R.J. Lavine
IÕve always been a late-bloomer. When my
friends started dating, I was still playing with Barbies.
But my slow maturation has given me the opportunity to live an entire arc of
personal experiences and I bring them all to my acting craft.
As a kid, I wanted to act. And though people
assured me I had talent, at auditions I froze. My throat tightened. My mind
shuttered, as if protecting sacred treasure. What if my specialness were
exposed? Would it vanish? I became discouraged and timid and parked myself
backstage, both literally and figuratively for several years.
Four years ago,
though, I enrolled in a Meisner Technique
class. My vulnerabilities were exposed, and I felt confident this time, not
discouraged. Whenever real life happened (the birth of my daughter, emotional
and physiological changes), I resented the interruption of my training, but
gradually came to embrace my timeline. My experiences comprise a body of
research.
Connecting
my stories to the stories of my ancestors and other local historical figures
particularly interests me. We tend to think about history in the abstract. Live
theatre offers an opportunity to emotionally connect with the past as well as
the present. It also gives meaning to my own lived experiences. I
believe acting guides me to examine aspects of myself I donÕt yet know exist.