I Gave "A Piece of My Heart" a Try
- Rachel Pearl
- Apr 27
- 3 min read
There are so many actors that I admire, and many of them have a theater background. There is a presence, a vulnerability that makes their delivery more grounded, believable. I think it’s a good exercise to name the attributes of these performers. What makes their scenes stand out? Why? It took me more years than I care to admit to learn that acting is volumes more than the words on a page. It is so little to do with the words, really. They are a vehicle to to keep the story moving. Its everything else that an actor does that really tells the story.
Working at Vanderbilt for a year it has helped me tremendously. I get to act more weeks than not. Before that I was working on auditions when they trickled in and trying not to overthink every movement of my face or inflection of words. It was exhausting. Now I get to demystify the action of doing the work. I get to explore how far I can go. I am very grateful for this job.
I still don’t go far enough with my acting, but I am still learning.
I saw on Facebook a couple of months ago that a coworker would be directing a play at a community theater in Franklin. Before reading any of the script or any blurbs I agreed to audition for the experience. It would be readers theater. I haven’t been in any theater productions since high school (but I was in a musical every year!) except for a part in the Vagina Monologues a few years back. The readers theater element disappointed me at first, but it eased up the whole venture for me because we would be seated on stools reading from the script. I could just focus on the words, ironically.
I told myself it was just for the experience, but I quickly grabbed onto a part in the play of a young gal who played guitar and would be singing throughout the piece. Perfect! More than exercising my acting chops and getting the feel for the stage instead of acting for camera, I would be singing again and expressing myself in a way that I have missed terribly. I prepared by making charts to the songs in the script, trimming down my long, pointy nails, and tuning up my ukulele. My nerves grew when I read through the play. It is actually very similar to the Vagina Monologues in that these are real experiences from women who went to the war in Vietnam. Some nurses, doctors, intelligence experts, and one USO singer. Absolutely awful things happened to all of them. As an actor, its equal parts terrifying and exhilarating to attempt darker themes. I do meet with some hard themes at Vanderbilt. I’ve been told my baby is brain dead, a son that was hit by a car, as well as many other disturbing variations of medical problems going wrong. This play would be doing that in front of an audience! My husband would be there. What a trip!
If you saw the performance you noticed that I wasn’t cast as the USO singer. I wasn’t any of the other women who went to war either. I was a man. My delusional self didn’t expect that result at all, but after an evening being blindsided by my sureness of booking a bigger role (I have no experience, remember?) I put on my big girl panties. “Relax, learn a little”- that was my mantra.
One thing I noticed immediately- everyone was so much louder than I expected. My misophonia caused me to struggle with this a bit. It is a stark contrast to film and TV acting. Even at the table read most of them were aiming for the other side of the living room, outside even. It was a constant reminder for me to dig deeper and use my vocal training from college to work on my volume.
Overall, I was very impressed with so many talented women working on this project with me, and a few days and four readings later we performed for one night only. It was well attended and received. I heard that people were crying waiting in the bathroom line at intermission. I had made some new friends and explored some new experiences in my acting career.
I will try out for more theater experiences in the future. Go read the script for “A Piece of my Heart” by Shirley Lauro if you get the opportunity. There are some similarities politically to the place that the US has found itself in recently.
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