The Playful Life

With play as a compass and acting on shazam moments, Yvonne Marchese shows us how to follow our dreams – plural, with an S.

Photo by Yvonne Marchese

As a girl growing up in El Paso, Texas, Yvonne Marchese roller skated everywhere. Around the block, to friends’ houses, or at the roller disco with Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall playing on repeat. Always rolling, always in motion.

“I felt like I was flying,” she says, “so free!”

And as we talk, what comes through in her fascinating story – from living her dream as an actress in New York to starting her own photography business, and now producing the Late Bloomer Living podcast – is that sense of freedom. Maybe not a surprise from someone on a mission to help people “age playfully” – but still, encountering her spirit makes me almost want to put on a pair of skates myself.

Almost.

By tuning into her “shazam moments,” Yvonne demonstrates the creative rewards that come from living with intention and integrity, while going all in on inspiration.

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El Paso is a border town, straddling the line of both Mexico and New Mexico. In the 1970s, when Yvonne was growing up, her family moved a lot, but all in the same town. At one point, she could ride her bike to her grandparents and go to New Mexico at the same time, since their house was across the border. She was drawn to entertainment as a girl, inspired by Carol Burnett and Goldie Hawn. She had a sense of larger possibilities for herself, too, and knew from an early age that she wanted to become an actress. A trip to New York City when she was about six sealed the deal.

After seeing Beatlemania on Broadway, the family drove through Times Square. No Elmos or M&Ms to pose with for pictures. This was the gritty XXX era, and it suited Yvonne just fine.

“I fell in love with the city. Like, ah, this is my home.” She laughs, remembering how she knew that this very dirty place was where she was meant to live.

Which she did, eventually. But first – plot twist! – she took a detour to an early marriage. Her boyfriend, who became her husband, was interested in law enforcement, and New York seemed like a tough place to start. So they moved to Denver, where she found an active theater community and began to get cast in shows.

“I met some really talented people there and loved it. But he didn’t like my theater friends, and I was doing so much theater that I wasn't around much.” Eventually the couple parted, and her old dream resurfaced.

“I just couldn't let go of the idea of moving to New York. I thought, wow, if I'm 80 and I haven't done this, how am I going to feel?”

So she worked overtime, saved her money, sold her belongings and struck out for the Big Apple.

In that pre-Internet era, she scoured the Village Voice and rental agencies for places to stay, and eventually found a spot with a roommate. She got a job to make ends meet, and started auditioning. Right away she was cast off Broadway – off, off, off Broadway, she laughs, in a “Podunk production” but the dream was coming true.

“I would literally just walk around the city and sigh. I couldn’t believe it! It was so great.”

For ten years, Yvonne worked “survival” jobs, auditioned, did shows, and found a performing ensemble that she loved working with. But the insecurity of the life was getting old.

“I was working with people who were Juilliard trained, Tony nominated, and their life wasn't that much different than mine. It was still this thing of constant auditions, new show, go to a new theater, go to a new place. It was very gypsy, and I just started feeling done with the lifestyle of being an actor.”

A friend suggested she join a touring company, and she got cast as Annie Sullivan, the teacher to Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker. With a small company, she crisscrossed the country for three and a half months, performing for school groups. And it was here that Yvonne met her current husband, another actor on the tour. They married, had a child, and eventually moved to Washington DC where he got an MFA.

When he finished his program, they had imagined returning to New York, but rents had skyrocketed, and with one child and another soon to follow, they wanted the support of family. So they settled in Norwalk, Connecticut, where he had roots.

“I wanted something more secure,” she says. “I think really hit home for me when I became a mom. Being a mom really changed me.”

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She was happy to settle in to this new life. But she wasn’t sure what kind of work to do. She considered a lot of different possibilities – from ultrasound technician to radio producer to landscape designer. Having worked “survival” jobs as an actress, Yvonne knew how to keep things going. But after a layoff, she came home and said to her husband, “What am I going to be when I grow up?” He told she'd work it out. Sleep on it.

Shazam! When she woke up, she knew. Photography was the answer.

Once Yvonne decided, she went all in. First, she enrolled in a study-from-home photography program. And she carried her camera everywhere. Eventually she started doing photography gigs on the side, slowly gaining experience, while building confidence and her portfolio. She worked for awhile in a hospital taking baby pictures – “it was great to hold babies every day!” – and the high volume of the work helped her refine her process and technique. But photography specialties like weddings and kids photos required too much time on the weekend, away from her own children. So Yvonne specializes in brand work and headshots for actors and business people.

Now photography is her full time job. When I comment that it doesn’t sound like an easy path, Yvonne laughs, agreeing. “My business coach calls me a hard-aholic! But this is my part of the bread and butter in our household.” Her husband continues to work in theater as an adjunct professor, and holds down a job as an operations manager for a machine shop. Together they make it work.

“I'm trying to show my kids that you can figure it out as you go. We're not well off but we get by, and we're doing work we love. I want that for my kids – to be able to do what they love and make money.”

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Yvonne Marchese, founder of Late Bloomer Living

Another shazam moment came when Yvonne started the Late Bloomer Living podcast in 2020. She’d had the idea well before that, however. It started in reaction to a nagging voice in her mind, one that was kind of a bummer to listen to. It told her she was getting older, that there wasn’t much to look forward to. She felt stuck.

To prove that voice wrong, Yvonne changed her morning routine. Now she gets up ahead of the family and has time to herself to meditate, move and get ready for the day, rather than simply plunge headlong into whatever comes at her. “That has been a game changer for me,” she says.

The podcast idea had been tapping on her shoulder for several years. Wouldn’t it be fun to talk to other people about how they approach aging? To hear their stories and tips for staying fresh? As her commitment to play as self-care grew, the podcast took shape. Now she has had well over 200 conversations – including episode 217 with yours truly – about everything from shuffle dance to facing transitions to mastering new habits. If people “of a certain age” are doing it, chances are Yvonne has had a great discussion about it on her program.  

Starting a new project like a podcast takes a lot of work. Yvonne had to learn how to do the recording, mix in the intros and outros, and of course, line up guests. She resisted the idea for years, because between raising a family and running a business, she wasn’t sure how to fit it in. But the idea wouldn’t leave her alone, and shazam, once she committed she went at it with the dedication she has applied to making her other dreams into realities.  

“I don't beat myself up as much as I used to,” she says of the process. “That is progress that I've made. And it's intentional. I have to work at that every day. But I'm getting better at recognizing those moments and going, Hang on! You can do this! Working to enjoy being in that liminal space, that’s it, that's the play!”

This year, she’s holding space to “savor the lasts,” she says, as her youngest finishes high school. Not pushing too hard, but giving herself grace to enter this next phase with presence and playfulness. And she's learning to shuffle dance, a style of street dancing (check out her Instagram to see her in action!)

When I ask her what’s next, she muses for a moment. “I just want  to keep exploring,” she says. “To see what's ahead. And I know that whatever I do for work in the next 30 years – assuming I've got 30 years ahead of me – I want it to be something that makes a difference, that I feel excited about. I'm not sure what that's going to be.”

Sounds like we can look forward to more shazams ahead. And I for one can't wait to see where her inspiration leads her – and us.

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Jean Shields Fleming is founder and editor of Certain Age Magazine.

Photography courtesy of Yvonne Marchese