Hillary Baack knew, in her heart and soul, from the time she was five years old and went with her parents to the theater, she wanted to be on the stage. And, set about it she did, one foot in front of the other, one undeviating step at a time. After two school plays and with that experience behind her, she auditioned and won, at the age of seven, for her first community theater, the role of Gretl Von Trapp in the Sound of Music. She was simultaneously writing and performing plays and getting her neighborhood friends to take part.
It was not until she was a teenager that she became self-conscious enough of her deafness that it would prevent her from becoming an actress until a professor in her college drama department told her she could absolutely have a career in theater. And, here you have her, a flawless beauty you may have seen in Law and Order, Switched At Birth or a variety of short films.
She talks about her life from the start as a dangerously ill newborn, being diagnosed at age three, the years of speech therapy and the impact of being main-streamed in school. She lets us know what it took to learn lip-reading and translate that into speech so she could reaching her goals. She took herself to New York, met her husband, and became the mother of two beautiful sons. She wrote a one-woman play and is now writing her own scripts, one of which she wrote with her husband who is a film-maker, actor, director, writer, and in Hillary’s words, “a wonderful editor”.
She is able to keep her eye on what is important in life. She is talented, diligent, loving and compassionate, has trust in herself, and never let go of the destiny that called to her when she was a five-year old. Hillary has traveled the road from frail newborn to center stage, where she knew she belonged as a little girl.
Love letters? Yes. She has a wonderful personal history of writing letters to friends and may soon get to the important business of writing to her sons. This, and much more, is best heard in Hillary’s own voice filled with a contagious love for the life she has.