My kindergarten teacher once asked me: “Elyse, what do you want to be when you grow up?”
“A bird’s nest-maker,” I said. The class laughed.
“What does ‘a bird’s nest-maker’ do?” asked my teacher. I couldn’t respond. Not because I didn’t know the answer, but because I was an unbearably shy and quiet little girl.
As a young person, I would spend hours in my driveway playing make-believe alone. I would carefully sweep up sticks, leaves, and grass, then fashion the resources into little spheres and throw them into the trees. I wanted to help the birds build their homes. Seemingly silent on the outside, I had a wild and colorful imagination on the inside. And I felt things very deeply.
So, at five years old, my parents, enrolled me into acting classes at First Stage Academy. I will never forget The Giant Jeff Frank (academy director at the time) kneeling to my level, so he could actually look me in the eyes when he spoke to me. First Stage would become my “safe place” throughout my teenage years. I would find my voice, gain confidence, fall in love with storytelling, and dedicate myself to the craft of acting.
This would also lead me to see productions at all of Wisconsin’s professional theaters throughout my high school years. Because I wanted to be as skillful as the actors I saw on Wisconsin stages, I would audition and then choose to attend the UMN/Guthrie Theater BFA Program, where I would thrive.
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Post-college-graduation I would spend a decade living the nomadic-actor lifestyle. This included doing long seven-month contracts at Shakespeare festivals, working at the country’s leading regional theaters, and touring.
What I didn’t know then was the desire to work in the community I grew up in, to work at the companies that I long admired, with the actors who inspired me most would eventually lead to me moving back home to Milwaukee.
As actors, we strive to live truthfully under imaginary circumstances. We serve stories. We are asked to feel things very deeply. I still have a wild imagination, but I don’t make-believe alone. I am forever a pupil of this arts community and am honored to have worked at nearly all the theater companies in Wisconsin. I’m currently in the adult cast of The Hobbit at First Stage. It is directed by (now Artistic Director) Jeff Frank—who is still super tall, but no longer an unreachable Giant.
“The Hobbit” at First Stage, February 3 - March 5.
Visit: elyseedelman.com
Photo Credit: Erol Reyal
