Blog: Sharon Sharth in Playhouse's 'Woman In Mind'

Actress Sharon Sharth was at the top of her game, starring on and off-Broadway in plays by renowned writers, Lanford Wilson and Aaron Sorkin, and appearing frequently in film and television. She was a member of the Actor’s Studio and the Circle Repertory Theatre Company, earning accolades from New York’s most respected critics.  John Simon called her work “deeply moving…exceptional” and Michael Feingold of The Village Voice wrote that she is “living disproof that no great actress is a beauty.” However, shortly after she moved to Los Angeles an onstage accident abruptly ended her career.

“I was in a play at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego,” recalls Sharth, “when my co-star punched me – he didn’t mean to – and my jaw went across my face like a typewriter carriage.” It was a freak accident and Sharth, who could barely open her mouth, finished the play that night and completed the run. But doctors told her that if she continued her acting career, her jaw might never heal and might even be permanently dislocated.

 “It was a tough transition,” says Sharth, “All I ever wanted to do was be an actor and it was taken away in an instant.” Searching for a new career, Sharth picked up a copy of The Artists Way, a popular guide to creativity, which provided her with the inspiration to go back to school and become a successful writer of children’s books.

In an amazing twist of fate, Sharth later met the co-author of The Artist’s Way, Mark Bryan, who had become a creativity coach, appearing on Oprah and consulting internationally. “It was love at first sight,” says Sharth. “Really. When we met, I didn’t know that Mark had anything to do with The Artist’s Way, but I knew he was the one for me.” Mark and Sharon are now married and live in Pasadena.

Sharth enjoyed her success as a writer. She says, “I saw the accident as a positive thing ultimately because I discovered a part of myself I didn’t know. I could write. Then after a few years, I ended up back on stage doing readings of plays I had written. It had been a long time and I wasn’t sure how I would feel. As soon as I stepped on stage, it felt like home.”

Her journey back began with readings of her plays, Waiting for Grace,  about a woman’s search for love in the big city, and Truly, Truly, a story about a family coming together and breaking apart. When producers asked her to perform the lead in staged readings of her plays in NYC and LA, she hesitated – her jaw was healed but she still had trepidations. Was acting like riding a bike? Could she again find the joy she had once experienced as an actor? She didn’t realize it at the time, she says, but she had written herself back onto the stage.

Now fully back in the actor’s game, Sharon has landed the comeback role of a lifetime, the role of Susan, the lead in Alan Ayckbourn’s award-winning play Woman in Mind at the Sierra Madre Playhouse. The role is part of Los Angeles theater lore, last performed in LA twenty years ago by Helen Mirren at the ninety-nine-seat Tiffany Theater. Mirren said the role of Susan is one of the ten best theatrical roles ever written for a woman. 

“It is a brilliant role,” says Sharth. “She is ‘everywoman’. She has one family where she is neglected by her husband, patronized by her sister-in-law, and estranged from her son. But she also lives with this fun, clever, loving family that fulfills her every need.”

“My life has come full circle,” says Sharth. “When I had the accident, I didn’t know what to do. I felt lost. But I went on to a fulfilling career as a writer – an opportunity I might otherwise never have had.  And now I am back on stage in a great play, thrilled and grateful to be acting again.”

For further details visit http://www.womaninmind.com