by Monica Schwarze
Staff Writer
Isela Griffith seems to be equipped with an endless supply of energy. It is 9:30 in the morning and, in spite of a late-night rehearsal for her latest play, “The System,” a full load of classes and a senior project that consists of writing, directing, producing and performing in her own production, she is already hard at work converting slides in the ULV Art Department, pausing only to answer the constantly ringing telephone.
“I love being around artists,” said Griffith, a senior theater major, of her job in the Art Department. “I think we need to keep touching bases in all of our art departments.”
It comes as no surprise that Griffith sees all aspects of the fine arts as being connected. In addition to acting in various ULV productions, she paints, writes poetry, stories and music and sings. When asked if there is anything she does not do, Griffith is quick to reply that she does not play football, and that is about it.
Griffith grew up in Stockton, Calif., where she became interested in acting long before most youngsters her age had learned long division.
“I knew I wanted to be a movie star by the time I was 9 years old,” said Griffith, who solidified her career decision during a third grade assignment in which she stood up in class and announced what she wanted to be when she grew up.
“Everybody laughed at me,” she said. “They thought, ‘That’s not a profession, that’s just glamour.’ Maybe I’m just on a quest to prove them wrong.”
So far that quest has been successful—or at least busy. Griffith has been in several stage productions at ULV, including “Roosters” and “A Flea in Her Ear.”
Although she says that it was “an amazing experience” playing an older woman in “Roosters,” “A Flea in Her Ear” posed a much bigger challenge, because she played a man.
During that gender-bending experience, Griffith said “I kept asking all the males in the cast ‘Am I doing the right thing? Am I walking right? Am I standing right?’” Even when a fellow cast member assured her that she did indeed look like a man, Griffith remembers the role as “pretty scary.”
The opportunity to play a diverse variety of characters is one of the many things Griffith likes about acting. In “The System,” she created no fewer than four characters, playing a talk show host, a juror, a clown and a citizen. In addition to preparing for these trying roles, Griffith will also be playing the Stage Doorkeeper in “Dream Play,” which will run in Dailey Theatre this December.
Even outside of the theater, Griffith finds it hard to confine herself to just one part. When she is not acting, she takes on the roles of painter, poet, singer and, most recently, world traveler.
Last semester, Griffith fulfilled a life-long dream when she spent three months studying at the ULV campus in Athens, Greece.
She decided she wanted to go to Greece when she was 8 years old. She saw a movie on HBO and was immediately smitten with the color of the sea, which she describes as “the world turned upside-down.” Twelve years later, memories of that image prompted her to study abroad in Athens.
At first, Greece was not exactly what she expected. Griffith said that when she first arrived in the country she experienced an acute case of culture shock.
“I was really scared at first,” she said. “The street signs were in Greek letters and I didn’t understand the language.”
It did not take long for Griffith to grow accustomed to the foreign culture, and she now calls the semester “an incredible experience.”
Griffith even picked up a little bit of the Greek language during her travels. She admits that she cannot wait to visit Greece again.
“I miss certain places. I still have the memories in my head,” said Griffith, who can still relate to the sights, sounds and especially the smells of Greece.
“I relate to a lot of things in my life in smells,” she said. “I’ll smell the sea, I’ll smell someone’s cologne from Greece, and it’s like I’m there again.”
Griffith believes that the many friends she made in Greece contributed to the success of her trip.
“I made friends with quite a few Greek people right away,” she said, adding that her friends helped her enjoy Greek life, especially night life.
“The night life in Greece is insane,” she said. “When you come home when the sun is coming up there’s something wrong with that.”
When she had finished her semester in Greece, Griffith packed her bags and headed directly to Paris for two weeks with a class from the ULV Art Department.
“Paris is laughter, light and music. There’s no other way to describe it,” she said. “There was so much excitement throughout the whole trip. Every day we saw something new.”
In Greece, Griffith also had the opportunity to explore another of her many interests—women’s studies. She conducted a survey asking both Greek and American women to describe their thoughts and feelings regarding love. The response to her survey was overwhelming, and she received a number of letters, poems and pictures describing perspectives on love. Surprisingly, she found that Greek and American women had similar thoughts about the emotion.
“The feelings that they have about love interchange and co-mingle,” said Griffith. “There is such a range. It was a great study.”
Griffith hopes to continue studying women’s issues at ULV, and she is considering majoring in either theater or women’s studies in graduate school.
She sees both majors as being connected to the theater arts. Her senior project will consist of a series of short pieces exploring the roles that mothers play in society. Most of her poetry also focuses on motherhood and other issues that are pertinent to women.
“I write from the perspective of women because that’s the perspective that I like better,” said Griffith. “I have to write about what I know.”
Much of Griffith’s writing is inspired by artwork, and she often draws inspiration from her own watercolor paintings. Another major source of her inspiration is music.
Griffith has been singing for as long as she can remember, and she calls song, “a great hobby.”
In addition to performing with the Chamber Singers and singing in University variety shows, Griffith writes her own songs, which she usually performs with her brother Phillip, 19, a guitarist who attends Stockton Community College.
“I think singing is my biggest fear and accomplishment,” she said. “It’s an accomplishment because when I’m singing, I’m completely myself, but I’m also showing that to an audience, which can be scary.”
Griffith credits her parents for supporting her, Phillip and their sister Vivica, a writer, in all their artistic accomplishments.
“My parents don’t have professions in the arts, but they’ve supported all our artistic endeavors,” she said.
Griffith hopes that when she graduates this May she will be able to continue studying theater in graduate school. Eventually she would like to join a repertory company, but she believes in keeping her options open.
“I want theater to be my profession, but I have other interests too,” she said, adding that, deep down, she still has movie star aspirations.
“I haven’t done any film work yet,” she said. “I’m really happy on the stage right now. But in two years, that could all change.”
Monica Schwarze
