When senior Devon Rose goes to the theater she cannot help but envy the actors performing on stage. She wants to be the one on stage.

Rose started by participating in small theater productions at her church. It was there that she met a couple who had a son who was very dedicated to theatre performances.

“The couple took me to a theater that their son was in a show in, and then I saw the play and that’s when I wanted to do it,” Rose said.

From elementary to high school, Rose has participated in productions. She has also done shows in Addison, Dallas and at the Garland Civic Theater. She is currently a supporting character, playing the role of a runaway teenager in “A Reason to Believe” at a production at Core Theatre in Richardson. The play is about a married couple who lost their child when the child was only eight. The husband then runs away from his family and becomes homeless. Rose said plays can get very chaotic, especially when balancing it with school work.

“I was also a Raider Rowdy earlier in the year, so I was in shows with that,” Rose said. “Also when I wasn’t in a North Garland show, I tried to help out with North Garland shows. So it was like helping out with North Garland, doing my own shows, school work, Raider Rowdies and work.”

Rose admires movie actor, Anthony Hopkins, an Academy award winner who has also won three British Academy of Film and Television Awards, two Emmy’s and the Cecil B. DeMille award. Hopkins is most known for his performance in ‘Silence of the Lambs’ as Hannibal Lector.

“It’s said that what he does is, he’d take a line and he’ll rehearse it over like a hundred times just so he can get it, like say it, just right and just natural,” Rose said. “And he has a crazy memory and capabilities so everything is just so natural with him.”

According to Rose, for the most part she has a good memory when it comes to memorizing her lines, but she does a little more to learn about her characters and the production.

“In order to get a character, I’ll look up movies and TV shows and find a character to model certain attributes after,” Rose said. “I always try to know as much as I can about the scripts, so I either purchase the script myself. I’ll go to the theater and read the script. I’ll get a copy of the script. I’ll research the theatre. I’ll research the actors that performed at that theater. I’ll try to know as much as I can.”

Although Rose’s main interest is theater, film production is not completely out of the question, nor is the changing of genres, like comedies, dramas or actions.

“Honestly, I like anything,” Rose said. “I don’t like one thing too much. Because if you just like drama, then you just hate everything [else] and so mixing it up is always the best.You grow as a person in doing more than one thing.”

Before auditioning for a show, Rose takes everything she will have to do into consideration. She takes the production as a whole, instead of certain individual parts of each production.

“If something is completely essential to a show, then I’ll do it,” Rose said. “Because it’s me acting, not me doing it as a person.”

In case her acting career doesn’t work out, she has planned to become a playwright. That way she will be able to write her own plays and act them out herself.

“So either way, I’m going to be in shows,” Rose said. “Some are just going to be crappy shows.”

Seeing other people up on stage led her to her dream of becoming an actress, but she has one goal in mind.

“I just want to live off my acting,” Rose said. “That’s all I want to do.”