Tinkerbell’s career takes flight

Today, I assuredly, most definitely and absolutely believe in fairies.

It’s the morning after watching my daughter Emily literally explode from the sky in her role as Tinkerbell in Peter Pan: The Show, and I am awake early because of her hauntingly fabulous performance. 

Now, I have a long tradition of heaping fatheresque praise on Emme’s memorable performances – one of her first was Milky White the cow in the Marblehead Middle School’s production of Into The Woods – but this was different. First of all, she spends much of the two and a half hour show suspended in mid air by two thin-looking cables. They tether her to the earth, but clearly not to reality, as she spittles, growls and yelps her way through the show as a manic femme fatale in a pink tutu.

She did a great job with the time-honored tradition of having the audience bring Tink back to life by confessing their belief in fairies, and otherwise created a Tinkerbell that I quite frankly was unprepared to meet. I won’t go into great detail about her role to preserve the surprises for her older sister and mom,
both of whom will be in LA next week to see the show and might read this posting before they head west.

But I have to comment, as a father and #1 fan, about the evolution of an actress from a little girl who has always loved the stage, the limelight and the thrill of the script.

The 1,200 others at the Orange County Performing Arts Center last night saw Tinkerbell emote and brood, soar and retreat, torment and console, connecting the characters to one another with intensity, inventiveness and humor.

I saw all of this, yes, but I also saw a little girl of six or seven, sitting alongside Andrea Noble in the second-floor auditorium of Marblehead’s Abbot Hall, dressed as babies and doing a skit they learned at Betty Lautner’s theatre school.

I saw her auditioning for the lead in Annie, ignoring the fact that singing isn’t her most endearing theatrical talent and belting out “Tomorrow!”, the possibility of rejection be damned as she once again rolled up her sleeves and went for it at the ripe age of 9 or 10.

As a child with her first agent, she had her face on software packaging and her voice in museum exhibit voiceovers, and these memories coursed through my head as I watched her once again descend from the clouds.

I saw her as an Puck in the Rebel Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, prancing and leaping in a role very similar to the one she has just begun in Costa Mesa and will soon take on the road with her troupe to Atlanta and Chicago after that.

I saw her as in period costume, reciting sonnets at Salem’s Pilgrim Village, and in countless school and theatre school productions, wringing what she could from whatever role she earned, and celebrating in every moment of her time on stage with like-minded cast who shared her passion for performance.

More recently, as she began to find her stride in LA’s entertainment world, I saw her feet in photographs of shoes, her body dancing in music videos and her acting talent showcased in film, commercials and webisodes.

All this ran through my mind as I watched her unveil a very different Tink that combined her enormous personality, technical training and creativity with a role we all know and love.

I saw her in audition after audition, dressing and looking the part, ignoring the odds and setting herself up for rejection.

I saw her grow up, mature and build a healthy relationship with an artform I’ve come to understand a bit through her generous and patient teaching of a well-intended but largely cluess father. The profession is much, much more than we laymen might appreciate: demanding, harsh, judgmental, rewarding, infuriating, compelling.

And on Friday night – just six months out of college from UCLA’s theatre, film and television school having landed her first significant theatrical role – she literally took flight in her 19th performance of a show that will take her across the US and beyond.

It was hard at times to see what she was up to through the tears that clouded my vision as all these images ran on a memory loop in my head. I wasn’t alone, as the woman in the row before me proved, dotting her eyes with a tissue as she made her way from the venue after the show.

“I cried through the whole thing,” she told her daughter, who gently took her elbow to help her down the stairs. “Me, too,” said the daughter, “and that Tinkerbell….”

I couldn’t resist.

“Excuse me,” I said, tapping the mom on the shoulder. “I have to tell you because I am about to explode. I am Tinkerbell’s father.”

“You’re kidding!” she breathed, and launched into platitude after compliment about Tink’s role as the glue that bound the whole incredible show together.

I basked in the glory of the moment, for myself, yes, but mostly for a little girl who believed in herself – and, I suppose, fairies as well – long before the rest of the world caught on to her great secret of immense talent packaged in her diminutive body.

I never had a doubt about Emme’s chances in entertainment: it’s a lock. I’ve seen my little tiger fight the odds again and again, not only unfazed and undaunted by the lousy odds, judgment and rejection but actually made whole by the challenges that come with putting oneself on the line for the chance of a role.

No, there’s never been any doubt that Emme would find success on the stage, in film, or in some form of entertainment that would allow her to make a living by doing what she loves and at which she is so very, very good.

The other people in Friday night’s crowd saw her theatrical debut as Tink.

Me? I saw her as my talented, beautiful and incredible daughter for whom success has long been in the cards – yesterday a little girl in pigtails on a hometown stage; today a professional actor.

She’s Tink for the masses, but I knew her when she was just a cow.