No, I’m not just a frustrated actress. I did start acting in plays when I was eight. I kept on doing theatre in elementary, junior, and high school. I’m not sure I knew why I was doing what I was doing.
No, I’m not just a frustrated actress. I did start acting in plays when I was eight. I kept on doing theatre in elementary, junior, and high school. I’m not sure I knew why I was doing what I was doing. I liked doing plays.
When I went to college, my parents didn’t want me to go into theatre (no security, no $$$). My friends didn’t want me to go into theatre (how can you change the world doing theatre?). But I couldn’t stay away from theatre. I loved doing plays.
In graduate school, I thought a lot about why I was doing what I was doing. I wanted to believe doing theatre could change the world. But I thought that might be a rationalization for doing what I loved doing.
As a young teacher, in 1980, I directed Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, and started noticing that the world around me was a lot like the world of the play. Fear. Hysteria. Reagan. The rise of the religious right. That’s when I truly started to believe that theatre could help change the world. And that I had a calling to do what I loved doing. That love in itself can be a calling to do what you do.