But first, let’s talk about me.

Once upon a time in the far away land of Verona, Wisconsin lived a young maiden by the name of Alyssa. Having recently returned from the bustling metropolis of the Big Apple, she was ready to start the next chapter of her life having just graduated from NYU with a dual degree in Sociology and Journalism and having no idea what the hell she was going to do with her life.

While the young lass split her time between her childhood home and her California transplant boyfriend’s condo, she filled her time studying to be a personal trainer, working part time at Dick’s Sporting Goods, and most importantly, indulging in her creative side at the Verona Area Community Theater.

Now before you start asking why you should care about any of this, let me explain. I feel it is important for you to get a small glimpse at who I was in order to understand how I experienced the world that is my hometown community theater. And since I am a true “theater person” it obviously has to be done in a dramatic way.

So, we really should just take this all the way back to the beginning. Really give you the full picture.

I started with the Verona Area Community Theater (remember VACT for short) in 2002 when I was eight years old in their 10-year anniversary production entitled Encore. I wore see-through white shorts and a hot pink show t-shirt and danced my little heart out on that stage as a member of the children’s chorus. I was on top of the world as I belted my lungs out to “Food, Glorious, Food” and trotted around a large group circle in “Tradition”. While I am still bitter to this day that I lost out during callbacks to be one of the Von Trapp kids for The Sound of Music medley, I felt like I had finally made it. I was a musical theater performer.

I grew up alongside VACT. As I grew the organization grew. This correlation occurred mainly because my mom (the fabulous Terry Dvorak) was working to raise children and a theater simultaneously. Over the course of my childhood the organization fundraised to build their first official self-owned rehearsal space and started a children’s theater, teen theater, and a summer camp program. My youth was filled with watching my mom work tirelessly along side other VACT OGs to build the organization up to its full potential.

When I went to college in 2011, I was sent off with fond farewells. The obnoxious theater loving teenager they had come to tolerate made a loud exit to pursue a higher education.

I will be honest, I thought my time in Verona was done. I thought I would take New York by storm and never return. Visions of Tony Awards, opening nights, and production development labs filled my dreams. Now I was clearly delusional, because neither of my degree programs had anything to do with theater. But since I couldn’t really sing, didn’t really act, and could not dance as well as I used to due to a lovely ankle correction surgery, I didn’t really know what I was going to do.

Journalism led me to an internship with the Stage Directors and Choreographer’s society in their publications department (and by department, I mean Elizabeth). Elizabeth gave me opportunities to interview famous Broadway directors and choreographers, write about existing theater programs, and learn from the words of the people I admired through the SDC Journal publication that came out quarterly.

The highlight of my time there was when I got to interview Jack O’Brien (director of Hairspray, Catch Me If You Can, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, etc.) I was super nervous as my mom and I walked into Lincoln Center so I could interview him during a break from his rehearsal for Macbeth (starring Ethan Hawke, no big deal). I was extremely anxious about the interview as he was the most high-profile person I had interacted with in my lifetime. Luckily, Jack was an absolute joy to interview and helped ease my twenty-year old nerves as I worked through my questions.

I ended the interview with a simple question: what advice do you have for aspiring directors and choreographers? He pondered it for a few moments before he said the words that I was not expecting to hear: “get out of New York.” Now I had spent my whole childhood dreaming about moving to New York and here this Tony Award-Winning Director was telling me I had to leave? WTF. He proceeded to tell me how someone could spend years working their ass off to only be an assistant’s assistant in New York.  However, by moving to a smaller market and actually working as a valued member of a creative team, a person could cut their teeth doing the actual work they wanted to do.

This advice, along with one other very convincing factor, pushed me away from New York and back towards Wisconsin.

Enter a romance.

At the end of my Freshman year of NYU, I fell in love with a dark-haired boy from Los Angeles, CA. We had been dating for about four months when my father “spontaneously” had a work trip to New York so he could meet my new guy (strategically before my mom was scheduled to meet him at Thanksgiving, which she is still bitter about).

As I watched my dad dangle a promising career complete with travel, stability, and a nice pay check in an amusing campus environment I thought two things: 1) Really Dad? You are very manipulative if you think this is how you are gunna get me back to Wisconsin. And 2) oh crap Jeremy is moving to Wisconsin.

As Jeremy went through the application process, testing process, interview process, hiring process, and moving process, I struggled to imagine how my life would take a different direction than what I had always thought. Jeremy moved to Wisconsin at the end of my sophomore year of College to begin work as a Project Manager at Epic Systems. We did two years of long distance as I finished my bachelor’s program.

My final year of college was extremely difficult. I had very tumultuous falling outs with women I had considered to be my closest friends and was left feeling unbelievably isolated in a city of over 8 million people. I longed for friendship and family to ease the pain of loneliness.

As my own graduation approached in 2015, I was broke as could be and had very few friends. I realized that moving to Wisconsin was really my only option if I wanted to be a responsible, self-sufficient adult. I had a boyfriend there, family support there, and the opportunity to do theater again there. While a part of me worried I was giving up on my dreams by moving back, another part of me knew I didn’t have any other options that were practical.

I realized that moving back to Wisconsin was the smartest, safest, most realistic, and frankly easiest decision I could make at that time. Plus, Jack O’Brien told me to leave New York, so really, I was just following the advice of a Tony-Award Winner.

With my final semester light in classes, I was able to start transitioning my life back to Wisconsin and simultaneously, back into VACT. I knew that if I was going to come back and re-enter my community theater home as an adult, I could not half-ass it. I needed to establish my own identity in the organization. I couldn’t just be Terry’s daughter. If this was my path, I was going to charge down it and accomplish as much as I could.

I’m pretty sure people were not expecting this particular bullet train to barge back in with as much force as she did.    

I immediately started choreographing for both adult and youth shows again. I joined the Board of Directors. I became the newest director of the teen program. I tried to help as much as I could in their most recent fundraising mission by redesigning the website and taking over the social media direction. I led fundraisers, donation-based dance classes, parents’ night outs. I was developing a full-on obsession with my work there.

I crammed as much VACT into my life as I possibly could, which definitely got to be a bit overwhelming at times but I didn’t care. I wanted to do something meaningful with my time not only for my theater home but for myself. If Wisconsin was my going to be my life, it needed to have meaning.

So, let’s fast forward back to where we are today. We’ll just quickly jump over the nine shows I directed, the twenty-five shows I choreographed, the four Regional High School Theater Awards I won, and the personal parking space I was awarded. Hey, I told you I was going to achieve as much as I could, right?

In all seriousness, and setting all of the obnoxious gloating aside (Sorry!), I will always be extremely grateful for the years that I have spent at VACT. VACT literally shaped my adult life. As an organization, they gave me opportunities to explore the depths of my creativity, learn how to lead groups of various ages, work through challenging interactions with people, and understand what it means to truly work as a team. I feel fully equipped to handle whatever the next chapter of my life is going to be.

There comes a point at any job when you worry you have become too comfortable. As much as I loved working on shows and working with amazing teammates, I felt that I as an individual was coasting in a way. I wasn’t finding the challenges or opportunities I needed to push myself as a creative person. There is so much to be proud of at VACT, and so much still for the organization to achieve. However, I felt that I needed to step back into an uncomfortable world and find something that truly challenged me. I realized it was time to leave the nest once again.

After six(ish) years of working as an adult in the Verona Area Community Theater, I decided to take my journey to Hollywood with Jeremy (who has upgraded himself from Boyfriend to Fiancé). For my fiancé, it will be great for him to be close to his family once again. As for me, it will be a scary adventure, but one that I feel ready to tackle.

Mr. O’Brien, I cut my teeth in a smaller market. It’s time to take a bite out of a bigger one.

Now, if I sound like a cynical, sarcastic, and sharp-tongued twenty-something, then that means my writing has come across correctly so that is great. Underneath my brazen tone I hope you will see what this blog is truly meant to be: a love letter for my time with the Verona Area Community Theater.

I would not be who I am today without this organization and my theater family. Therefore, without further ado, I present Tales from Your Hometown Community Theater.