Bringing a Canadian icon to life

Talia Mielke sounds a bit like the Canadian icon she is about to bring to life.
Mielke has the title role in Petrolia Community Theatre’s Anne of Green Gables which opens next week. “It’s like being able to enter a whole new world for a couple of hours.”
The sweet, purely Canadian musical, Anne of Green Gables, at the Victoria Playhouse Petrolia will feature the bright, triple-threat young actress in the title role.
Mielke, 16, won the role through the audition process and says she has been doing local theatre since she was very young. “When I was six years old, I had a few lines in The Music Man (Sarnia) and before that, I had some ensemble parts.”
She’s been studying dance since she was six, beginning with ballet. “I did competitive dancing, and now I take ballet, tap, jazz, contemporary and hip hop, and I’ve been on point since I was eleven,” she said. And although she hasn’t formally studied voice, she says she loves to sing.
A Grade 11 student at St. Patrick’s Secondary School in Sarnia, Talia is setting her sights on a career in show business. “I know it’s a risky business to go into but there are a lot of different ways to use this (performance training),” she said. “I can always teach dance, singing or acting.”
Mielke says her parents have been supportive of her performance aspirations. “They tell me they have tickets for the opening and closing shows, and they may be getting some for the other performances.”
With a love of the theatre driving her desire to make it her life’s work, Talia says her reward is the joy she receives on stage. “Live theatre is really fun,” she said. “There is an actor/audience connection that is so cool.”