Perceptions,” an original play written and directed by lifelong Plainsboro resident Victoria Kelleigh, will be performed on Saturday, May 17, at 7 p.m. in the Plainsboro Township Municipal Building. Actors include Nanatte Mathis-Bridgett, Craig Buszka, Michael Kerr, Monica Nordeen, and Neil L. Sachs; the stage manager is Sahaana Sridhar. The production is a benefit for Plainsboro Library’s building fund. Tickets are $5.##M:[more]##
“The play is comprised of seven different vignettes touching upon human connection, with moments of comedy, black humor, truthful drama, as well as solid introspected moments depending on whose eyes are being looked through,” says Kelleigh, a 2003 graduate of High School North and an economics major at Rutgers. Kelleigh, who has also studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and the HB Studio in New York City, is the 2001 winner of the Miss Teen Trenton beauty and scholarship pageant.
Interested in theater arts at an early age, by the time she was four Kelleigh had already developed an interest in movies from the 1930s through the ’50s — and believed that she could do what she saw Vivian Leigh, Katharine Hepburn, and Lucille Ball doing. By the time she was eight, she already had begun to write short scripts for movies or plays.
Plainsboro Recreation Department provided her with space in the municipal building for a children’s theater group on Sunday afternoons when she was in third grade at Wicoff School. When parents returned to pick up their children the group performed a skit — written and directed by Kelleigh.
She appeared in Community Middle School’s productions of “The Nifty Fifties” and “Belles on their Toes.” When she was in eighth grade the teachers were in contract talks and Kelleigh directed the eighth grade production of “As Time Goes By.”
At North, Kelleigh directed and wrote several acts of “Where in History is Carmen San Diego,” the senior class AP history play. She also portrayed the Chief, the title character’s nemesis. Kelleigh, a student at Mercer County’s Performing Arts High School in her junior year, acted in “Sorry Wrong Number,” a senior one-act.
In addition to support from the library and town recreation departments, Plainsboro Police sponsored her in national beauty and scholarship pageants. “No matter what I’ve sought to do, this township has been there for me,” says Kelleigh. “It has been a wonderful place to grow up. I couldn’t imagine being the me that I’ve become and having grown up anywhere else.”
Her plans are to get an agent and further pursue her hopes of writing, directing, and acting in one of her own productions. She is in the pre-production stages of shooting her first film. To develop her skill she has been shooting short films documenting area basketball teams, including High School North’s freshmen basketball team.
“I’ve learned when you’re trying to get started you use whatever subjects presented before you,” says Kelleigh. “When I look at situations, I think in terms of how I can turn it into something that people will want to see.”
Perceptions, Plainsboro Public Library, Municipal Building Court Room, 609-275-2897. www.lmxac.org/Plainsboro Register by E-mail at perceptiontickets@gmail.com. $5. Saturday, May 17, 7 p.m.
