Veronica’s Room has a mirror in it...

This summer, the director Lori Schneider-Wendt was looking for two actresses who would bear a plausible resemblance to one another, for the Sullivan County Dramatic Workshop’s production of “Veronica’s Room.”

Lori cast the ingenue lead first. A young actor, Rebecca Robbins, with whom she had worked in the Workshop production of “Deathtrap,” also an Ira Levin thriller, was a perfect choice for the young co-ed who would become trapped in the eponymous room of intrigue and terror.

When I read for the part of the older woman, Lori was thrilled by the slight resemblance between Rebecca and me. It was plausible enough, she thought, to bring just the right measure of doubt to the mystery of Veronica’s Room.

As the production continued into rehearsal, I came to find there were more similarities between us than the theatrical good fortune of alliterative names. Like her, I had a brother whose problems caused distress to spread in concentric circles through my family. Like her, my interest was always live theater, rather than film.

In Boston of the 1970s, where some of the play’s action is set, I was a college co-ed bound for a career in theater. I don’t think I was as talented then as Rebecca is now, but I had potential and training. The choices I made then—they hardly seemed like choices at the time—led me away from the theater for 30 years, and away from it professionally entirely.

Early in rehearsals, I remember telling Rebecca she was “too level-headed” to be an actress. But I quickly retracted my assessment of her equanimity, not wanting to discourage her. A recent graduate of SUNY-New Paltz, she is taking her masters degree at night, while working in a restaurant during the day. Her goal is a professional career in theater, but she has a back-up plan of teaching children with speech disabilities.

Rebecca has a clarity of vision that is uncharacteristic of women her age. Although she is in a relationship with a young man, she is conscious of the need to stay untethered geographically while she pursues her theatrical goals. When he goes to Chicago next year, she will stay put long enough to finish her degree before thinking of moving west.

“West,” however, does not mean L.A. to Rebecca. Beautiful enough to grace any silver screen, she shies away from the celebrity culture of Hollywood. Theater is what she loves. In time, of course, she may come to agree with most stage actors, that celluloid is what pays the rent. These days, the theater is a nice place to be if your mother can afford to send you there.

In fact, although Rebecca credits her parents (“They’re saints” she told me) for helping her pursue her talents, she works hard for the privilege of doing what she loves. For this production, she made the two-hour round-trip from Rosendale as many as five times a week, as gas prices climbed to more than $3 a gallon.

Community theater doesn’t pay, but it costs plenty in time, travel and make-up expenses. For an older woman like me, with a gainfully employed husband, it is a pleasurable diversion, an absorbing pastime, a way to keep the brain cells active. But for someone Rebecca’s age, who is on the cusp of a theatrical career, it provides crucial experience, training and exposure, as well as credits on a résumé.

Many artists and writers can live simply, plying their craft while holding a day job. Some day jobs can even provide tools for the craft. When I was a young ad exec, I spent many evenings in my 40th floor office, watching the sun set over the Hudson River, tapping out poems on my IBM Selectric.

But an actor needs an audience, and other actors, to realize her potential.

Is Rebecca too level-headed to be a successful working actor? On the contrary. She is that magical combination of beauty, brains and talent that the world is waiting to enjoy.

Don’t wait to see her on Broadway. Get a ticket to “Veronica’s Room at the Rivoli Theater in South Fallsburg this weekend and give Rebecca the audience she deserves.