Today, I am going to tell you all something about me, that most of you don’t know about. Only those who know me in real life and not even all of those friends know about my passion as a youth.
When I was young, from the ages of 10-17, I participated heavily in community plays. If I had to estimate how many plays I was in, I was probably in somewhere around 30 plays over those years, 2-4 plays a year depending on all my other after school activities. By the time I was 14, I was a pretty seasoned actress…if I hadn’t burned out on it by the time I was in high school, I could have stole the stage and some of the best roles in our high school plays. But, the sad fact was, that I did burn out and even though acting was still this great passion of mine, in order to not burn out, I could only handle doing one play a year, maybe two, if I had a small role in one. So, I had to choose wisely what plays I chose to participate in. Mater Dei High School afforded a few plays a year, one large musical in the Fall, one or two small plays in the Winter and early Spring and the Senior Musical in the late Spring. However, my home town offered a large scale Summer Musical that was part of the summer school program. Which afforded the directors of the Musical the pick of the litter from all the schools in the Corona-Norco Unified School District. I always participated in the Summer Musical, I participated in one of Mater Dei’s Fall Musicals and the Senior Musical when I was a Senior.
The reason I always participated in the Summer Musical, is because the director (George Giorgetti) was my acting coach and the director of all the plays I participated in when I was younger and a lot of my friends that did plays with me in the previous years also participated in the Summer Musical. After my father died, Mr. Giorgetti kind of became a surrogate father in a way. Looking back, I definitely looked up to him as just that. This man knew me and saw me grow as an actress, as well as from a child to teenager to college student. At the time, I think he was the one adult in my life that I actually respected. I gave my mother hell in my early teen years and I gave a great many of my teachers hell as well. My father had died and I was really pissed off and angry about it. To say I was jaded was a fierce understatement. But Mr. Giorgetti knew I was in pain and just let me be. He didn’t judge, rather he showed me how to use what I was experiencing, by letting me fuel my emotions into acting power. I now had something that could help me cry on queue and something to express anger when I really needed my character to express it. It was wonderful therapy for me and I was on fire.
The more passionate I got about acting, the more I wanted to get better. I would practice my lines and my character over and over again. During auditions, I only gave my absolute best, this included singing. I never had the best voice, but I tried my hardest to carry a tune well and I usually succeeded. I would rehearse the scene in my head over and over and envision how I wanted to portray my character and I would usually nail it. The more I grew as an actress the more I wanted to get the lead part, the heroine. However, no matter how hard I tried, I never got the heroine part. I was a bit ticked about it and eventually I just started asking what I was doing wrong not to get the lead. To my surprise, I found that I wasn’t doing anything wrong. The best actors and actresses hardly ever get the hero or the heroine, because anybody could be the hero or the heroine…they are quite easy parts to play. Not everyone can portray the floozie, the villain, the goof, or the old cooky granny as easily. These parts, although not the lead parts take more talent than the straight-laced hero and heroine.
You see, me and a few other young actors and actresses had what you would call, stage presence. Stage presence is when an actor can stand front center stage and command power from the audience, feed on it and suck them into the scene. Not all actors and actresses can do it and this is why few movie stars go to the stage and few actors and actresses transition to the screen. When you have stage presence, you can be larger than life, all actions are overly exaggerated onstage…because, quite simply, if you do things small and subtle onstage, no one can see what you are trying to portray. On screen if you do things the way you would on a stage, it would look way out there and quite corny, because the screen lives on subtle…due to the fact that cameras do close ups and movies are hardly shot like plays and musicals are performed. The best actors and actresses can stand front stage, look individuals in the audience, point them out and make the person in the audience nervous, happy, sad…in a sense, touched.
I could do that…God! I lived on that! I fed on that! This power I could wield would then be channeled right back into the scene and I would feel larger than life and my character would come out running strong. When the scene was over, I would get applause that sounded like thunder and it gave you such a high, that no drug could ever give you. I don’t care if you want to debate this, but there is no drug like the grand applause of an audience. Such absolute validation and sense of accomplishment would wire me for hours on end. After the play, I didn’t feel tired, I felt like a live wire…I had the energy to go on to the cast party…then afterwards, I would absolutely collapse when I got home, because acting is hard work.
I loved acting, it was such a passion of mine. This is quite possibly why I love to go to plays and watch movies. Mr. Giorgetti unlocked this whole world of acting to me and I loved it. It served me so well especially when I needed it the most and didn’t know it. I have such fond memories of the times I was in his plays and musicals. Every time I see a really good actor or actress in movies or in plays, it takes me back to those many acting lessons and plays I was in. I think, my God, Mr. Giorgetti would love this scene or this actor…they can really command that stage presence that we all strived for.
That being said…if you haven’t seen the “Dark Knight,” you need to. If you want to see what I mean about stage presence…which I have never seen onscreen until tonight; go and see it. In the scene where the Joker (aka Heath Ledger) storms Bruce Wayne’s fundraiser for Harvey Dent, you will see some of the best stage presence demonstrated by the Joker. It gave me goosebumps! Heath Ledger definitely left the world before his time.
