Life Is My Stage

As one of the leaders of our church’s Drama Team, I helped to audition 7 potential actors last night. I thoroughly enjoyed watching them Improv, do a “cold read” of a script, and perform their monologues. Very few things in life energize me as being around fellow actors. Their spirit, spunk, lack of inhibitions, wild creativity, sense of humor. They.Are.My.People. Last night’s experience brought me right back to 5 years ago when I was auditioning for the same Drama Team….

Before we auditioned, we were asked to fill out an application that asked general information, including the dreaded: “Please describe any acting experience.” I glanced over at the others’ answers, feeling intimidated by seeing “Commercial work” and “Professional Voice-Overs” and “Community Theater.” Other than a tad bit of child runway modeling and one acting class in college for non-theater majors (Ahem. I was the only one who got an “A.”), I had no real practical experience.

Yet how could I describe, in three sentences or less, that I have been a frustrated actor since birth? How could I begin to explain that I grew up viewing my life as a performance that I was called to produce, act and direct? As if the world was an empty canvas, and I, the artist, would paint away the white monotony with colorful swirls of my choosing….

I spent my childhood bored with being just “Kelly the Middle-Class Suburban Girl.” So I invented characters wherever I went. I successfully entertained my friends and convinced complete strangers that I was “Inga from Sweden.” Or “Sadie the Orphan.” Or “Random Blind Child At The Park.” I was also “Girl Who Made A Guest Appearance on ‘The Brady Bunch.’” And “Weird Kid At The Mall.”

But my piece de résistance was when I was ten and staying at our vacation condo. I transformed myself into twins, “Kelly and Kerry.” With a quick change of my of my bathing suit and hairstyle, all the other condo kids were fooled. For an entire week, no one questioned that they never saw “the identicals” together. But then I nearly had a panic attack when we both were invited to a birthday party. I gave “my twin” a bad case of scarlet fever, and I went off to the festivities solo. I was feeling proud of my ingenuity, until the discerning mother of the birthday child confronted me on my fib. Being a good Catholic girl, I confessed my lie, and then slunk away in mortification. Did I learn my lesson? Absolutely not!

I was born to act. On stage, in front of a camera, or in real life. It’s an art form. A creative urge that must be expressed. A soul-filler. Other actors know exactly what I am talking about. Which is why, in answering the “Please describe any acting experience” question, I simply wrote: “Life is my stage.”