In the Limelight and Behind the Scenes

Tracey performs the pivotal character of Grace Fryer in Cal Lutheran's production of Radium Girls. 

Photo: Lia Tracey

Amálka “Lia” Tracey’s affinity for acting and all things theater started early. She recounts her first time on stage at nine years old when she played the titular character of the Wizard (the Wiz) in The Wiz. “It was as if something clicked for me, and I just knew that performing was something I really wanted to do.” 

Tracey acted in various roles in high school and community productions in her hometown of Aptos, California. These included the timid Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz, a feisty Jo March in Little Women and Lucy Van Pelt, the self-assured “fussbudget,” in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. “Each character had their own clear voice and way of moving that was really fun to experiment with and taught me how to be a more versatile performer,” she said.

Character studies

Since arriving at California Lutheran University in 2022 as a dual major in theatre arts and English, she has performed in campus productions, including Shakespeare in Love and Almost, Maine.

Most recently, she played the real-life part of Grace Fryer in Radium Girls. After working as a dial painter at the United States Radium Corporation during World War I, Fryer developed cancer in her shoulder due to exposure to the toxic metal. Fryer and four other young women who worked at the company sued their employer, activating a media firestorm and legal precedents that ushered in modern labor safety standards.

Tracey relishes taking on roles that allow her to explore a character’s physicality and emotional depth. Of Fryer, who died at the age of 34 from radium poisoning, she said, “Her lines and character overall could easily be written off as just sad, but the fact is that each emotion she felt had a different level to it. Sadness does not just express itself in tears, after all. Sometimes it shows itself as anger; sometimes it is all internal and contained.”

Performing gives Tracey an emotional rush that forces her to focus on the “little moments” of the part she inhabits. “It’s all driven by this high energy. Then, when the performance is over, everything just settles, and you have this moment of self-acknowledgment that it’s done, and you settle back into yourself.”

Aside from tackling roles onstage, Tracey worked behind the scenes with fellow student Riley Thompson on choreographing the dancing for Cal Lutheran’s presentation of Starmites, which chronicles the life of Eleanor, an introverted teenager who retreats into an imaginary world of science fiction characters from her comic book collection. 

“It was such a unique experience since I had previously choreographed for a younger age group but had never worked with college-age students,” she said. “I learned a lot about theater leadership overall, as well as how to work with both the cast and others on a creative team.” These off-stage interactions taught her to appreciate different performing styles and communicate a specific vision for the production. 

Cal Lutheran’s Improv Troupe also empowered Tracey to nurture her imagination and spontaneously diversify her acting chops. Through this experience, she experimented with new and different styles of comedic acting and credits Lisa Frederickson with making rehearsals and performances enjoyable. 

In early 2023, Tracey advanced to the final round of the National Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival’s Irene Ryan Acting Competition (Region VIII), outperforming more than 250 students from across Southern California, Hawaii, Guam and three other states in the Southwest. Reading the part of Harper from Angels in America, Tracey won runner-up, an outstanding feat considering that in four decades of the competition, a Cal Lutheran student was named one of the top actors in the region. 

“It was a total shock hearing my name called, and I was thrilled to have had the opportunity not only to be nominated but to compete against so many talented actors,” she said. “It was such a validating moment considering the years of training and hard work that I had put into performing in general.”

Creating art, on and off stage

Tracey’s abilities and interests also extend to literature. Now in her junior year, she is studying abroad in London, England, at Oxford University. “I am very excited since I am focusing on courses required for my English major, including courses on British literature, Shakespeare and more personalized classes that explore the origin and shifts of the modern romance genre.”  

For two years, she worked as a department assistant in the English department, gaining skills in analyzing new voices in writing and art. Those skills enabled her to serve as a writer, co-lead and co-editor for the last two issues of Cal Lutheran’s award-winning literary magazine the Morning Glory. 

Through working on this year’s Morning Glory, Tracey discovered the boundless creativity that surrounds her. “I most enjoyed reading all of the works that students submitted and seeing the imaginative efforts of the CLU community firsthand. There are so many amazing voices on the CLU campus and to see their individual forms of artistic expression was a real privilege,” she said.

Her work on the magazine additionally impelled Tracey to forge ties with others outside her circle of writers and actors. “A big part of our work is reaching out not only to students within the English department but other students, faculty and alumni as well.” 

Tracey credits several faculty members with guiding her closer to her degree and a mastery of her majors. They include Michael J. Arndt, MFA, Jocelyn Hall, MFA, and English faculty Allison L.E. Wee, PhD, Bryan Rasmussen, PhD and Robert Mendoza, PhD. 

“Professor Arndt helped me during my first year of college regarding the transition from performing in high school to university. He gave me tools such as how to directly translate Shakespearean text to the stage and communicate directly with production heads, which I will continue to use as a performer and educator. Professor Hall helped me re-establish my appreciation of theatre during a time when it was starting to dull. She helped reignite the passion that I had for it and look more at the historical context of the characters I was portraying,” she said. 

The English professors showed her how to be efficient at close reading and how a historical understanding completely shifts the interpretive lens of the way a reader views a text. “The English department’s faculty as a whole are also incredibly supportive of the ambitions of students and work hard to provide them with opportunities for them to grow as readers as well as writers.”

Before graduating in a year and a half, Tracey intends to perform onstage again while she starts applying for master’s programs in English. She wants to begin her career as a high school teacher with an end goal of becoming a college professor, so she can provide other students with similar transformative educational experiences she had and introduce them to forms of creative expression involving reading, acting, writing or directing.

“Overall, I am super excited to see where this new stage of my life will take me and can't wait to see what comes next.”