{"id":4732,"date":"2014-06-23T11:44:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-23T15:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/say.org\/?p=4732"},"modified":"2026-07-20T13:37:55","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T17:37:55","slug":"glad-i-was-able-to-find-a-voice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/say.org\/?p=4732","title":{"rendered":"Glad I was able to find a voice by Travis Robertson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Travis Robertson \u2013<\/strong>
The more I tried, the more I failed and the more people noticed, and worried, and sometimes laughed. Meeting new people meant saying my name and I had trouble getting over the \u2018R\u2019 hump in Travis. I certainly avoided my last name whenever possible because Robertson was just entirely too long. Three syllables!? Come on!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My biggest fear was the phone. Not having that face-to-face meant there was no way to cover, hide or excuse. It was just my voice. Suddenly that inspiration to speak out that I had the year before was dwindling fast, and I became all too happy to sit quietly in the corner, and dream big.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I needed a way out of my own head and back into the world that was only getting bigger and bigger.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the things that I missed from elementary school was singing. Mrs. Phelps loved the arts and we did numerous plays and songs in her class. When I left I remember she told me to keep singing and dancing. I was pretty good at it and it made me happy. So I started taking classes and performing whenever I could. When I was on a stage I came alive. I felt like I had a voice and I didn\u2019t stutter. I was a totally different person and yet I felt the most like myself. It was the weirdest little gift life could give me and I\u2019m grateful for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think when I was able to find that again, when I found peace, that changed the way I viewed everything. I still stuttered and struggled day to day but there was also this other place and this other person in me who could catch his breath and easily attach his thoughts to his words. That\u2019s what kept me going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I got the opportunity to be a part of the Orange County High School of the Arts, allowing me to study more and get better. And by the end of High School I didn\u2019t fear my speech anymore. It still hurt when people would laugh, or if I had a block that I just couldn\u2019t break through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But somewhere in that time I decided that I wasn\u2019t going to lead by what other people thought of me.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it came time to go to college and decide what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, I chose acting, stutter and all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One summer while still at UCLA I went to work my first professional job at a summer stock theater in upstate New York where I had (what I now know to be) a life changing summer. I met and fell in love with a beautiful cast mate, who has since become my wife and the mother of our little girl. And when I visited New York City a good friend of mine introduced me to this other actor named Taro. She thought we would hit it off because we were both actors who stuttered. We shared our similar stories and he told me he\u2019d just launched this theater company for kids who stuttered with the first 7 kids. He gave me his number and said if I\u2019m ever in New York and want to help out to give him a call. He seemed like a pretty nice guy, so I hung onto his number.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After graduation I started working in theater and haven\u2019t stopped since. This year marks my 11th year of being a professional actor. In that time I\u2019ve done numerous shows on and off Broadway from Mamma Mia<\/em> to Hairspray<\/em>, and currently I\u2019m touring with The Book of Mormon<\/em>. I\u2019ve also been volunteering with SAY for the past five years. Seeing the courage and imagination of these students is so familiar and inspiring to me. Working with SAY has given me a profound joy that I never saw coming. And the beauty of it all is that for as far as I\u2019ve come, I only have to look back to this past week to find the last time I had a stuttering block. I still get nervous before a show, but I\u2019m not afraid of what will be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m glad I was able to find a voice in this career. I\u2019m glad I didn\u2019t give up when the world kept getting bigger and I\u2019m glad I held on to Taro\u2019s number. Most importantly I\u2019m glad I\u2019ve learned to love my stutter. Everyone\u2019s story is different but for me, stuttering made me a fighter. I may not have realized how strong I was if I didn\u2019t have something to push against.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Travis Robertson \u2013The more I tried, the more I failed and the more people noticed, and worried, and sometimes laughed. Meeting new people meant saying my name and I had trouble getting over the \u2018R\u2019 hump in Travis. I certainly avoided my last name whenever possible because Robertson was just entirely too long. Three syllables!?…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4733,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":15,"label":"Blog"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/say.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/blog_glad.jpg",663,502,false],"author_info":{"display_name":"Zoe Schlesinger","author_link":"https:\/\/say.org\/?author=4"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":15,"name":"Blog","slug":"blog","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":15,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":10,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":15,"category_count":10,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Blog","category_nicename":"blog","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/say.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/say.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/say.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/say.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/say.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4732"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/say.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7454,"href":"https:\/\/say.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4732\/revisions\/7454"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/say.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/say.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/say.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/say.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}