From May 20 to Aug. 16, Zidaru will be living in Brownsville, Neb. where she will intern as an actress in three plays at the summer-stock production in the Brownsville Village Theatre.
Luelana Bustamente
– Staff Writer –
This summer, many students may be relaxing and taking time off from classes. However, STLCC-Meramec student Monica Zidaru has a different plan.
From May 20 to Aug. 16, Zidaru will be living in Brownsville, Neb. where she will intern as an actress in three plays at the summer-stock production in the Brownsville Village Theatre.
“The fact that someone who’s seen my monologue believes that I would be good enough to perform on their stage with such talented people is incredible to me,” Zidaru said, who is also applying to the Columbia Chicago University for spring 2012.
Born in Romania, Zidaru moved to the United States with her family when she was 5. At 18, she began studying at Meramec and did so for two years.
She describes herself as a shy person, Zidaru always wanted to be an actress, but she was scared. When she came back to Meramec for her second time, she decided that it was time for her to finally do what she wanted. During her first semester, she enrolled in several different acting- and writing -related classes.
“I always heard that if you want to try out acting, the first thing you have to try is a community theater, so I just came back to Meramec. Here there are a lot of auditions,” Zidaru said.
Her first role in a play was in “The Trial of Miss Emma Brody” written by Meramec student Dennis Corcoran and directed by Michelle Rebollo, theater professor at Meramec. After that, she participated in the showcase, “The Moral Fuzzes,” directed by Meramec student Beth Pajares.
Last semester, Zidaru got a small role as a Romanian woman in the musical “Assassins,” also directed by Rebollo. After that, she auditioned for “Miss Julie.” She played Christine, a religious servant who worked for Miss Julie.
“I still feel close to Christine even though I completely disagree with her ways of life. When you are on stage, you are your character’s advocate and you have to best represent them,” Zidaru said.
Zidaru’s representation of Christine on stage got her elected to go to the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF), a national annual theater program involving 18,000 students from colleges and universities divided by eight regions. Missouri is a part of Region 5.
Since its foundation in 1969, according to KCACTF, the institution has given more than 400,000 college theater students the opportunity to have their work critiqued, to improve their dramatic skills, and to receive national recognition for excellence.
The Region 5 competition this year was held in Iowa, where 600 acting students, 300 selected by the adjudicators plus 300 partners chosen by the students to act with them on stage, were competing for a scholarship.
“It was very stressful and challenging. I didn’t get to go to the second round, but I learned a lot,” Zidaru said.
Zidaru used this critique to improve her acting skills to compete for a professional audition that was held at the same time in Iowa.
“A friend from Meramec had told me about this audition before I went to Iowa. It was a nerve of the rack,” Zidaru said. “Keith Oliver helped me a lot for that.”
For her presentation, Zidaru chose a classical piece, “Pericles” by William Shakespeare, and a contemporary monologue, “Suburbia,” which she had to present both in exactly two minutes with a two-second pause between each other.
“I was so nervous. I didn’t think I would get anything. I saw my number posted on the wall half an hour later and on the next day I did an interview,” Zidaru said.
Zidaru was casted by director Charles Harper to work on three plays this summer at Brownsville Village Theatre. Currently she is concentrating her efforts in an internship at Hot City Theatre in St. Louis where she will be part of the play “Intelligent Life,” which will be showing between April 29 and May 14.
“Being an actor is not easy. Only 10 percent of actors get a job and that scares me,” Zidaru said. “I want to try other things in the media, such as write a book and work as a musical director, but I might change my idea when I get to Columbia College.”
