Meet Angeline Mirenda (Carla)
Meet Angeline Mirenda (Carla)If you won $96,000 from the lottery, what would you do with it?
Pay off my student loans, hallelujah! Fly to Ireland for a month because I think their theatre scene is fascinating. Then use the rest as a career investment.
Who’s someone in your life that’s not blood related, but who you consider to be family?
My best friend Christine Wille. We met in college working backstage on a show together. She sits through all of my stories about my cat and she never complains so I figure it’s true love.
What was your neighborhood like when you were growing up? What’s that neighborhood like now?
I grew up for the first few years of my life in Fremont, California and then moved about twenty minutes north to Hayward. Both are part of the East San Francisco Bay Area. Both of the neighborhoods were pretty friendly. I’m not sure about the one in Fremont anymore but in Hayward it’s still a lot of the same families and couples I remember. My dad is known as the Christmas guy–you know exactly who I’m talking about because your neighborhood has one too. He is mortally offended when people try to put up more lights than him. It’s a war zone of inflatable Santa floats.
What’s your favorite photo from your childhood? What’s your family’s favorite photo?
My favorite photo of my family is actually not from my childhood but my teen years. It was the summer before I moved down to Southern California for school and I wanted a picture of them to hang in my dorm room. We were at the county fair so I made everyone do one of those old time-y Pirate ones. That’s the photo of my family I still have hanging on my wall to remind me what goobers they all are. I also included a painting we had done in Hawaii when I was younger, about twelve.
Tell me about someone in your life that made sacrifices for you to succeed.
I was lucky enough to be raised by two really wonderful parents. My mother and my father have both made a lot of sacrifices to help my brother and I succeed. They were always active parts in our lives. My mother taught some of the dance classes I took, my father coached my little league teams. Both of them donated an insurmountable amount of time, labor and materials to our High School drama department. Neither Phil nor I are students there anymore but my father continues to design and construct their sets and my mother took over the theatre program at our elementary school as well. They’ve worked hard to provide for us financially but more than that, they have also opened their home and their hearts to all of our friends (this brave duo housed fifty teenagers for cast sleepovers; sorry about the noise, mom & dad!), been to every game, every show (shout out, they’re both flying down to see this one!) and instilled in us a lot of love and confidence. I couldn’t have asked for more from them.
If you met your character on the street, would you have a beer together? If not, which character would you share a pint with?
Carla and I do not drink beer but we will share girly cocktails together, yes. We both do this thing where we crack ourselves up when no one else seems to find our jokes funny so maybe we can laugh at each other for a change.
Do you have a favorite moment in the play?
I have so many favorite moments in this play! But I think “Blackout” is at the top of the list. I love that it’s incorporating an actual historical event into the characters’ lives and I think it touches on a few really important things. We see in it a lot of fear and some danger, but also the characters’ resilience to these things and their ability to find some optimism in the fireworks. I also am really endeared and moved by Sonny’s dedication to that Bodega and the subtext of his words when he’s singing “We are powerless, we are powerless.”
What’s the biggest challenge for you in this production?
In The Heights excites me because I feel it’s a story filled with a lot of colorful and lovable characters with some pretty powerful, important things to say about home, community, pride and the progression of the world around us. The contemporary and cultural music make it all the more unique and the tone of the play varies from being lighthearted to making some serious statements; so it’s got a little something for everyone!
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