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Life & Arts

UH grad student keeps chasing her dream

Hyde keeps theater in her life, but her true goal is to be a star

by MELISSA SEUFFERT
The Daily Cougar 

Andrea Hyde has known since she was a little girl that she wanted to be an actor, and says she loves being on stage.

"To me, there's no other feeling than being on stage in front of a live audience. I've wanted to do this since I was 5-years-old."

Even her family knew she was a girl with a plan, she said.

"My uncle was always impressed and said, ‘You meet other people who travel through their whole life and don't know what they want to be or what they want to do and you've known what you wanted to do your whole life,'" Hyde said. "I refuse to give up that dream. I don't care how long it takes."

Hyde, a 38-year-old graduate student in the UH School of Theater, says she is a crossover student between acting and design.

"I'm kind of in both of those worlds, I love to design costumes and did so last semester for our student production of The Danube. Acting is my first love, but a costumer will always find a job," Hyde said.

She does, however, voice her aspirations.

"I would love to be a movie star," Hyde said. "But you have to have a step in reality too, and so I've always loved teaching and feel that I have a lot to give in that area."

Hyde said that she has always found teaching rewarding, and it is one of the reasons why she decided to get her graduate degree. She is now both a teaching assistant and graduate assistant, and said that having her graduate degree will enable her to teach at both the high school and college levels. Hyde said she is almost done with all of her classes, and has already applied for an internship at the Texas Shakespeare Festival.

Hyde went to Conroe High School, and said that was when she became highly involved in theater. She was president of the Thespian Society, but said as graduation approached she still hadn't decided where she wanted to pursue her education.

Family issues didn't enable her to study outside of Texas, and so she said she was torn between attending UH and Sam Houston.

During her senior year, the UH-affiliated Shakespeare Outreach program visited Conroe, and Hyde said that it impressed her so much that she was sold on UH. The program, directed by UH professor Rutherford Cravens, brings UH students to area high schools to perform Shakespeare plays.

She started UH in the fall of 1985, but said that she didn't study continually. During her time off, she married David Rutledge, a sheet metal foreman who is based in Houston. The couple has been married for 16 years, Hyde said, and she graduated in 1998 with a bachelor's degree in theater.

Hyde said that the UH theater program is one she is happy to be a part of, but that it isn't as well known as it should be.

"I saw an ad that said we were one of the best kept secrets, and I would have to agree with that statement because I've been able to study with amazing teachers," she said. "It's a very good program. In the time I've been here I've seen that program grow and get better and get stronger and have been able to reap the benefits from it."

Hyde said that she has been heavily involved with the Houston theater community. She worked at the Alley Theater for seven seasons, where she was an overhire stitcher, the head of wardrobe for a couple of productions, and then moved into marketing.

Through the Alley, she met Paul Hope, a resident company member who invited her to participate in the Bayou City Concert Musicals. She said the organization is one of her favorite things to participate in.

"What it does is raise money for the AIDS Center, and that really has a big place in my heart," Hyde said.

She said she rode her bicycle from Amsterdam to Paris with the organization and raised $5,000 for AIDS vaccine research.

"(It's) one of the things I enjoy the most because that program involves a lot of the acting veterans of the city that you may not get a chance to see all in one place," Hyde said.

She also had the chance to work with the Houston Young Playwrights Exchange through the Alley, which she said is a good program for budding writers.

"From an educational standpoint that's fun because that program hires people, picks students from high school students and produce their plays," Hyde said. "We actually get paid; they give us a stipend so the kids have an opportunity to see their work on stage."

Although Hyde said she is completely serious about her acting, she did have one guilty pleasure when it came to showcasing her talent--when she worked at a mystery dinner theater in Houston.

"It was cheesy theater and it was just a great opportunity for me to exercise my legs getting back into it," Hyde said. "I had the best time."

She said at the theater, people eat dinner in multiple courses and the actors act out a mystery around them. The audience has the opportunity to help solve the mystery, and it helps actors because they are able to interact with the audience and work on their improv skills, she said.

Hyde's latest venture was acting in the UH production of The Government Inspector. She said that for her it's like coming full circle, since her character's husband was played by Cravens, who 21 years ago exposed her to the program that convinced her to come to UH in the first place.

She said the play, which ended its run last weekend, is about a small country town that mistakes an individual for a government inspector, and "comedy ensues."

She also said she loved working on the comedy, which had one of the largest casts she's ever worked with -- about 16 men and 14 women, plus the entire crew. She said the play had much physical comedy, the costumes were "outlandish," the set was "kind of bold and crazy" and somehow despite the extremes in the different elements, everything just came together.

"It's not a stage production," Hyde said, adding that that aspect is what made it fun.

The play received a good reception, Hyde said, and although she said one of the hardest things to do is make people laugh, it doesn't get her down when the audience isn't as vocal.

"You find yourself as an actor trying harder to make people laugh, but what you have to realize is that each audience is different and just because they're quiet doesn't mean that they're not appreciating the work that you're doing," Hyde said. "They're having just as good as a time as when the audience is being more vocal. They're just expressing it in a different manner."

Hyde said that people should not give up on their dream, no matter how hopeless it may seem.

"Never give up, because I have been auditioning for a while and I just feel that through different trials and tribulations that hard work does pay off," Hyde said.

"If it's something that you want bad enough, you only get one whack at this, and everybody's ship comes in at a different time," she said. "And I'm still sailing."

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