My career started at a small toy store in my neighborhood. Living in Orange County, I never really thought becoming an actress was an opportunity I had. OC is two hours away from LA, and the traffic is horrific.
Anyway, a local toy store in my neighborhood decided to start putting on plays. My mom, being the attention seeker that she is (no offense mom!) immediately signed me up. The play this time was Annie Jr.
After two weeks of learning the dance moves, and songs, auditions finally came along. Because I have red hair, I thought I had the part of Annie in the bag. Unfortunately, I didn't do anything I was supposed to do to prepare for the audition. I didn't memorize the songs, or the lines, or anything. I wish I could tell you that I went up there and crushed it and got the part of Annie, but I didn't.
Although I didn't get the lead, I did get a the part of a lead orphan, and I'm glad I did. By playing the part of July, I learned that what I really wanted to do is act. Not sing or dance. Just act. After Annie Jr., my musical theatre days were over. I tried to get into the other plays they put on, but I never got interested.
To this day I still don't like musical theatre, and I can't sing for the life of me. But I'm glad that I did it, otherwise I wouldn't know what I really wanted to do; television acting.
After Annie Jr., I took a long break from acting and I was stuck between interests. I started doing figure skating classes, but that quickly fell out due to my "un-athletic-ness." Finally, I decided to try acting again, but I didn't want to do musical theatre. And that's when my mom remembered a little acting school called The Performer's Academy.
I visited The Performer's Academy, or as we call it there: PA, for the first time in February, 2014. We went in the office and met with one of the office people. Strangely, we had my cousins with me this day, so you can tell this meeting didn't go very well.
Anyway, we met with (I'm gonna call her B because her first name starts with a B and for security reasons), and she explained the classes and her successes, and my mom and I were sold. Sadly, at this time, acting classes weren't in my family's budget. So, we left, and it wasn't until February 2015 that I went back to PA for a second meeting.
This meeting with B was very different than the first one, (thankfully.) She seemed more interested in me now that my cousins weren't around.
Later that meeting, I was shoved into a class with other 13 year olds. The only word I have to describe this class is: weird. The strangest thing I ever did. We did weird improv exercises and got paired up to do The Lego Movie script. It was even stranger being the new kid in the class, and not knowing what to do.
I'm pretty sure at one point I was supposed to imitate Johnny Depp, but instead I just said, "Get on the boat" in a Miranda Sings accent. I think I was also called "lizard tongue" for the amount of times I stuck my tongue out when I messed up during the script.
DON'T GET ME STARTED ON THE TEACHER.
The teacher of this class, Johnny, was one of the strangest things about that class. I still take his class, and this statement remains 100% true. Johnny would yell, speak in gibberish, and confuse everyone in just one class! But trust me when I say he is one of the best teachers at PA.
It was determined at this time that I would take two classes every Saturday.
Every actor has to start somewhere, and The Performer's Academy was mine. Well, sort of.
