While living in a boarding school in South India as a girl, with parents nowhere to be seen as their work elsewhere, serving humanity, one’s imagination had free reign, as well as one’s ingenuity. I escaped one day, scampered down to the bazaar to see a movie that I had heard whispers about, called ‘National Velvet’. I slipped into the back of the movie hut and fell under a spell. This was my first movie. From this moment on, my passion for books became a passion to be an actress. This passion never quelled.
In my early 30’s, as a single mother, living in Charleston, South Carolina, here was an active theater community. My antennae were perked but my hands were more than full because I was the sole bread winner for my daughters and my hands were literally full with baking cookies to sell to survive. Even so, my antennae could not behave themselves and insisted that I pursue. I called a woman who was a noted star in the Charleston theater community and asked her how one went about ‘getting into a play’.
A few weeks later, The Post and Courier printed an add for auditions for “Seize the Street”, a roller skate musical to be presented at the upcoming Spoleto International Arts Festival, and I decided this was it. This sounded like a dream…I was a solid skater, I could sing and I could surely act. It did not occur to me, that the fact that I had an intense inability to be in the spotlight might be an obstacle.
My girls, aged two and a half and five, rode with me to the auditorium for the audition. The advertisement had said that I would be asked to sing. We pulled into the parking lot and I suddenly realized that I would be on a stage. My heart, soul, brain and emotions fell through the floor, and shaking tearily, I told my girls that I had made a mistake and I couldn’t do this. They had both absorbed my enthusiasm from the get go and this thud did not sit well with them. There was a role reversal. They looked at me seriously and said “You said this is what you have always wanted to do and so you need to do it.”
Oh boy.
We three got out of the car, and we three walked up the aisle of the auditorium holding hands. There was a young woman on stage, singing with sheet music and accompanied by a pianist. I froze and said ‘Let’s go”…and the girls held my hands. I signed in, suffered through professional sounding actor after actor and my name was called. I was asked what I was to sing, as the pianist was on board and I said ‘The Marvelous Toy’. I was humbled by feeing that I was eons out of my league…and a cappella was the only way as no one knew this song. I took a deep breath, looked at my girls in the front row and I did it. I got a major role. During the opening performance, Gian Carlos Menotti stood to lead the standing ovation, came up to me and said “You are a very funny, talented actress.”
Haha. Well…..my acting career lived only a few years as my fear of being spotlit did not recede, however, what came from this is that I created and directed an award winning children’s theater company in Charleston, called ‘The Magic Circle’…and from here young, some very young, actors grew wings…and some became adult professionals.
My joy in the theater community, which is not alive in my world now was the community. The pulling out the stops to work together on bringing a story to life and then presenting it to others.The camaraderie…the fun…and lifelong friendships…the ecstasy of communal creation.