Former teen immigrant from Argentina now a Shakespeare star in Wisconsin

Half a lifetime ago, actor Melisa Pereyra immigrated to Idaho from Argentina as a 14-year-old. She was an orphan, taken in by foster parents. She was poor. And she didn’t speak a word of English; she’d encountered Shakespeare only in translation.

Now 31, Pereyra is a core company member at American Players Theatre, where she’ll take on two of the most prominent female roles in Shakespeare’s canon this summer.  

First, Pereyra takes the stage this weekend as Rosalind, star attraction in Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” and the greatest heroine in all of Shakespeare.  Banished from her evil uncle’s dukedom for the sin of being her father’s daughter, Rosalind dresses as a boy and takes to the woods, transforming herself, the man she loves and the world. 

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Come August, Pereyra will also play Isabella in "Measure for Measure," the troubled novice whose cloistered convent world is forever changed when she’s pressured by a duke’s deputy to trade her virginity for her imprisoned brother’s life.

From Idaho to Wisconsin

It’s a huge change for a woman who, while attending Hillcrest High School just east of Idaho Falls, initially had to make sense of what drama teacher David Coffman was saying by watching his hands.

“He’s a very expressive man who truly speaks with his hands,” Pereyra recalled during an interview in Spring Green before rehearsal. “I could therefore always understand him, even though I was still learning English and didn’t know all the words. He encouraged me to just be myself.”

Pereyra went to college convinced that being herself would mean becoming a surgeon. But Coffman had already seen the makings of an actor; even before Pereyra had a firm grasp of English, she’d appeared at Hillcrest in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” – a play to which she returned last summer at APT, playing Hermia.  

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“I played Titania, and after I’d memorized her ‘forgeries of jealousy’ monologue,” part of me wondered why my classmates didn’t shower me in balloons and confetti,” Pereyra said. “I don’t think the kids I was playing with understood what it took for me to memorize that. I’d only been in this country a short time, and my level of connection to Shakespeare surprised even me.”

An ensuing summer stint as an apprentice in Utah’s Old Lyric Repertory Company sealed the deal.

“I had my college premed classes all set up, and then I spent the summer in a theater,” Pereyra said.  “The rest is history.”

Several years later, Pereyra played Lavinia in a 2012 Utah Shakespeare Festival production of “Titus Andronicus.” That’s where she was first noticed by APT artistic director Brenda DeVita, who obviously liked what she saw. The following year; Pereyra appeared in her first APT play. The summer after that, she played the heroine in APT’s “Romeo and Juliet.”

The girl from Argentina had grown into a woman passionately in love with Shakespeare.

“I’ve had an epic life experience,” Pereyra said. “So when I met up with heightened poetry, it matched the heightened place in which I live every day – and in which I’d lived as a child. That’s made the Greeks and Shakespeare my favorites, hands down.”

“There may be nobody in our company more dedicated than Melisa to the idea that Shakespeare is transformative,” DeVita said.  She’s made a life of that.”

Into the woods

It’s little wonder that Pereyra is in love with Rosalind, whose disguises and games of make-believe in the woods paradoxically help her discover her true self.  By drawing parallels between Rosalind’s life and her own journey from Argentina, Pereyra sold APT on casting her in this plum role.

“She started talking about the character, and her journey as an immigrant to Wisconsin,” DeVita recalled, noting that she’d originally asked Pereyra to audition for a smaller role in the play.  “She talked about finding herself through Shakespeare and poetry, and the alignment of Rosalind’s and her own soul searching.”

“Rosalind is amazing,” Pereyra said.  “Even the way she explores sexuality is amazing,” she added, of a character who in Shakespeare’s time would have been a boy actor, playing a woman who then disguises herself as a boy who then role plays being a girl to flirt with Orlando.

“I wholeheartedly believe that sexuality is on a spectrum. Like Rosalind, I can like whomever I want, and be surprised by this in the same ways that Rosalind herself is.  I hope the audience feels empowered by the sense of self Rosalind gains through her adventures.  

“She helps us get past the binary ways of thinking that limit our ability to see ourselves and those around us.  She’s constantly moving through the woods – or whatever is in front of her – and trying to get to the heart of each person she meets.”

Out of the convent

Conversely, the Isabella whom Pereyra will embody in “Measure for Measure” can be as narrow and intolerant in her thinking as Rosalind is open-ended.  It’s not that Isabella’s fiercely held principles are wrong; she stands up against hypocrisy and evil.  But she’s also so sure she’s right that she can’t see others’ perspective. She has loads of integrity. But she exhibits little empathy.

“Rosalind moves through the world with the confidence of one who knows that real grace comes from understanding that you can’t and don’t know everything,” DeVita said.  “But you don’t get to be a Rosalind without being an Isabella first.”

Pereyra agreed.

“Isabella is younger than Rosalind,” Pereyra said. “She’s naïve to the blinders through which she sees – and doesn’t see – the world. She’s afraid. She lives in her head. And she has so much more to learn.”

Pereyra readily admits that she does, too. She continually makes reference to mentors past and present, from drama teacher Coffman in high school to legendary voice and text coach Susan Sweeney, who’d worked with Pereyra back before she ever set foot on an APT stage. Sweeney is helping prepare Pereyra to play Rosalind. 

Like Rosalind, Pereyra knows there are many things she doesn’t know.  Also like Rosalind, she has the confidence to believe she’ll figure them out, doing more and doing it better. 

“I want to be in all the rooms, all the time,” Pereyra said, while mentioning Viola and Hamlet as Shakespearean roles she’d like to tackle in the years to come. “Whether that entails acting, directing, or consulting. Whatever it is, I’m there for it. I want to expand my abilities, in whatever way my community finds helpful.”

IF YOU GO

“As You Like It” runs from June 9-Oct. 7 and “Measure for Measure” runs from Aug. 10-Oct. 6 in American Players Theatre’s outdoor Hill Theatre in Spring Green.  For tickets, visit americanplayers.org/.