Sarah Blevins This is Me

 Web References

1. 1. Calendar Live - These Actors Ply Their Craft for an Audience of Just One

   www.calendarlive.com/top/1,141 - [Cached]

   Published on: 11/6/2001   Last Visited: 8/5/2002

   But in her role as an abused wife, Sarah Blevins feels especially obligated to nail the part. Her character is based on an actual battered woman who agonized over telling her doctor the truth. "She was too scared to say that her husband was getting more abusive, and she feared he was going to hurt the kids," says Blevins. "Most abused women want someone to know, but they won't come right out and say it. I had to get that across with my emotions." Between regular acting jobs, Blevins works as a standardized patient for medical schools at USC, UCLA and Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona. Medical facilities nationwide are using actors who portray patients in one-on-one encounters to help medical students develop a better bedside manner.
   ...
   Blevins, a full-time actor who was recently cast in "The Comedy of Errors," opening at the Knightsbridge Theatre in August, is called upon every couple of months to portray a standardized patient. Actors make an average of $15 to $20 an hour for their work. "Rarely do you get paid for theater work you do," she says. "This is my only paying gig as of now."
   ...
   "You have to be the kind of actor who can come up with those tears over and over, and that's hard sometimes after a long day of crying 30 times," Blevins says. Still, the rewards can be profound. After portraying the abused woman, Blevins was approached by a medical student. "He said, 'It's OK, my mother went through this and you're going to get through this just fine.' He gave me a big hug, held my hand, and he had tears in his eyes. I thought, 'Oh, my God!' "I just went on with it like it was real because I thought, why tell him, 'Oh, I'm just an actor'? So I just said, 'Thank you very much.' "