The First 18 years

I know, I know...it's not that scary actually. I don't have 18 years of a resume to put in here. *LOL* I wish.

I dont' really know what made me acting-mad, but that's how I wound up. I was in several skits and play-lets in elementary school and Girl Scouts. In 3rd grade, I was understudy to Angel #3 in the pageant. I still remember that morning, hoping against hope that Angel #3 was there, because I hadn't memorized the lines. She was. In the Scout skit, which I think was based on "It's a Small World", I played a German boy in lederhosen (hey, it was Girl Scouts) and a Geisha, complete with horridly fake black yarn wig. *LOL*

I started taking classes in 'drama' in jr high school. The only thing I really remember from that time period was a lip sync to a tape of a performance of whatever came after the original airing of an episode of "Upstairs, Downstairs". It was about a French maid and was slightly "naughty", but nothing beyond what Jr High School morality was in Utah at the time.

I tried out for two plays in highschool. The first was "Guys and Dolls". It was between me and a girl by name of Nola Campbell (then) for the part of the Salvation Army General. I was too scared to go for the callback. The second play was supposed to be King Lear. Mr Stokoe kept having me and a girl named Shannon go back and forth between the parts of Goneril and Regan, like he couldn't figure out which one of us should be in which part. In the end, we didn't do King Lear but "Lazarus Laughed". She got one of the female leads. I got the role of "a Roman citizen", "a Hebrew" and Lazarus's mother.

Lazarus's family was killed by Roman soldiers. At the "death scene", we did the 'sword under the upstage arm' ploy. Well, in one of the rehearsals, my soldier was rather energetic, and didn't exactly clear my body. It wasn't a real sword, of course, (thank God!), but I did a WONDERFUL collapse and death during that rehearsal.

It was also during rehearsals for that play that my father died at the age of 47 from heart disease.

I majored in Musical Theatre with an Acting Emphasis my first year at the University of Utah. I was too timid to audition for anything. :( I really enjoyed the dance classes, though. I felt halfway elegant in ballet, but a little intimidated in jazz and tap. Although once in tap class, the instructgor demonstrated something for us all to do. I was about halfway through the line. Every other student did it slightly differently, coming down on a different beat than he had. I waffled as to whether or not to do it that way, or to do it the way I thought it should be done. After all, most of the class was dance majors. But I did it my way and when everyone was through, the instructor said, "Every student did that wrong...except one." I tried hard not to preen; I hope I succeeded.

Since I didn't have the gumption to even ask someone to be my audition for the pass or fail end of the year audition, I would up with a 2nd year voice student, who naturally picked a scene that would show off her talented voice. That audition was two weeks before the first year audition. Just before going on, one of the teacher's came back and said that they had discussed things, and would just use that as my audition too. Way to give me time to psych up for it.

I still remember the comment on my sheet by one of the teachers..."No future in theatre. Find another line of work." OUCH! Part of me had enough sense to go say that I didn't think it was fair to spring the audition on me that day, to which they agreed. But then I didn't even go to the first year audition.

The next year, I switched from Musical Theatre to Acting, but the damage had been done. I wound up changing to business and eventually just stopped going altogether. It was a big disappointment to my mother.