BARRIE  KEALOHA

At the tender age of four, I left a theater in Los Angeles after seeing a touring production of Les Miserables, singing "Master of the House" at the top of my lungs. It was the first live show I had ever seen, but certainly not the last time I would mortify my mother in public.

 

To refine that propensity for making a spectacle of myself, my  mother enrolled me in singing, dancing, acting, and gymnastics lessons, and I drank it all in. I began performing in productions at the local junior college in Rancho Cucamonga, making my first appearance on stage in South Pacific. There, under the bright lights and inhaling the smells of prop shed sawdust and Ben Nye makeup pots, I found my passion. 

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I continued performing in college shows until the age of 15, when I began performing at my own high school, local community theate, and in theatre competitions around California. I was drafted onto the school's Comedy Sportz improv comedy team, where I learned the importance of timing, saying "yes", and the comedic value/life lesson of never taking yourself too seriously.  As one of the few females on the team, I fought diligently to tear down the misconception that "girls just aren't funny", a myth I work to debunk every day (patly because any excuse to use the word "debunk" in conversation is a success in its own right).

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I continued my training at the University of California, Irvine, where I received an excellent education as well as top-notch training in  my art. Additionally, I continued my five-year study of Spanish, culminating in a five-month stint abroad, living and soaking up the language and culture in Madrid, Spain. It was here I honed my language skills and have been fluent ever since. This valuable skill has earned me a lot Spanish and English/Spanish work, appearing in theatrical productions, corporate events for Disney, and in voiceovers.

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After moving back to California from Spain, I found time to perform regionally across Southern California while racking up blue ribbons at cooking competitions at the Los Angeles County Fair and beating out an opponent with five masters degrees on Bingo America, a now-defunct game show on GSN. I was then tapped for the Lead Female Vocalist slot on the Maasdam for Holland America Line, at which point I bundled all my stock pots, Disney VHS tapes, and my cat (Moscow Cupholder) away to my parents and sailed most of the Northern Hemisphere for nine months. I used that money to fund my Big Move to New York City in 2010, which I have called home ever since.

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I have since earned my Actors' Equity Association membership, performing in NYC, across the East Coast, the high seas, and in Paris at the historic Châtelet Theater in Alex Lacamoire's re-imaginging of the classic Bizet opera Carmen--set in 1950s Cuba performed entirely in Spanish. I blog about my travels, scour Pinterest for new recipes and DIY projects, and make time to relax with a bottle of Red Zinfandel and a Netflix queue of twisted-comedy shows.

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