Island Life Magazine Ltd August/September 2017 | Page 53

Interview
“I had a bit of a
meltdown when
I got the email
inviting me to the
New York campus”
railway arch at Waterloo Station.
Ultimately, that gave her her first
professional stage role in 5/11, a play
about the infamous ‘gunpowder plot’
of Guy Fawkes.
And the opening night of that play
was to prove fateful in more ways than
one – for it was also the date that she
discovered she was being invited for
a two-year scholarship in America, on
the strength of an earlier audition she’d
done at the Prince of Wales Theatre.
“I had a bit of a meltdown when I got
the email inviting me to the New York
campus” she admits.
“It was partly a relief because I finally
felt that the dark patch I’d gone through
after leaving home, working as a
waitress and living in a place I didn’t
much like, had actually been worth it all.
“But I was also a bit over-awed at the
idea of going to America on my own, so
when I rang my mum and dad and my
brother, I was in tears.”
Not surprisingly, her family – mum
and dad Cathy and Brian, and older
brother Graham – were hugely proud
of her, although it was naturally a big
wrench for them all when she left to
begin her American adventure this
time last year.
Taking Manhattan
Living in shared student
accommodation next door to the
Academy, and just a few blocks away
from the Empire State Building, is
about as far removed as you could get
from Mary’s peaceful cliffside family
home at Chale, but it’s one she has
quickly learned to adapt to.
“It was pretty terrifying at first and
living with 11 other girls certainly has
its stresses, but now it feels really good
to be building a life for myself out
there.
“It’s an international school but there
are quite a few Brits over there and my
best friend is Welsh.”
Work-wise, she describes her first year
as having been “crazy, both emotionally
and physically”.
She explains that rather than rushing
straight into performing, the first
year involves learning to open up
emotionally, to inhabit a range of
characters – and to take criticism.
“There have been lots of ups and
downs and lots of tears, but it’s all
building a good foundation for our
work next year, when we’ll start doing
more little scenes and working with
partners.”
Towards April next year, the students
will be working on a Shakespeare play
and a contemporary American drama,
to which agents and family members
are invited.
Mary also hopes to audition for a third
year of study at the Academy. To get
through, she would need to be selected
as one of just 20 students from 130 to
be taken forward and work exclusively
on staging productions for a year. As
she puts it, that would undoubtedly
be an invaluable ‘shove’ into a highly
competitive industry.
For one so young, she’s remarkably
grounded and philosophical about
the future - not at all the starry-eyed
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