Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 8, 1995 TAG: 9501060051
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KEVIN KITTREDGE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
She was a student at Crystal Spring Elementary School in Roanoke. And she went to Mill Mountain Theatre with a family friend, to see "Annie Get Your Gun."
Dressler left the theater with stars in her eyes.
"I loved it. I was so excited. I said, 'I have to do this.' ''
And she has.
Since her very first role, at age 11 - in "This Bright Day," a musical written for Roanoke's centennial, and performed at Mill Mountain Theatre ( "I had an understudy," recalled Dressler. "I was like, 'How cool is this?'") - through her latest, a movie shot in a New York City apartment, Dressler has stayed the course.
"It sounds so flaky, she said. "I don't know if I'm going to be rich or famous. But I know I'm meant to be in this profession.
She has sailed to some undeniable successes. Two weeks after graduating from acting school, Dressler auditioned and was hired for a role in the European tour of "42nd Street." She performed in Vienna, Paris, The Hague, Hamburg and Munich.
She later played the lead in the Mill Mountain Theatre production of the same musical - where her first performance drew a standing ovation. A review in this newspaper noted Dressler's "plucky charm and appealing innocence."
Which sounds about right. Though one might add some (necessary) ego, too.
The truth is, even as a little girl, Dressler hardly minded being center stage.
"I guess I was always pretty theatrical," she said, sitting Indian-style on her bed in her West 82nd Street apartment. The apartment is small but homey, in a quiet neighborhood of stately old brownstones a few blocks from the Hudson River. "I was pretty animated. If they dressed me up in my little Mary Janes, that did it.
She has blond hair, green eyes, an answering machine whose message she seems to change daily and a personality that lights up at attention, which she no doubt often gets.
Part of this is professional reflex. You never know who may know somebody, be somebody - and be impressed enough by you to help you out, she said.
Dressler said she grows tired of being always "on."
"You think, 'Gee it would be nice to go out and just be silly and run and turn a cartwheel.'"
But Manhattan isn't really that kind of place.
She lives with a television set, a boom box, a stack of CDs and a few shelves of books that include a volume entitled "The Road Less Traveled." She is 24 years old. There are photographs of her family on a shelf beside her bed.
Do her parents worry?
"Of course they worry," Dressler said, "because it's New York City. And they're parents. Parents are supposed to worry. That's their job."
She has yet to perform on Broadway - though she has high hopes.
Meanwhile, in addition to 42nd Street, Dressler has done theater in New York (``way off-Broadway") and just completed a movie by New York filmmakers Zucker-Hite Ltd., entitled "The Dinner Party."
"It's Generation X-ish," she explained of the film. "We're all young 20s, talking about the plight of our generation."
Dressler also has logged time as a receptionist, and learned that no matter how good the role of the moment, there is always the question: What comes next?
"The hard thing is, I have to audition all the time." So far, she has nothing lined up.
Though she can't see not acting, Dressler can envision a time when she would want to leave New York.
"It's great. And I'll miss it when I'm gone. But there comes a time when it's just too much to handle."
by CNB