Trudy Graboyes: Cape Region newcomer takes to the stage

Shakespeare once wrote “all the world's a stage,” but for Trudy Graboyes, that sentiment isn’t just a clever turn of phrase; she lives for the stage.

Graboyes is preparing for her latest role of Martha in the production of Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas: The Musical,” set to run at the Candlelight Theatre in Wilmington beginning Friday, Nov. 18. The show is due to run through Friday, Dec. 23, although shows are still being added.

Based on the 1954 film of the same name, the show is about a pair of buddies who formed a song-and-dance act and follow a pair of sisters who are set to perform a Christmas show at a Vermont lodge. The musical comedy features songs written by Irving Berlin.

Graboyes said she likes her character because of her humor and down-to-earth nature, and because she gets to sing and dance. Graboyes possesses a mezzo-soprano vocal range.

Originally from Manhattan and raised in North Jersey, Graboyes said she got her love of storytelling from her dad, who used to love to tell stories to her and her siblings before bed. She said her dad’s favorite play was “Man of La Mancha.”

Graboyes said the love of telling stories and music was passed down to her. 

“I always had a passion for it,” she said.

Her most personal story is a one-woman show she wrote and performed called “Her Strength, Our Story,” which tells the story of her grandmother’s journey to America. The show is about Ida, who fled her native Ukraine through Poland and Germany to the United States. In the show, Graboyes dons an old-fashioned Russian dress and assumes the character of her grandmother. The work also features three original songs.

Graboyes said she was inspired to write the show after hearing tapes of her grandmother telling her story. She performed the show multiple times at the Kelly Center for Music, Art and Community in Havertown, Pa. 

When she was 8 years old, Graboyes moved to the Philadelphia area, then attended Penn State University, where she minored in acting. She spent her career performing across the Tri-State area, acting in shows such as “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Cabaret” and “Gypsy.” In 2011, she served as the understudy to Wanda Sykes during Sykes’ run as Miss Hannigan in “Annie” at the Media Theater in Philadelphia. 

When she wasn’t acting on stage, Graboyes taught acting and performed a different way as a hospital actor. In this role, she said, actors were hired to play patients, given a script and then acted as patients for medical students. The purpose, she said, was to train would-be doctors how to interact with people and do things like give a patient bad news. She did this at schools such as Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. 

During her college days, Graboyes interned at Cape Henlopen School District and loved the area. After her two children grew up and embarked on lives and careers of their own, she decided to leave Pennsylvania for coastal Delaware, where one of her sisters lives; another sister lives not far away in Chincoteague. Graboyes said she liked Milton and decided to make it her new home in April.

“It’s so quaint,” she said. 

For now, she doesn’t have much time to settle in, with her run in “White Christmas: The Musical” set to begin. However, one thing she is hoping to do in the future is bring her one-woman show to the Cape Region.

“I think it’s a story people can relate to,” Graboyes said.