ACT LIKE A MOTHER

Alex Hurt knew from a young age he wanted to be a parent, but not at the moment when it happened. When his partner got pregnant and the relationship broke down just as his career was taking off, he wasn’t sure he could meet the moment. His own father, legendary actor William Hurt, had cautioned him against becoming an actor because of the instability of the artist life. But instead of backing away...

Betsy Aidem is fresh off a hugely successful Broadway run in the Pulitzer Prize -winning play  Liberation   when she joins Katie and Melanie in this vibrant conversation. She tells of the windfall of work that’s come her way since turning 60, and the years that came before when she balanced a career on the stage while raising her son as a single mom, during which time she often felt everyone had a...

Season 4 opens with a pair of conversations very near and dear to our hosts’ hearts. In this episode, Melanie and Katie speak with their own mothers, Francie Lora and Loreen MacNichol, about what it’s like to recognize that your young child is destined to be an actor;  and the unwavering support both women continue to give to their girls as they remain committed to a sometimes fickle, sometimes fu...

Brand new mama Celeste Arias never could have imagined the expansion she would feel after giving birth to her son - universes of love and enchantment - keeping her afloat during swells of anxiety and extreme fatigue. After her agent dropped her and a frigid NY winter loomed, a fortuitous audition led not only to an escape to warm weather for her young family, but to a juicy role and an opportunity...

Award winning actor Cindy Cheung blames a hot pink flyer stuck to a UCLA campus wall for causing her 180-degree turn away from applied mathematics and towards an acting career. From her days in LA discovering the power of theatre and the importance of representation on stage, to turning down a job helping to build B1 bombers so she could do an acting intensive, to struggling to feel authentic and...

After she was told by someone in the business that she could either have a career or a family, award winning actor April Matthis made it her mission to show the world that it was possible to do both. With intense dedication to her vocation (she went to an audition 2 days after giving birth) and to her child (she nursed him for 22 months), April has created her beautiful career and family with unwa...

As an in-demand Twin Cities actor, singer, dancer and comedienne, Shinah Hey went from one job to the next with barely a break in between. When she was offered a role she’d played 10 years before, she knew she’d hit a creative ceiling. Ready to be seen not as the girl she was when she got started but as the woman she’d become—a seasoned performer, wife and mother of 2—Shinah did her research to fi...

Kelly Lester is someone who shakes things up on a regular basis without even meaning to. While taking some time off from acting to raise a vibrant family, Kelly started not one but two super successful businesses. She then discovered, during one of her daughters’ performances, that her own creative fires were burning stronger than ever.  Kelly entered back into acting a little older, a little wise...

NOTE BEFORE: In this episode we mention suicide ideation and drug use which may be sensitive subjects for some.

 Act Like A Mother creator and co-host Katie MacNichol takes her turn in the interview seat to share her beautiful, funny and deeply moving story of acting and mothering. She describes her early days in NYC - on Broadway one day and back to waiting tables the next - her meet-cute moment...

Growing up in a family of hunters in a town without much art, award-winning actor, writer and director Deborah Puette didn’t have a name for what she yearned to do. After moving to Chicago and stumbling into a breakout role on stage, she set her sights on a career and life that has propelled her ever-forward. Through an unexpected pregnancy, a move to LA, the breakup of a marriage, and seeing her...

As a young woman fresh out of drama school in London, Rosina Reynolds’ wanderlust got the best of her. Instead of starting her acting career, she set sail on adventures that took her to the West Indies, Panama and eventually led her to northern Wisconsin where a San Diego magazine appeared with an article about the Old Globe Theatre.  Was it a series of coincidences and right turns made, or was it...

Welcome to Season 3! Actor Kim Griffin did not move to LA to further her own career. After her daughter's diagnosis with Prader-Willi syndrome, Kim moved her family of 4 across the country in order to have access to the services (and the sunshine) that would benefit her two children. Kim shares openly about her high-risk pregnancies, the special needs of her kids, her own mental health, and th...

Award-winning actor Purva Bedi tried to be practical by double-majoring in Economics and Theatre as an undergrad, but with acting and performing running through her bloodlines, a life on stage and screen was inevitable. In the final episode of Season 2, Purva tells Melanie and Katie incredible stories of her family and how she carries that lineage forward.  She shares about her early career as a b...

As a single gay actor going from out of town job to out of town job, J. Paul Boehmer didn’t think having children was in the realm of possibility for him. Then he met his husband, bought a house and, after a fortuitous conversation, began looking for an egg donor and a surrogate.  In this very special Fathers’ Day episode, Paul shares the fatigue of life on the road and the reality of 8-week frien...

Actor, producer, coach, union organizer and mom to a 13-year old boy, Hilary Ward shares with Katie and Melanie her beautiful perspective on life and work. She speaks about acknowledging the “almosts” and the failures as an actor and not just the wins, how her career doesn’t define her worth, and how theatre can be relevant to the community it takes place in. Hilary explains why  Primary Trust  is...

Mary Bacon is an award-winning actor and a writer who has collaborated with countless esteemed playwrights, directors and theatres. From multiple world premieres to a canon of classical roles, Mary is a celebrated and beloved member of the New York and regional theatre communities.  In this episode, Melanie and Katie speak with Mary about the last 2 decades: from the series of beautiful synchronic...

Growing up as a latchkey kid with 2 working actor parents, there was little doubt that Amanda would follow in the family business. Now the mother of a 20-year-old daughter who has decided to tread the boards, Amanda shares with Katie and Melanie how she found her formula for the work/mom life, and what went down when she left her child and husband behind to hit the road with a show that called to...

Award -winning actor, director, writer and educator Annie Torsiglieri talks to Melanie and Katie about raising her twin boys while holding onto her artistic life after one of her children received an early autism diagnosis. As life's trajectory continued to unfold in unexpected ways, Annie’s humor, curiosity and fierce mama mojo led her family through the darkness and into the light. For 21 ye...

NOTE BEFORE: In this episode there is a brief reference to suicide which may be a sensitive subject for some. Actor, writer, producer, educator and single mom Vivia Font speaks with Katie and Melanie about all things single parenting. From freezing her eggs to shopping for a sperm donor to the ins and outs of insemination and beyond, Vivia's zest for life and figure-it-out-as-you-go attitude i...

Alysia Reiner is an actor, producer, activist, volunteer firefighter, foster parent, mother of a teenager, and a force to be reckoned with. In this episode, she speaks with Melanie and Katie about how she manages her multi-hyphenate life, the long and winding road to motherhood, and why she believes storytelling can save the world. Whether it's FaceTime dinners with her family while on locatio...

Brand new mom Jacque Wilke speaks with Katie and Melanie about what it's like taking on the tour de force lead in What the Constitution Means to Me while figuring out parenting for the first time. Jacque shares the pressure she put on herself to be a supermom and the liberation she found when she embraced how motherhood had rearranged her. From learning her lines during stroller walks to allowing...

In the first episode of Season 2, Katie talks with Melanie about the realities of staying committed to her career while growing a big family. They discuss what Melanie has to consider before even auditioning for a job, how she keeps her energy up while rehearsing/performing and how she stays grounded in the face of life's inevitable curve balls. Currently playing Brooke in Other Desert Cities...

Ursula Meyer, head of Graduate Acting at UC San Diego, recounts the gifts of life with a creative mother and the clear path to teaching that opened before her. When she and her husband found themselves on the path to adoption, a conversation with a theatre friend led them to their child. Through years of teaching and single parenting while her actor husband was on the road to the moment her child...

Actor, educator and single mom Mercedes Herrero shares her story of suddenly and unexpectedly wanting a child in her early 40s, and the creative way she solved that as a single woman. (Hint: in any company of actors, there is usually one gent willing to help a lady out...) After several years of taking her baby with her to auditions, spending most of her Broadway paycheck on childcare, and surroun...

Kate Rose Reynolds is an actor, director, producer and about to be a mama. At 8 months pregnant, she feels she's in tech week all the time, and shares how being an actor has prepared her for the bittersweet ephemerality of pregnancy and new motherhood. She gets honest about her fears of finding the work/mothering balance, even though she herself is a child of the theatre, and her wishes for her ch...