PROUD mum Olive Baldry is counting down the days until her daughter returns to her home county to perform her first professional acting role.Mrs Baldry's Suffolk born and bred daughter Melissa will be treading the boards at the Spa Pavilion in Felixstowe next week in a children's version of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

By JOANNE CONSTABLE

joanne.constable@eveningstar.co.uk

PROUD mum Olive Baldry is counting down the days until her daughter returns to her home county to perform her first professional acting role.

Mrs Baldry's Suffolk-born and bred daughter, Melissa, will be treading the boards at the Spa Pavilion in Felixstowe next week in a children's version of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

The 21-year-old's mum, said she was very proud especially as Melissa was returning to perform in

her home county to fulfill her childhood dream.

All her family and friends have bought tickets to see Melissa on stage.

"She has worked very hard and it is nice to see something she has dreamt about come true," said Mrs Baldry, of Emerald Close, Kesgrave.

"It's her first professional job and it is a professional company. She has been three years at drama college and has come out with a degree and it is interesting that she is coming to the Spa.

"To actually see her in a professional job – it's something she has dreamt of since she started dancing – since she was three."

Melissa, who was a pupil at Dale Hall Primary School, Ipswich Girl's School and St Joseph's College, all in Ipswich, is now living in London. She recently graduated from Mount View Theatre Academy in the capital, with a BA Honours degree in acting but she first started toe-tapping her way to professional status at a dancing club in Ipswich in 1984. Since then she has taken up amateur roles around Suffolk, with her debut amateur appearance being in Good Night Mr Tom at the New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich. After Melissa got the taste for singing, dancing and acting she performed several other roles at the Wolsey.

But now Melissa is performing her first star roles in two plays at the same time. Since September she has been touring with the Shakespeare 4 Kidz, a national theatre company helping children enjoy and understand the seemingly impenetrable language of the Bard. During that time at different venues she has either played the role of Hermia in A Midsummer's Night Dream coming to the Spa, or she has taken on the role of Lady Macduff and one of the witches in Macbeth.