Theater artist and educator Michael Amira Temple recently reflected on her childhood growing up in southeastern San Diego and where she is today.
“I made a promise to myself as a kid that I’ve always kept, that I’ll never stop learning and listening. I want to maintain a certain level of curiosity and have that balance out any judgment or biases I have in order to make room for the next me.
“That work is integral to me as an actor and a director.”
At only 26, that promise has served this graduate of San Diego State’s School of Theatre, Television, and Film well.
Temple’s acting credits include roles in Backyard Renaissance Theatre Company’s “Witchland,” Oceanside Theatre Company’s production of “Good People,” and starring in Rachel Bublitz’s well-reviewed “Ripped” at Loud Fridge Theatre Group, for whom she now serves as board secretary. Following a directing gig at SDSU, Temple made her professional directing debut in 2023 with Loud Fridge’s “Zach,” written by local playwright Christian St. Croix.
Temple’s theatrical experience also includes set design, costume design, clowning and stage managing, but she says she loves performing the most, with directing a close second.
“After that is teaching,” she emphasized. “I always make sure there’s an intention of service behind what I do.”
The daughter of a counselor at Mesa College, Temple attended Valencia Park Elementary before moving to Chula Vista and going to Olympian High School. A hiatus followed graduation as she searched for the right direction before she went back to school, first at Mesa, then at Grossmont College and eventually SDSU.
“My collegiate experience shaped the artist that I am,” Temple said. “I went from just ‘I want to be an actor and I guess that means I should be on Broadway’ to meeting professors like Dani Bedau or Katie Turner or Wilfred Paloma who opened my eyes to the fact that being an artist and being of service in the theater can look a certain way. You don’t have to have commercialized goals. You can use your art as a way to serve your community.”
This Temple is doing in numerous ways. She’s a teaching artist with Imagine Brave Spaces, a live-theater bullying prevention program. She’s a co-facilitator for the Old Globe’s Reflecting Shakespeare program for people who are currently incarcerated or were in the past. She also works with the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership as the arts and culture representative for District 9 of San Diego County.
“Teaching is what I spend most of my time doing,” Temple said. “I’ve had experiences teaching with populations I never expected to teach, like middle schoolers, foster youths, incarcerated folks. That brings me the most joy on a day to day.”
Temple does have, however, a vision for the actor she tries to be.
“It’s to work with as many people all over the world as possible,” she said. “To tell as many kinds of stories in as many kinds of ways as I can. My dream job is what I do now, but on a much larger scale.”
That’s coupled with her emphasis on service.
“I don’t want to act just to get the praise after the curtain’s closed,” she added. “I find it to be an honor to use my body and voice as a vessel to tell the stories of others, and I want to honor those stories and those truths.”
Whether acting or directing or serving as a performance “joker” or facilitator, Temple has a busy spring ahead.
Coming up, she’ll facilitate Imagine Brave Spaces’ anti-human trafficking theater play “Zion Story” in a public showcase April 14 before its tour takes off from there with performances at various middle schools and foster-care facilities.
In May, Temple will perform as an angel (actually the angel from Tony Kushner’s epic “Angels in America”) in Diversionary Theatre’s West Coast premiere of South Korean playwright Hansol Jung’s “Merry Me.” It opens May 24.
For a show that will be held at the Jazz Lounge on El Cajon Boulevard east of the College Area on May 28, Temple will be directing “Laplace,” a work written by local playwright and current SDSU student Justin Magallanes. It features a cast of four actors who will also operate as Foley sound artists.
“The goal,” Temple said of that endeavor, “is to create a sensorial experience that can stimulate people’s minds and bodies in a different way than does traditional theater, opening up pathways for new discoveries, ideas and understanding.”
Even with all the opportunities Temple has earned, she itted to some frustration in the past.
“A lot of times it has felt like as an actor, when I’ve been reached out to for a role, it’s because they needed a Black actor. Then after a while I thought ‘Maybe it’s not that I’m not good enough, it’s just that I’m not working as hard as I can.’
“I have a self-belief that I will achieve my goals no matter what anybody says, and I will try my damnedest to get it done.”
