Practical Dreamers
Practical Dreamer’s Handbook
by Sarah & Paul Edwards

 Gene & Toni Bua
Following the Thread: Find Your Own Unfailing Inner Sense of Direction

Lesson: “For some reason I didn’t understand I knew we had to move. I had to go. I was possessed by the idea. It was my destiny.”

     They had it all. As young actors on the cast of Love of Life, Gene & Toni Bua fell instantly in love and basked together for ten years in the secure fame and fortune of a day- time soap opera family. But for Toni something was missing. In addition to being actors, Gene was a composer and she a lyricist. She wanted them to create something together with their music, something that would serve the world in a way that did more than entertain, in some way that mattered. And for some reason she didn’t understand, she believed that meant moving to Los Angeles.  

    “I had to go there. I was possessed with the idea,” she recalls. “It felt like my destiny.” But Gene loved New York and was very happy there. “I had to drag him to LA,” Toni admits. Since she wanted to go so badly, he honored her desire. Within six months, they’d left everything behind without a clue as to why they’d moved somewhere that had never appealed to them before. Movies? A TV series? They tried all that after they arrived and really hated it. It was a rat race. They were miserable.  

    Through all the lonely, hellish days of staring at the telephone and waiting for their agent to call, Toni never doubted she’d made the right decision. But Gene soon began to feel resentful about being taken away from the life he’d loved. Sitting in his tiny apartment, he felt totally powerless, so much so that he had to start questioning himself and his life. He realized he was creating his life each day as he lived it and if he didn’t like the way it was going, he’d better do something about it.  

    That was the turning point. They stopped waiting for their agent to call them. “We started doing things we felt from here,” Gene said touching the palm of his hand to his chest. They started writing musicals and screenplays and then Gene invited five people to his living room to teach his first acting class. “It was a freebee. I told them if they liked it they could come back.” They did. For the past 20 years Gene and Toni have operated the Gene Bua Acting for Life Organization and Theatre. They have 100 students filling four classes every year and together they’ve written, directed and produced nationally acclaimed musical productions like the award-winning Pepper Street.  

    But Acting for Life is more than an acting class and their musicals are more than an evening of entertainment. “Acting for Life is about releasing one’s talents,” Gene explains. The classes and the productions take those on the stage and those in the audience beyond the limitations of their belief systems. “The wouldn’t’s, shouldn’t’s and couldn’t’s begin to disappear so you can experience what it’s like to have no limitations,” Toni adds. “And that opens the door to being all you can be.” 

Recently Toni got some great news. The film she wrote and Gene directed staring students from their classes, entitled 348, had been one of only ten films accepted at the New York International Film Festival and THEY WON! Best film. Best actress. Best rising star. Best new film maker.  

Visit Gene and Toni at www.herestolife.org 
Learn about their dynamic new musical at www.secondwindthe musical.com

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Tell the World about Your Dream        Dream-in-Progress Teams 
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