Before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down performing arts venues all across the country, local theatergoers may have noticed a familiar face touring the city with the Pittsburgh CLO.
Shortly after a series of knee surgeries ended her brief playing career in the WNBA, Cynthia Dallas packed up her bags and moved to Los Angeles. The former Schenley High School star lived there for nearly 10 years, earning spots in dozens of TV shows and commercials despite never having gone to acting school.
“Looking back, I always wanted to perform, even when I was little,” Dallas said. “I always had my hand up first to get up in front of the class and liked to do public speaking, so I think I was a natural-born performer.”
Dallas auditioned for the school play when she was at Schenley, but she said her coach told the drama teacher not to give her a part because she wouldn’t have time for it. She said she then “buried those feelings” until she got to college, when she took a Theater 101 class and fell in love with it.
She started taking acting classes every semester, and even took some classes at CCAC over the summer.
At Schenley, Dallas’ basketball act was a big hit. Before graduating in 1998, she scored 2,564 points, the most in City League history, and also had 1,717 rebounds and 312 blocks. She averaged 26 points and 15 rebounds as a senior and some scouting services ranked her among the top 30 players in the country.
At Illinois, Dallas enjoyed a stellar playing career while battling constant pain in her knees. She scored more than 1,300 points for her career and led the Big Ten in rebounding three years in a row. She received her undergraduate degrees in English literature and history and her master’s in education, with plans of becoming a high school teacher.
But as she spent more and more time studying acting, she started to have a change of heart. When she gave up her playing career for good, she moved back home to Pittsburgh — but not to become a teacher. Instead, she worked several odd jobs for 70 to 75 hours a week to save up enough money to move to L.A. and pursue her dream.
Almost two years after making the move, Dallas received the first “big break” of her acting career by landing a part in a 2009 episode of the hit show “iCarly” on Nickelodeon. To this day, she still gets recognized for that appearance.
“Everywhere in the world I’ve been to — in Brazil, Costa Rica, Ireland — it was weird. People freak out,” Dallas said. “Because with kids shows, they play the episodes again and again. I even have a meme. So it’s pretty funny.”
In the years that followed, the former power forward continued to score roles in other popular shows such as “2 Broke Girls” and “Westworld” — all while keeping herself in top shape and spending the rest of her time either teaching aerobics classes or coaching high school basketball. All along, though, she desired something more.
“When I was in L.A., I played one of three roles all the time — I was a bully, a cop, or a basketball player,” Dallas said. “And I get it. I’m 6 feet tall, I’m muscular. … But I knew in my heart I have a deeper well.”
Seeking to expand her range as an actress and become a master of her craft, Dallas spent some time in Dublin, Ireland, taking short-term acting courses at the prestigious Gaiety School of Acting in 2016.
“I had been living in L.A. for 10 years, working as an actress, and I just wasn’t seeing the movement in my career I wanted to,” Dallas said. “I was booking parts, but I was booking parts that were the same roles, and I needed to do some soul-searching.”
Soon after returning home, she applied to return to Dublin as part of the two-year full-time actor program at the Gaiety School. Dallas was 37 when she began taking classes among mostly 18- and 19-year-old students, but that didn’t bother her too much.
The courses were rigorous, but Dallas embraced the challenge and gained an entirely new appreciation for the world of drama and theater in the process.
“It was eat, sleep, breathe acting for 12 straight hours [every day],” Dallas said.
Dallas and her classmates practiced everything from Shakespeare to Cabaret and everything in between. For one of the courses, called “Manifesto”, students were required to create their own piece of theater every other month.
She then used one of the scenes she came up with for the class as inspiration for her one-woman show, “Almost 40 and Single”, a 30-minute monologue about her dating life which she recently performed at the highly regarded “Seen and Heard” festival in Ireland.
“Really thinking about it, to be an actor, it wasn’t my time,” Dallas said when remembering her younger days. “I didn’t go to drama school until I was 37. If I went when I was 19, I would not have been emotionally prepared. At 37, I was ready. I never missed a day of class. I didn’t miss any assignments. I was a good student. I was an open book, like, ‘What can I learn?’”
Dallas graduated in June and immediately returned home to Pittsburgh, where she’s back living with her mother at their family home on North Euclid Avenue in Highland Park.
She had spent the past two months touring elementary and middle schools around the area, playing groundbreaking African-American aviator Bessie Coleman as part of the CLO’s “Gallery of Heroes,” before the COVID-19 outbreak brought an abrupt end to the tour.
“I’ve done nothing but theater since I’ve gotten back,” Dallas said. “Because I’ve gone to school, I’ve gotten roles I never would have when I was in L.A. … I never would have applied for the CLO before I went to the Gaiety.”
Without the ability to perform, Dallas has resorted to driving for Lyft to make ends meet while also volunteering weekly at the Greater Pittsburgh Food Bank.
Although she’s feeling a bit empty without acting as part of her everyday routine, she’ has been keeping her spirits high by spending time with family and taking trips to her “secret spot” near the Highland Park reservoir to work out whenever the weather is nice.
“The thing I love about Pittsburgh — I have never felt so much love in the theater community,” Dallas said. “If I want to get anything done, I can do it here in Pittsburgh. I feel so much love when I come back home.
“I’ve been gone more than I’ve actually lived here, but I’m always proud to say that I’m from Pittsburgh, and everybody that knows me knows that.”
Steve Rotstein: srotstein@post-gazette.com and Twitter @SteveRotstein.
First Published: April 22, 2020, 10:30 a.m.