In college, Teatro de la Luna star Carolina Calderón tried out for a performing arts scholarship on a lark.
Carolina Calderón on acting, motherhood and playing against type
By hola | Published | No Comments
In college, Teatro de la Luna star Carolina Calderón tried out for a performing arts scholarship on a lark.
It turned out to be a life-changing experience. After acting in the Universidad de Costa Rica’s award winning Teatro Girasol, she acted in TV commercials and studied with California acting coaches such as Jeff Celentano, Johnny Timko y Randall England, and Tom Shelton.
Currently, she’s performing in Teatro de la Luna’s “La Vida Que Me Das…y no me alcanza”, a comedy that features three women in a hospital waiting room. Calderón plays Soledad, a young professional who isn’t exactly sure how she feels about motherhood. We spoke to Calderón—a wife and mother in real life—about the role, her acting career and living in the Washington-area, where she and her family settled last year.
Hola Cultura: Tell us a little about the play, La Vida Que Me Das Y No Me Alcanza.
Carolina Calderón: The show is a comedy about three women who are in a waiting room in a hospital. One is a nurse. One is pregnant with quintuplets. And there is me, the professional. Some of the women in the show want to have children, some don’t, and some are afraid to. The play focuses on topics related to parenthood and how to be a woman. It’s not the usual waiting room.
HC: What about your character, Sole?
CC: My character, Sole—Soledad—represents the professional woman who gets married. She had kids way too early in life. The women in the show are very powerful. Sole is a little bit tough; she is friends with Sandra, the one having the babies.
HC: As a mother, was it easy for you to relate to your character?
CC: I think that’s interesting because if you can’t relate to your character it makes it really hard to bring the character alive. I’m a mom. I have a two kids; I had my first kid at 25, and my second at 28. In that way, I can relate as a mother. The role I play as a married person, those aspects I relate to.
But my character struggles a lot. She’s not exactly tough, but she doesn’t see motherhood as the sweetest part of her life. But she learns that it can be good. That part was kind of hard for me to understand.
My character is kind of narcissistic; they make fun of me in the show. I’m not like that. But what I love most in acting is that you can really change your image. People have told me after the show, “I couldn’t believe that was you!” You get to explore more areas that you don’t get to do all the time.
HC: How did you get into acting in Costa Rica?
CC: I will say, when I was little, I always liked to perform. But in elementary school, kindergarten even, I was really shy. But, I don’t know, maybe I wasn’t as shy as I thought. After two years in business school, my family went through some trouble and I needed financial aid, and I heard about Teatro Girasol at the Universidad de Costa Rica. I didn’t have anything to lose, so I auditioned and won a scholarship to finish school. I really needed it, that change in my life. To be a part of that group, with people who acted like professionals, I learned so many things. We worked with the community and performed for people who never ever before got to experience theatre. It changed me.
HC: How is acting different for you here compared to Costa Rica or California?
CC: When I got married I moved with my husband to America (he’s American), we went to California. It’s a different level out there—agents, auditions. I went to a bunch of auditions and they would tell me that they weren’t looking for a Latino actor, or that I had too much of an accent. I finally found the Performance Academy in Orange County and met different instructors. I started having this American acting experience. But in California, it’s very hard to market yourself.
I moved here to D.C. because of my husband’s job. We moved last July. I was online and checking the website of my daughter’s new school and I saw that Teatro de la Luna was just down the road from where we lived. I came in for a reading. It’s very interesting here; I haven’t seen the type of competition as you would in California. So far, D.C. is good for me.
HC: What’s up next for you?
CC: Right now, with all of the material from the play, I want to update my website, and portfolio and keep looking for my next project. Whatever knocks on my door—and I will be knocking on other doors too.
“La Vida Que Me Das… Y No Me Alcanza” continues at the Gunston Arts Center through March 9.
More information about Carolina is on her website.
—Tori Hyndman
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