About Me

It all started when…

I mean…I guess I should have known this was my destiny. At age 5, I was cast as the Bird with a solo in our kindergarten production. That may not seem unusual, except that I had just enrolled in this school…after returning from living in Brazil for a year…and I couldn’t speak a word of English! And yet, 3 months later, they give me a solo!

Then in 1st grade I was cast as the lead in our class play: a princess who’s heart was stolen and subsequently returned. I was sick the day the teacher passed out the scripts so for the longest time I had always assumed that no one wanted that part, and since I was absent I was just stuck with it. Upon having my own children, and helping out in their classrooms, I now understand that teachers don’t work that way, and that mine must have seen something in me and known I could handle a big part like that.

Fast forward a few years and we reach that moment I mention on my homepage. As I said, my mom began taking me to theatre productions at the community college where she worked. I saw a number of musicals, but it wasn’t until I saw that straight play with that incredible actor, did it hit me that THAT was what I wanted to do with my life. The amazing part of that story is that incredible actor…was actually Jeremy Renner. Mr. Hawkeye himself (Avengers, The Hurt Locker, Mission Impossible, The Borne Legacy and most recently TAG)! Mr. Renner if you ever find this, thank you from the bottom of my heart. You made that little 11 year old girl feel so special. When she asked for your autograph and was so nervous she could barely say her own name you said, “That’s ok! I’ll just put Big A!”

Now, as most stories go, because I knew exactly what I wanted to do, that meant that at first I was going to run into some major rejection as a test. My next theatrical opportunity was in 6th grade, I wasn’t cast in our class play. Freshman year in high school I wasn’t cast in either of the major productions so I did crew. Sophomore year I wasn’t cast in the first show but was finally cast as ensemble in the second show, Fiddler on the Roof. Those rejections taught me about…well, rejection. And those years gave me time to learn more in my theatre classes and grow as an artist. When Junior year rolled around I was READY and I was cast in a supporting role as Mary Warren in The Crucible. And by Senior year, I was running with the big dogs of theatre geeks and was cast as one of the leads in the ensemble play Neil Simon’s Rumors.

After graduation, I auditioned and was accepted into an actor’s training program at a different community college in our area. I liked it and was doing really well, but sometimes life leads you off track and after a few months, I left the program and was a lost artist. I returned to the stage a couple years later for two more productions and then took a leap of faith and moved to Los Angeles. I spent a year and a half working with different coaches, going through a commercial actors training program and working five days a week on different sets as an extra, but ultimately, realized L.A. was not the life for me.

This area is best left for future blog posts but the gist is that I had a lot of fear and self-doubt and had convinced myself that acting wasn’t a feasible career. So I re-enrolled in college and started a path to my business degree and worked in office jobs full time. I met my children’s father and we married a few years later, had kids a few years after that, and settled down for the traditional life, similar to the one I had growing up.

Acting still tugged at my heart all through this time. I tried to ignore it. Tried shoving the calling deep down. It wasn’t until a few years into parenthood, when one day, I was happily folding baby clothes and watching Glee and suddenly…I burst into tears. The Glee kids were graduating and heading off on their various artistic, post-high school adventures, and I was JEALOUS. That was where I had gotten off track and it felt like a mirror was being placed in front of me and I was having to face my failure head on. The artist in me was refusing to be ignored any longer and she was demanding either I figure something out, or my soul would die.

So, I wiped away my tears, spoke to my partner that night, and made a plan to audition for the next play. I was reminded of the pleasure of rejection that first time out, but the second audition stuck and I was cast in The Women at Prospect Theater Project in Modesto, CA. It had been over a decade since I had left the stage, but it felt like coming home. It was an amazing experience and set me back on the path I was meant to be on.

PHEW! That brings us all the way back to the present. I’ve been working ever since that show, most often in voiceover, but also getting to be active in the theatre community again, which makes my heart the happiest. My kids’ dad and I divorced but we are still good friends and even better coparents. So, that’s my origin story! Thank you for reading it and I hope it inspires you in some small way and I hope you’ll follow me on the amazing journey I’m on!