8-2-16 Interview

8-9-16 Bell, Book and Candle at the Players Theater

Although always a “dramatic” child – acting out scenes from TV and making up stories, it wasn’t until her middle school teacher’s extremely positive reaction to the pantomime she’d created and performed, that Helen Holliday, realized her “passion.” From then on she knew that she was going to be an actor, and although her parents would have preferred another occupation for their “dramatic” daughter, they knew, as she knew that nothing was going to stop her. Listen to Helen describe how her complete “confidence” in her ability drove her and how that ability created a lifetime of performing, direction, stage managing and anything and everything that had to do with the theater. And come she her direction of Bell, Book and Candle at the Players.

Ann Gundersheimer knew from a very young age that she wanted to be an actor; she can still recite a piece she performed in elementary school. Her father, a charismatic lecturer, inadvertently encouraged this impulse by sharing his love of oratory with his daughter. But her parents frowned on the idea of her having a career on the stage so Ann majored in English instead of theater in college, although she “acted all the time,” and then got her Master’s Degree in theater. But her life took several other turns so she wasn’t able to purse her passion for acting until she retired. And now she is finally able to act as often as she is cast, which is fortunately quite a lot. Listen to this thoughtful, talented woman talk about her life and come to see here as one of the larger than life characters in the Players production of Bell, Book and Candle