Rachel's STORY
Picture me in 3rd grade and colliding with the start of my destiny.
My mom asks:
“Do you want to be a part of the speech contests?”
An opportunity with the church’s local youth group is emerging, hosted by the local Women’s Christian Temperance Union. Of course I say “YES!”.
Suddenly, I’m memorizing long pages of a monologue so I can be judged on how closely I memorize it all. The script, diction, emotion, and a host of other criteria yields me a pin and maybe 5 bucks.
It’s a lot of work, but I love it. And the path begins to unfold for me...
As I grew up, I loved being on stage! I thought it was the natural thing to do. It’s truly amazing what a person can accomplish when no one tells him or her it can’t be done!
Middle school and high school is where my love of reading and writing was fostered by wonderful English teachers who always found me hunched over a notebook working on short stories, novels, and plays.
It began to pay off in tenth grade when my very personal piece of fiction won a National Scholastic Gold Key award, and I was whisked off to Washington D.C. to read a portion of my piece aloud to other national winners.
But...my true love for writing came when I witnessed a performance by a Christian drama Group called the Covenant Players, and they were amazing!
I saw them perform a few more times during my college years, intrigued by what they did and how well they could tell a story with minimal props.
I whispered to myself, “I could see myself doing something like that one day.”
It was a fleeting thought that got lost in the midst of studying for exams and dealing with the normal pressures of trying to figure out life. College ended and life happened.
Something kept telling me that I wasn’t living the life I was meant to live. One evening, the Holy Spirit brought back to my mind the traveling Covenant Players. I could do this, but it meant leaving everything behind.
So I prepared myself financially for a year.
God was there for each step, guiding me through and providing for me at each turn.
I remember at one point I needed sixty dollars for a background check. I was literally living paycheck to paycheck and sixty dollars was a huge amount of money. But when I went to pay my bills, I found that some of my bills were lower than expected. There in my hands sat exactly sixty dollars.
I joined Covenant Players in 2006, and for the next two years I traveled and performed all around the country.
It wasn’t easy. Sometimes the audiences were huge and that was overwhelming. Housing and living closely with fellow unit members meant personal sacrifices and hard conversations.
Still, I was growing a gift inside me. Daily rehearsals, fasted paced learning of multiple scripts and parts, and regular performances sharpened my acting skills and soon I was even given opportunities to try my hand at directing.
I discovered that I liked directing. I loved finding the flow of the play and I really loved helping the actors dive deep into their character’s back stories.
After two years I returned home and to my old job One of the more challenging aspects of a summer daycare program is what to do with the school age children that have too much time on their hands and get bored very easily.
I coordinated a long term project to build unity in the classroom and give them something to focus on: a funny version of “Cinderella”
This is where I found my secret intuitive talent of directing and consulting.
During auditions, I had a shy and quiet girl who didn’t really want to participate. My fellow teachers were shocked when I cast the young girl as the wicked stepmother.
They protested that there was no way she could play that part
“She’s too nice...she’s too shy!”
I stuck to my guns.
One day we were rehearsing a scene, and the young girl had to say very mean lines to Cinderella. She was shaking in her because the girl playing Cinderella was her friend. I paused the rehearsal and said to the girl.
“Hey, I’m giving you permission to be mean. This is just a play, you are playing a part and your friend doesn’t really think you are saying these things to her. I give you permission to be mean.”
A physical change came over her. We started the scene again and this time she stood taller, spoke clear and loud, delivering her lines with a sarcastic twist that almost made me want to
cry with pride!
She had embraced her character!
A few weeks later, her mother approached me and told me how wonderful of an experience the play had been for her daughter.
“My daughter is always getting good grades in school but her report cards always have some comment about the need for her to speak up in class. This has been
the first positive public speaking experience she has ever had. Thank you for that.”
The same girl performed the lead role in the play we did the following year.
All of these stepping stones, helped me to understand that I have a gift in helping people overcome their inhibitions to try something new.
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Since that time, I’ve been helping people write their stories, plays, scripts, and rewriting their destinies through theatre and powerful storytelling.
