Act Well

Next week, I have to give an icebreaker speech at Toastmasters. The assignment is to give my fellow club members some information about my background, interests and ambitions. Below is the draft of my speech, which may need to be trimmed for time. But I wanted to share it here, as it's the first thing I've written in a long time.



Whate’er Thou Art, Act Well Thy Part.

I received my introduction to the theater at age five, when my kindergarten class performed “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” I was desperate to play Goldilocks, but my teacher surprisingly gave that role to a little girl in my class with a head crowned by golden ringlets. To my mortification, I was given the consolation role of Mama Bear. But when I got up in front of that class, something happened – I discovered that even in a less than dream role, I still loved to perform. No matter the part, there was joy and exhilaration to be found in playing it well.

Over the next several years, my theatrical experience took place mainly in my living room – putting on puppet plays from behind the couch or acting out the soundtracks blaring from our record player. I had a few opportunities to perform in front of an audience while still in elementary school, but it wasn’t until middle school that my love of being on stage came to full flower. From sixth grade to tenth grade, I had a part in my school’s spring musical. And no matter who I was cast to play, I attacked the part with gusto. From being a nameless chorus member in Once Upon a Mattress to having just a few lines in Fiddler on the Roof to starring as Peter Pan – there was a thrill in every show I did, in every role I played. In addition to my school shows, I had the opportunity to do some community theater and increasingly was given opportunities to sing solos at church and with the school choir.

Performing became my passion. I had always dreamed of being a wife and mother when I grew up, but now I wanted a little something more. I wanted to be a wife and mother who was also on Broadway, perhaps starring in shows I’d written myself in my loft in New York City. Not too far fetched of a dream, right?

When I was 16, my family moved across the country, from Maryland to Arizona. It was there that I became acquainted with a whole new theatrical experience – rejection. I auditioned for a community theater show and did not make the cast. Later that year, I tried out for my school’s production of Fiddler on the Roof – a show I had been in two years before. My audition was the best of my life. People who didn’t even know me and some who didn’t like me were congratulating me after I was done. I was sure I would be on that callback list. But I wasn’t. Upsetting, sure. But it was my first year at a much larger school. It was okay. I would still make the chorus. But when the cast list went up that next week, my name wasn’t on it. And I had to learn how to play a totally different role – audience member.

Senior year, I rebounded, performing in three shows, including the crown jewel of my acting career – playing the part of Emily in Our Town, proving to myself that I was not just a singer who could act, but truly an actress. In the fall, I packed up and headed to Provo to attend BYU with a major in theater. Talk about being a small fish in a big pond. There were 27,000 undergraduate students at the Y and it felt like every single one of them was in the theater program. After two years of school and one student-directed production, I came to a sad conclusion – I wasn’t that good. I decided I was never going to make it as an actress, so my major was just a waste of time. Unsure what else I would possibly want to do, I decided to take a break from school. I moved home and took a full-time job. After about a year, I went back to school as an English major, having decided to return to my first love – writing.

Around the same time, my high school sweetheart returned from his church mission and we resumed dating almost right away. Before a year had passed, we were married and two weeks before our first anniversary, I became a mother. Now here was a role I was born to play. Few things in my life had ever felt so natural and so right as holding my little boy in my arms, kissing his soft cheeks, and singing him to sleep.

The script of my life, in my mind, was now written. My husband would graduate from college, start his career, we’d have four more children, each about two to three years apart. I’d be the stay-at-home mom who volunteered in the classroom and chaperoned field trips. When my kids were older, I’d take community college classes to continue to learn and expand my horizons. Maybe I’d even get involved with community theater again.

However, I soon learned that the script I’d outlined was not the final version and that there would frequently be new lines and pages. Occasionally there would even be major rewrites which would require me to take on new roles I’d never thought I would play. The first of those came to me in the form of my husband leaving me when our baby was just five months old. For the next four years, I would play the role of “single mom”, a part I fumbled my way through with the help of my family, the best supporting cast anyone could ask for. In the first year of my new role, I lost a member of that supporting cast. My dad now watches, waits and cheers from the wings.

Over the years, I’ve taken on many new significant roles. I happily became a wife again in 2003 and added children to my family in 2005. And in 2007. And in 2009. And in 2011. In 2006, I joined CDA as an administrative assistant, moving on to assistant coordinator, then coordinator and now administrator. At church, I’ve had the privilege of being called a teacher, sharing and discussing true principles with children, teenagers and adults through both word and song. I’m also a mom to two boys with special needs, a role that I had strangely expected, but that also took me completely by surprise.

Whate’er thou art, act well they part.

Although I’ve taken on many parts, it has been over 16 years since I last performed on stage. The roles I play now are not accompanied by bright lights. The only costumes in my life are on Halloween. There are no standing ovations when I finish a load of laundry or the dishes or wrestle with my six-year old to brush his teeth. But I have discovered that there is a greater satisfaction to be gained than that which can be found through thunderous applause. When someone learns something new because of something I said or from a program I helped develop. When I relieve a loved one’s anxiety or stress or give a co-worker a helping hand. When my husband puts his arms around me and tells me he’s happy. When I watch my children play outside, their faces shining, their bellies and hearts full. That is when I know I have acted well my part.