Tale of an almost-lost actress

“If I was reading my own biography, I’d be my hero,” said Allison J, the star of Pitt Rep’s… “If I was reading my own biography, I’d be my hero,” said Allison J, the star of Pitt Rep’s “Tale of the Lost Formicans.”

A bit of an ego and self-promotion seems normal in an actor, but as she said that, her voice became quiet and her eyes shifted down. There was no ego present, only a sense of wonder at what can be accomplished when you want something bad enough.

Allison’s life is far from what you would call settled. Born in California, her parents divorced when she was six and her mother moved both Allison and her sister around the country.

“From the time I was six until I was 14 years old, I was in a new school every year,” Allison said.

She was, however, able to settle down in Oswego, N.Y., for four years of high school. During that time, Allison was no stranger to success, garnering numerous awards for her acting, including local, regional and even national recognition in Shakespearean monologue competitions; she was even chosen as a finalist for the Presidential Scholar for the Arts, a prestigious award that requires nomination from the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts. Among her competitors was Jared Padalecki, who went on to play Dean on the WB series “Gilmore Girls.”

But even as Allison recounts her accomplishments, she appears uneasy.

“I just don’t think about it,” she said with a shrug. “I do my work and get it done. It’s about survival and self preservation, it’s about passion. I was given gifts that I never denied, but never acknowledged.”

As Allison became more successful in high school, her relationship with her mother became rocky.

“There’s a lot of psychological stuff that happens between mothers and daughters,” she admits, which sounds like normal generational conflict, but it went beyond that.

“[My mother] is so amazing, she’s so dynamic, so talented – God, talented and clever and cunning and, you know, just brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, but- sick,” Allison recalled with a pained expression. “She was really good at standing in my way.”

But Allison was not going to let her mother stand in the way of continuing her education as an actress.

“My mom was very clear about there being no money for college,” she said, “violently clear. But I just knew I had to go. I had to go to school and I worked my way through college, always, always, always had a job.”

Saving money from competitions she had won, Allison entered into the first class of the BFA actor training program at the University of Minnesota, but was forced to leave because of family reasons.

She then enrolled in Wells College – a women’s college until its policy changed this past year – for the 2001-2002 school year and absolutely hated it.

“It was so terrible,” she groaned. “I mean, I’m sure it’s a wonderful school and really done wonders for many, many amazing women, but not this amazing woman,” she said with a laugh and, finally, a hint of the self-esteem that was undoubtedly in there somewhere.

Deciding to leave Wells, she sat in her dorm room and surrounded herself with applications for different colleges. She found herself struck by the question that seemed to be on every college’s list: “Why do you want to come to our school?”

“Because I don’t want to be here [at Wells] anymore,” she let out with a laugh. “But I decided that that probably wasn’t really a good reason to transfer,” she admits. “Well, that said, maybe I should decide what it is I really want.”

The search for herself led to two years off from school between 2001-2003.

“I really wanted to really let the actor die,” she explained. “I felt I really needed to do that, was let her, let the art die so that it could become something else, kind of be reborn, so I could have my own little Renaissance I guess.”

After a brief period at Ithaca College in 2003, which ended because of financial reasons on the part of her mother, she decided that she wanted to attend the University of Pittsburgh in the spring semester. Having visited the city many times, she was absolutely in love with it. That goal, however, was not without its problems.

Her application to the College of Arts and Sciences was denied because she did not meet the math requirement; she was told there was nothing she could do. Never one to simply accept “no” for an answer, Allison began making phone calls and was finally advised to look into the College of General Studies, where she was accepted for the spring semester. Smooth sailing, however, was nowhere in sight.

“It was a week before classes were about to start but I hadn’t received a financial-aid package and had not even scheduled classes for the semester,” Allison said.

She was forced to defer enrollment until the fall, but she had already set her life in motion in regards to being in Pittsburgh.

“I had signed up to organize ‘The Vagina Monologues’ in Pittsburgh for the Worldwide Campaign, which is the community program,” she explained. “I had two months worth of work done on it and I had already given my job [in Ithaca] two weeks notice.”

Adventurous as always, Allison decided to make the move and she drove down to Pittsburgh with $50 in her pocket and her car packed full of all her worldly possessions.

“I only have an Escort so I don’t have a lot of worldly possessions,” she joked. “But I can pack her pretty tight.”

She found a place to live and since she didn’t have a job, her roommate was kind enough to let her work off her rent.

“God, I did a lot of work on that house. If there’s anything you need to know about joint compounding let me know,” she laughs, though it is not hard to imagine the 5-foot-11 actress up on a ladder or painting a house. Her strong presence and can-do attitude make her seem capable of anything.

“The Vagina Monologues” was a raging success for Allison and when she looks back, she remembers that night as the night she found the personal Renaissance she had been looking for.

“It was Feb. 14, 2004, around 10 o’clock,” she said. “Seeing these people and being in my element, and being not only in my element as an artist and an actor, but as a woman and an activist and an educator and a student of society and politics and as an organizer, too. It was just all the gifts that I have amalgamated into one and it was like: ‘this was me.'”

She finally began her coursework at Pitt in the fall of 2004 with an aid package that allowed her to attend school part time in the beginning.

Now in her final semester, she is carrying 18 credits, working as a personal assistant approximately five days a week, producing her own album and starring in her first main-stage production with Pitt Rep, “Tales of the Lost Formicans,” by Constance Congdon.

In a play that mixes realism and fantasy, she plays Cathy, the mother of Eric, whom Allison describes as a “loose cannon,” and the daughter of a father suffering from Alzheimer’s.

“It’s been challenging finding her levels,” she contemplated, “because it’s easy to steamroll through some of the scenes, especially the emotional ones. But she’s going through times of change and my life is about change. When I go through change,” she continued, “I say ‘OK,’ boom, I go. I know how Allison would deal with things, but I have to find how Cathy deals with them.”

With graduation fast approaching, Allison wants to spend a relaxing May birthday visiting her Dad in California, but she plans to return to Pittsburgh.

“I’d like to develop a career here before moving to New York or Minneapolis,” she explained. “I’ve never had any roots and it’s weird to think that I have some in Pittsburgh – professional connections as well as emotional connections.”

With all the obstacles that Allison has overcome thus far, and all the recognition she has received in regards to her talent, there is no doubt that this is one actress who will accomplish whatever she puts her mind to.

“Tales of the Lost Formicans” plays through Feb. 19 in the Charity Randall Theatre. For tickets call (412) 624-PLAY.