving, but she also was a hard worker. She wanted to be pushed. She wanted to be challenged. She always pushed herself to be excellent. She was so much fun. She loved, loved, loved theater. She loved everything about it. She loved being on stage, but she also loved the work. She loved being in the rehearsal room. She loved the craft. She loved being around the company.”

Alex’s mother, Melanie Simpson Conley, says her daughter caught the theatre bug at an early age, around four years old.

“At a young age, she just commanded your attention. Part of it was her quirky little personality. But she loved the stage, and it loved her right back. The stage was her escape from all of her health woes. I think she found it a way to be someone else. When she would play an actor or actress, it was an escape from her reality.”

The reality was a journey that no parent ever wants their child to endure. At thirteen, Alex was diagnosed with a rare, aggressive cancer called CIC-Dux 4. It’s a sarcoma where tumors form on different parts of the body.

Melanie says Alex had a tumor the size of an avocado on the back of her neck.

“It's just soul destroying to see how few kids, how short their life spans are with it, how quickly it comes back, how aggressive it is. But she beat the odds for a really long time, just not giving up and refusing to let it beat her.”

Melanie says Alex refused to be limited or defined by cancer. “She did her own research, and she asked the tough questions, as I told you earlier, she wasn’t scared of the truth, and she just wanted to know what the game plan was. So how do we beat this? What do we do? And she didn't like the word no. It was, you know, that was not acceptable. It's like, why? What are we going to do? And how do we move forward? And if this is what I have to do to beat it, this is what I'm going to do. These are the cards I, you know, was dealt in life, and I just have to play them.”

As she endured surgeries and chemotherapy Alex pursued her love of the theatre. She honed her skills at the School for the Creative and Performing Arts, known as SCAPA at Lexington’s Lafayette High School, and she sang and performed in musicals at Central Christian Church in Lexington.

Michael Rintamma, Musical Director, remembers Alex. “She was sharp as you would ever believe. I think she knew every line in the entire show and every lyric in the entire show, even as a very small kid, and she you could tell that there was an energy. She just beamed when she was on that stage and right here in the right here in our sanctuary, right on these steps.”

Alex had lost her father, Billy Simpson, to cancer when she was eight so from an early age she saw the cruel reality of cancer. From age 15 to 21 Alex’s cancer disappeared, and she used the opportunity to enjoy other passions of her life like butterflies, travel, adventures, and all things French, one of her majors at Dartmouth College.

Her mother says, “If there is a silver lini

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