I wrote my one woman show ‘Beneath My Fathers Sky’ after having some time of feeling very low about not knowing who my Birth father is.
I think there are different stages of grieving in all this adoption stuff.
I had felt at times levels of frustration at not knowing but I always had hope that it would be possible that one day I could find out.
As the years went and I reached another birthday it hit me really hard and I had to ask myself the question’ What if you never know, How will you cope with that?”
I went into a pretty deep depression and as I felt that pain and grief for this man, I was surprised that I could feel so much for a person that I knew nothing about, no face, no idea of family what he did for a living, who he was as a person.
I had two things he was Italian and his name was Vittorio and those I grasped onto.
I wrote my play during Hurricane Sandy, we had now power for two weeks and I sat in my room in the dark and I began to have this conversation with the daughter that had never been born, my Adopted parent’s child that had never arrived.
I wrote the dialogue and it flowed between us as if she was real, but to me she was very real she always had been.
And that’s how the play started, I wrote about relationship with my adopted father and my need to know my Birthfather and I used my music to tell my story.
It felt so healing for me, by telling my truth it helps me live with the unknowns, the void of not having a basic human right, a picture of your own father.
And somehow by performing and sharing my truth it helps me live with it and make sense of it all.
My good friends Eric and Eliza Roberts directed the play. When I got accepted in Untied Solo I called them in a panic.
“Teach me to act in four months, no pressure”
I have never been so nervous when I went on that stage, which took me by surprise as I have performed so much over the years but this was different, somehow one can hide behind singing a song but performing a one woman show there is no hiding.
But I found out I LOVE to act and have been thrilled at the response.
