Most kids get their beginnings in the arts through parents looking to encourage creativity in their children and, most importantly, to get them off their backs. Senior Nora Taylor’s start in the theater was really no different. “My mom was looking for a way to channel my weirdness and need for attention into something positive … I did everything: commercials, magazine stuff, and I was in a movie when I was in kindergarten.”
Though she claims to still be dealing with the realization that her career peaked when she was five, Taylor has never balked at the opportunity to follow her theatrical dreams.
Since choosing to become a theater major at Lawrence, Taylor has never once looked back. She has dedicated almost all of her free time, save those long hours devoted to YouTube, to practicing her craft and has appeared in numerous LU productions.
Taylor is currently playing the part of a man in the all-female production of “Burial at Thebes.” Said Taylor, “‘Burial at Thebes’ is by far the most challenging theatrical experience of my life; I’ve played a man before, but this is a huge part with a lot of crazy emotion going on.”
She went on to note, however, that her favorite production at LU was most certainly “Smash,” in which she was able to both wear sassy hats and lock lips with Asher Perlman.
Taylor’s theatre experience, however, is not confined to the borders of the Lawrence campus. She studied abroad last year at a theater school in Dublin, Ireland and this past summer was able to bring her theatrical skills to her hometown of Chicago, where she served as an intern at one of the best regional theaters in the country, the Goodman.
But will she continue with theatre in the future? Replied Taylor, “Hopefully.” For as we all know, “In this business of show, you have to have the heart of an angel and the hide … of an elephant.
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