Candy Campbell

About the Artist

Candy Campbell, DNP, is an award-winning actor, author, playwright, filmmaker, and fine artist. As a proud SAG-AFTRA member, she has appeared on stage, screen, radio, and television. Candy co-founded an improv and stand-up comedy group and has since created three solo shows. The latest, “An Evening With Florence Nightingale: The Reluctant Celebrity,” has received rave reviews and played off-Broadway, several states,  and in three countries (so far!) Audiences young and old love the wit and wisdom of one of history's most influential women. For more info and videos, please visit: https://FlorenceNightingaleLive.com As a fine artist, before she moved to MD (during the pandemic), Candy studied with several internationally known portrait artists. She was represented by 2 California galleries, has been featured in newspaper and media articles newspapers, and has been enjoying painting again here. For more, please visit: https://CandaceCampbellFineArt.com

Artist's Statement

Overview of my artistic career the past few years as an independent artist: As an award-winning actor, author, playwright, filmmaker, fine artist…and nurse.  I've used my theatrical training to express socio-political questions and concerns. In 1993, I co-founded an improv and stand-up troupe in the San Francisco area. That company performed together for ~ 3 years before we went our separate ways. The result was my first solo show, Whatever Happened to My Paradigm, a 'trunk show' where I did comedic sketches of 7 characters. Within two more years, I created my second solo show, Full Frontal Nursing: A Comedy With Dark Spots, which won kudos and rave reviews of “One to Watch” that year in the San Francisco Fringe Fest, by Backstage West. Then, before the turn of the century, I sought to answer the question: How does the birth of an extremely low birth weight baby impact the family unit? The question arose because I worked as a neonatal nurse. My side gig, as a commercial actor, provided opportunities to pitch the idea to producers. Each of them told me the same thing: If you want it done your way, go to film school. (Sigh) As a newly single mom of teenage children, I reluctantly took classes at the local community college in order to learn the craft. Before I enrolled in the final class to earn the AA degree in film and TV production, I had begun shooting interviews and garnered sponsors who said it was a story that MUST be told. The rest is history. The documentary film, Micropremature Babies: How Low Can You Go? won a fabulous award from the International Medical Media Film Festival (gone but not forgotten) and still sells on 4 continents. [Actually, it popped up the other night on my Amazon Prime channel as “something you might also like.”] That brings us to the present show~ My third solo show, An Evening With Florence Nightingale: A Reluctant Celebrity, was created in hopes of educating and inspiring all audiences (especially young women) that the sacrifice needed to make positive change in any public system is possible... and worth it. This latest project is based on Nightingale's 200 books/articles and > 10k articles, most of which I have read. (Note: As an actor, I felt it necessary to train for another profession, to survive. I chose nursing and I'm glad I did.) The blending of art and science for positive system change was a seemingly impossible task for one young woman during Victorian times. Nightingale had a “calling” to serve all people and change the culture to provide decent work for women, safe childbirth, proper food and housing for the poor, universal education, and improved sanitation. She was a true path-finder and bridge-builder; a 'poster child' for the feminist movement before it was popular; a person so devoted to diversity, equity, and inclusion, that she withstood the wrath of her critics who scorned her as seeking publicity, riches, and fame. Born an aristocrat, Nightingale believed she was given this platform for the good. She mused that her "detractors" supposed she was after fame and fortune. The fact was, she purposely never took a farthing for her work, including when she was Superintendent of a Women's Laying-In Hospital in London and then afterward, as (the first) Superintendent of the British Army Nurse Corps. Furthermore, she returned from the Crimean Conflict an invalid. As such, she rarely left her London abode and conducted 'The Queen's business' as an ad hoc advisor to ALL British colonies of the Victorian era, from those rooms. The result? She consistently ranks among the 100 most famous women of history, along with Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, and Eleanor Roosevelt. I moved to MD during the pandemic to be near family and created a video production studio in the basement of my new home. Now, Miss Nightingale and I are once again performing in-person and virtually! As a fine artist, I studied for many years with some internationally known portrait artists. In CA, my work won several regional juried art show awards, was featured in newspaper articles, and was represented by 2 galleries. I stopped painting for over a decade while pursuing theatrical and film work. Now that I'm a "recovering academic" I have time to paint again!