I grew up in Brooklyn with a Jewish ‘wanna be’ Italian dad who worked 15 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. He taught me how to drive a Cadillac when I was six and how to shoot a gun at 10. I was daddy’s little girl.
My Bohemian artist mom raised me, took me traveling with her all over the world and read Shakespeare to me from the time I was three years old as a bedtime story. She took me to Broadway plays, we rode in a helicopter over an active volcano. She was my biggest supporter and my wild best friend.
When my father shot and killed my mom in 1995 and then married her sister, my aunt – for all intents and purposes, I lost my entire family that night- I didn’t think I could go on.
But one day, after a time of wanting to end my life, a close friend in acting class in Los Angeles told me that if I took my life I wouldn’t be with my mother. He tapped into my love for her. For the first time I stepped outside of my pain and realized that my mother would want me to thrive.
I decided I needed to stop living in the past. I had to stop hiding and I decided it was time for me to share my story.
I felt ashamed and like I was damaged goods because of how my mother died. I felt like no one else went through what I did so how could they understand.
But then I remembered mom reading Shakespeare to me. I had also seen Hamlet in London and studied Shakespeare in NYC and London. It gave me comfort knowing someone in literature (Hamlet) lived through something I did. I was no longer alone. His father was killed by his Uncle and then his Uncle married his mother. But in Hamlet everyone died. I didn’t want to end that way.
Then there was a flood of memories that came back to me. I remembered these powerful one-person shows I saw on Broadway that were a mix of darkness and light and strength. Tru about Truman Copote, Night Mother with Kathy Bates and Shakespeare for My Father with Lynn Redgrave. It was a love letter to her father.
I realized everything in my life had prepared me to take the stage with my story. My acting background at top schools in NYC, London and Los Angeles and my experience on stage in NYC and Los Angeles. My knowledge of Shakespeare (having studied it with expert teachers at The Riverside Shakespeare Company in NYC and The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art in London).
Out of that I created my critically acclaimed one-woman show, My Brooklyn Hamlet (a very New York story with 4 soliloquies from Shakespeare’s Hamlet for when regular words can’t possibly express my emotions adequately). I’ve presented it on stages in 10 states and 4 countries.
My message is about redemption and forgiveness.
If you are reading this right now and many things are clicking into place I’m willing to bet that you have a story to tell. That it’s your time to take center stage.
If you aren’t sharing your story, impacting others like you know you can and boldly expressing yourself and your talent we should talk.
Hit the link below to book a short 20 minute talk to see how I can help you step into the spotlight courageously, authentically and boldly so you can make the impact you are meant to in the world
