Rita La Serra, East Boston
Way back when, Rita La Serra did the whole dancing-in-a-friend’s-band thing. She was Amazona, queen of the jungle, never seen a man before, dancing up there in a mini skirt, a tiny top, lace-up leather boots with a six-inch heel. But that was one song, one character, all those years ago.
She never really gave a thought to acting. Then along came a new theater in East Boston, where she’s lived all her life. It was something different from her day job, working for Verizon. Something totally new.
Here, in her own words, is what happened when Rita took a risk.
“I was never part of a theater group at school or any of that kind of thing. I did take a class here or there but I was not very good, and I was fine with that. It was just an easy A.
And then I went down to volunteer at this new theater that opened up. When I showed up, I said, “I want to volunteer,” (and) she looked at me, and she said: “You don’t want to read?”
And then, as they say: The power of Yes. I had that moment in my head, I said, “Yeah, sure, why not?” And then I was cast. And I’ve done five shows now.
It’s weird, I know.
You know what it was? I enjoyed it. I couldn’t believe how much I liked it. I mean, I was terrified. That first show, I didn’t even tell anybody I was in it. I mean, cuz I was like, “Oh, I’m gonna suck.”
When I was back there, before we went on, I could have thrown up at any given moment. You couldn’t grab the script out of my hand, I just kept reading it over and over and over.
(But) once I was on there, I was okay.
This last one I did was for the Footlights Club, which is in JP. I went down there on a whim to audition just for fun, let me do something different. They’ve been around for 141 years, so I did not expect to get cast. I mean, the level of people that were there!
And then I got called. And then I got cast. And I was like: “Great, I got cast!” And then I went: “Shit, I got cast! What am I going to do now?”
And it was a trying experience at first. I hit some bumps. Definitely had to have a sit-down at one point with the director, the producer, like: “I don’t know guys… I feel sometimes like maybe I’m not up for this, but I want to do it. I feel that maybe you made a mistake, because I don’t know if I’m good enough, you know?”
They were really great. They were just like: “You were picked for a reason, you got to keep that in your head. We chose you for a reason.”
And that’s hard to, kind of like, own, when you haven’t really felt that way about yourself. So that took me a while.
And then it was funny, one of them would check in with me after every rehearsal: “How’s it going?” “How’s it going?” “How’s it going?”
I felt like I owed them. But I wanted to owe them. Owing them didn’t become a burden. My main thing was, I did not want to let the cast down.
I loved the camaraderie of it. There was a bunch of people in a room with an idea, a book, and it’s like, Okay, we’ve got to bring this to life. And I really felt lucky because I got to see all these other people perform. I felt like every single time I learned something new.
I think that’s one of the things about it: To find something at my age that I enjoy so much. I deal with depression and all that stuff, and I found that this was almost like a natural anti-depressant for me.
I actually was really lucky. I actually had someone at each show that I didn’t even know was coming. So that was a lot of fun for me, that people were so supportive and I appreciated that a lot.
And for me, this production (at Footlights), Our Town, will always mean something special because they have this thing called White Glove that they do. So, like, one person gets it at the beginning of the show, and they’ll get it if they’ve done something great. And the last girl to get it was Rose—and she’s just wonderful, she’s going to New York to be a real actress actress, like to study and all that—and I thought that was fantastic!
And then it was the (last) night, where we break everything down, we’re done, everybody gets to go home, and she decided to give it to me.
And I could see other people in the cast were just, like, so glad that I got it because it wasn’t expected. Because the show was over. But she was going to New York, she said: “It’s not right that I keep it. Because it should stay with JP.”
And I was not expecting that at all. I mean, I don’t even remember why she said she gave it to me, I was frozen. And I’m trying not to cry. Like, this is unbelievable to me. This is really unbelievable.
It was all of it, right?
It was them talking me off the ledge. It was my commitment to them, to say: “I’m not going to be that weak link.” And then, I think, for some of them, they realized my struggle.
And then at the end, I think I got it for my performance as well, cause I think if I wasn’t very good, I don’t think they would have given it to me, no matter how nice I was. I managed to handle my own. And you know, just how I was, they felt (it) added something, so that meant a lot to me. It really did.
I guess what I want to say to people that feel like myself, that get lonesome, or alone, and don’t know what to do, is: Keep trying stuff until something maybe fits. Because you never know what that might be. It might be, like, you know, start going to committee meetings of your town. Maybe you like them, maybe you don’t. That’s okay.
Just keep trying for something, cause you just never know what might catch your eye or what might work. You just never know where you might belong.”
Rita was interviewed at her family’s home in East Boston by story ambassador Kevin Ballen. Her interview was transcribed and edited for clarity and flow.
