Theater=Life=Theater

I was almost 35 when I discovered that I loved the stage. I had screwed my courage to the sticking place and auditioned for a play at our local community theater. The part required a British accent, and I knew I could do that. Still, my performance background consisted of public speaking, and the director had a difficult time getting me to come around from behind the couch. I was used to a lectern, you see, and felt very exposed without it.

My second show changed my life. The focus was no longer accent, but acting. The character was a woman who had been bullied in high school, and who, ten years later, stands up to her bully. Something I had never done in school. Suddenly, a huge weight was lifted from my shoulders, and I began standing up to bullies in my real life...beginning with SSS. That marriage survived for another year, as I came to realize that a husband who has been bullying for 13 years fully expects to do so for the rest of his life.

Over the years, I have played a lot of characters...housekeepers, nuns, prostitutes, neurotics, duchesses, shopkeepers; each has presented its own challenge.

Presently, I am playing Mother Teresa. The next one is a rather butch parody of Miss Marple. After that, I'm hoping for a role in "Steel Magnolias."

I'll let you know how it goes.

Occasionally, I am hit with the scathingly brilliant idea that I can direct a play. To tell the truth, I'm still a bit giddy over the success of "Waiting for Godot" from last season at Sam Bass. I have filled this season with work, including directing "A Company of Wayward Saints" in the Spring. This presents its own challenges, as does "The Tempest Project," which I will be costuming.

I guess I learn a little something from every show, and take that cumulative experience to the grocery store, the costume shop, and everywhere else I go in life.

Beats hell out of being bored!