 Emerging into Her Own:
Where Talented Actress Goes, Stardom is Sure to Follow
By Robert Waddell, September 18, 2009
Nearly 7 years ago, on a cold fall day, high school student Natalia Peguero walked into the Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre’s acting school, The Raul Julia Training Unit in East Harlem. Wearing no make up, knob kneed, chilled to the bone even though she was wrapped in a long coat, the then shy student searched for an acting class.
Today, after having graduated with a B.A. from New York’s City College’s acting program, Peguero is on her way to becoming a star, if not certainly, someone with a celestial body rising on the horizon. Having grown out of the being an insecure teenager, Peguero shines on stage, long legs, a booming voice and a radiant stage presence. Every thing about her screams talent and she’s willing to work hard so that one day soon she will have earned that accolade.
“I didn’t become an actress, I was born that way,” said Peguero. “When I’m on stage I loose focus of reality. It is a drug.”
Having grown up in the Bronx, Peguero still sings with Los Chumbancheros chorous and credits Victor Vinegas, Paquito Pastor, David Mead and Racquel Baez as her musical teachers. As a singer, Peguero says her music is influenced by Marc Anthony, Brenda K. Starr, Whitney Houston, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong.
Of Armstrong, she said, “nothing exists that sounds like his voice.”
Now, she just finished as the Good Witch in The Harlem Repertory Theatre’s production of “The Wiz,” where she designed the show’s costumes and in October stars as Sandy in the HRT’s version of Yip Harburg’s “Flahooley,” where singer Barbara Cook who originated Peguero’s role, is expected in attendance.
Peguero calls “Flahooley” an intricate and complex work.
“I play the character, the character doesn’t play me,” said Peguero. “I go out there to spill my guts. Be in the moment. I live that role. I live the journey to the fullest.”
 Keith Lee Grant, founder and director of the Harlem Repertory Theatre, who was Peguero’s professor at City College when she attended the college’s drama program, called Peguero’s class presentation of Blanche Dubois, “…glorious…maturity, her passion and it turned out she’s a singer….I was always impressed with Natalia’s determination, focus and drive. It was clear she was going some where and I always respect that in young people.”
When Grant began the HRT he would soon cast Peguero in productions as varied as “Finnegan’s Rainbow,” “Tambourines to Glory,” “Hair,” “For Colored Girls,” “Dream Girls,” and “Ain’t Misbehavin.” Grant referred to Peguero as that triple threat of actress, singer and dancer. And after proving her talents on stage, she would design costumes for many of the company’s productions.
When asked if she preferred acting, dancing or singing, Peguero responded, “That’s tough, all three go into one, making up my soul.”
Peguero calls herself a method actor in the vein of Stella Adler and Uta Hagen. She thinks of herself as a consummate professional and perfectionist who obsess over her roles and her work.
While going to college, Peguero would take her new born daughter Haylee, who is now 4, with her to classes and the school’s computer lab. She said that her daughter has asked if she’ll one day be on stage like her mother when she “gets big,” said Peguero.
“There’s a misconception that being an artist is not hard work,” said Peguero, “I don’t want her to grow up that way….
“I’m a happy starving artist, hell yea. I’m a single mother doing her thing.”
Fellow HRT actress, Yaritza Pizarro, who also graduated from City College, remembered how Peguero went to school while she was pregnant and returned to classes 4 days after giving birth to take her final exams.
“She’s very strong,” said Pizarro, “She really devotes her time and energy to any project. She makes the sacrifice especially being a mother. Not everyone can do this. It’s just to show you how dedicated she is.”
Now Peguero wants to develop a one woman show about a female inmate who has been in prison since she was 10-years-old and Peguero wants to bring to the stage the pain and longing of this real-life character, also a single parent, must feel about her life.
“When you feel passion about something,” said Peguero, “You have to go do it. I’m stuck on that.”
This story was developed through the Education Beat Writing Fellowship at the New York Community Alliance. |
