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Woman with many interests finds a way to make it work

By ERIN HUSSEY

Cupertino resident Mary Melnick wears many hats: mother, wife, teacher and actor.

"Since I can remember, I've always enjoyed acting," Melnick said. "One of my brothers and I used to write our own plays when we were little and perform them for our parents and neighbors."

Today, Melnick is performing for a much larger audience in the TheatreWorks presentation of Dessa Rose. The musical was written and composed by the creators of Ragtime, Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flahrety. It is an engaging story of pride, perseverance and an unlikely friendship between an abandoned Southern belle and a rebellious slave girl escaping the antebellum South before the Civil War.

"This is one of those stories that just has such deep personal meaning," Melnick said. "Certainly as an elementary school teacher I think about race relations every day and to be sensitive to them, because having my students feel safe and cared about is, of course, the most important thing I have in my classroom."

Melnick, who has taught fifth grade at Parkview Elementary in San Jose for the past six years, said she is not going to invite her students to this particular play because of its adult content.

"This is the kind of play where if you're not true to the truth, then don't do it," she said. "We are black and white in our cast, and it was like we had to turn to each other and give permission to be nasty and to feel hateful in our characters because that's the truth."

Melnick actually plays two characters in the musical: Ruth's mother, a racist older woman who is a strong believer in white supremacy, and Susana, a young Southern girl who chooses not to think about race relations at all.

"I play very different personalities, and for an actor, it's wonderful," Melnick said. "It's so nice to be able to tap into different personalities and try to make them as real as possible."

Melnick's ability to play two very different people is one of the reasons TheatreWorks artistic director Robert Kelley enjoys working with her.

"She is an extremely flexible actress with comedic and dramatic skills," Kelley said. "Her ability to play different ages and different characters is one of her major qualities, and that she has a gorgeous singing voice."

Because of Melnick's love of teaching and now motherhood, she only does one show a year, quite different from when she first started acting in 1999. She chose Dessa Rose this year because of its telling story.

"It's very interesting," she said. "There are some lines early on in the show that say that slavery didn't do away with love. Not that you can put a positive spin on slavery, but its almost like you've got to remember there was bravery and courage even at such a cruel and hateful period of time."

Asked how she balances all aspects of her life, she repeatedly acknowledged her supportive husband.

"Finding that balance is certainly extremely important," she said. "It would not be all right with me to give so much attention to theater and not be a mom."

Melnick also incorporates some performing into her classroom. She loves reading out loud to her students, creating fun and interesting voices, and sometimes uses acting to break classroom tensions.

If there ever came a day when she decided that teaching, parenting and acting was too much, she said she would give up theater, but admits it would be temporary.

"Birds fly; they just do," she said. "Fish swim, and some people just go and kick a ball because they have to. It's just something that makes me feel more like myself."