Erica Levene, stage / television actress, and entrepreneur believes wholeheartedly in pursuing a career that is close to your heart. When she used to just take background work and her agent would say, “just keep at it, you never know who will see you”, Erica realized she would have to reach much farther than that to be a working actress. A few years later along with a new agent, and that’s exactly what she’s done.
With her strong beliefs and faith Erica decided she would abandon the comforts of her regular pay cheque and get to doing what she wanted most, to be an actor. Not acting for a while gave her a taste of the world without her art and she didn’t like it one bit. She knew the corporate world was not where she wanted to be. Erica said that a message in her in box one day reminded her not to have regrets, so she’s been moving forward with her career and her business
I met up with Erica after she performed in Sex, Relationships and Sometimes Love, which ran for four weeks at the Poor Alex Theatre in October. Her character as Wonder Woman created a mirror to her own personality. She reminds her stage husband how hard her job is, what with having to save so many people. Her character was still able to nurture intimacy between them regardless of her harsh responsibilities.
Erica enjoyed working with this cast of about 40, the largest she’s worked with so far. They were all very supportive of each other and as intended by the producer, Ryan Singh, they all had a lot of fun.
Erica’s journey is an exciting and dedicated path since she put all her energy into her craft four years ago. Before being cast in Sex Relationships and Sometimes Love, Erica has held roles in The Vagina Monologues, a recent Casino Rama Commercial, and Leanne in It Just Is for The Junction Arts Festival. She is also with the Canadian Black Film Festival which had launched their first festival in September 2009,
is owner and president of her own cleaning agency, and further developing her creative skills by writing. Writing is something very important to Erica since Black actors are most often confined to stereotypes and this is the best way for her to write the kinds of roles she and her peers would find engaging and outside the box. She also finds a lot of power in script writing that will later give her much more control in the direction of her career. Finding balance right now is also something she’s learning between all these commitments.
Two years ago Erica found herself working with the Reel World Film Festival, an unexpected turn in her favour since her intention was to volunteer and she ended up being hired for a paid position instead. It was during that time when she almost did not end up going to an audition that did land her a key role in the Casino Rama commercial. Erica attributes these turn of events in her career path to her longstanding faith in God and belief in her destiny as an actor. Soon after she was cast in the Vagina Monologues and has not looked back since. This is one determined lady who’s paving her own way from all angles. She is the owner and president of her own eco-friendly boutique cleaning agency called Girl Friday Services Toronto specifically named to attract a very particular share of this already lucrative market.
Erica Levene is strong, self assured, hard working and dedicated to reaching success and without an ounce of arrogance, knows she’s good at what she does and that she will survive outside of the corporate jungle. After all, in her own words, “those business execs don’t have a sideline, why should I ?”
Stay tuned to what Erica is up to and watch out for her launch of ericalevene.tv March 31, 2010.
by Eryn Vogn
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