The mother of all things

Bree Burgess Rosen’s advice to other moms is succinct.

“Pick your battles, take a deep breath and keep it in perspective,” she said.

Among many other activities, Burgess Rosen is the founder of No Square Theatre, directs the annual “Lagunatics” revue, serves on arts scholarship committees, writes youth productions for the Pacific Symphony, volunteers at her son Noah’s school, and still makes time to read to her son every night.

She has also been named the Laguna Beach Woman’s Club’s Woman of the Year, and will be honored at its annual luncheon June 6.

Burgess Rosen says that before taking on any new project, she examines what she calls the “crap-to-cash” ratio: Is the drama worth the reward?

  From Japan to “Jubilee!”

Born in Oklahoma into a military family, Burgess Rosen lived briefly in Barstow, then moved to Okinawa as a child. While in Japan, she volunteered at a Medivac hospital for Vietnam soldiers.

The family moved to San Diego when she was a teenager.

“Of course I spoke English, but I certainly didn’t speak Southern Californian,” she said.

She felt the culture clash acutely.

“I was a freak,” she said. “I didn’t fit in at all.”

Then she stumbled into a school theatre production, where she made lifelong friends.

From that first play, she went on to perform in television, theatre and as a Las Vegas showgirl, including the debut of Donn Arden’s “Jubilee!”

  Love and loss

While in Glitter Gulch, Burgess Rosen experienced the first wave of the AIDS crisis firsthand, saying goodbye to countless friends.

“It was awful,” she said. “Ronald Reagan didn’t say the word [AIDS], and I had already buried 100 friends.”

As she sat at friends’ bedsides, Burgess Rosen recalled that all of the conversations were about relationships, not what car sat in their driveway, reminding her of what’s really important.

“This is the big, proverbial ‘it,’” she said. “It all sounds so trite, but it’s true.”

She learned the greatest lesson of her life just before her son was born, when her mother died.

“The depth of her love was completely unknown to me until she was gone,” Burgess Rosen said. “And I think that’s the greatest thing about being a woman — that capacity for love.”

  Hardworking mother

The maternal instinct didn’t exactly come naturally, Burgess Rosen said.

When Noah was 4 months old, she took him along to one of her performances at a Utah convention.

When she was due to go onstage, Burgess Rosen handed her baby to someone backstage.

When she returned from performing, she didn’t see Noah anywhere, and asked where he was.

“I was in a convention room with 20,000 people in it; this was the first time I was out with him,” she said.

She looked at a huge television screen, only to see an ultra- conservative Republican senator parading around with Noah.

“That’s Orrin Hatch with my little Democratic baby!” she cried.

Noah has since grown up at his mother’s side at play rehearsals.

“At 4, he could probably sing the complete works of Stephen Sondheim,” she said. “He’s a creature of his environment.”

She doesn’t see Noah following in her tap dance shoes, but says he is an eminently “social, sweet, considerate and funny” kid.

“I can honestly say that I’ve got one mega-easy child,” she said.

She strives to teach Noah open-mindedness through truth about the world.

“It’s my job to be honest with my son,” she said, “but not to be brutally honest. Unconditional love? You don’t want to mess with that.”

Burgess Rosen makes it a priority to read to Noah before he goes to sleep. Then, she will sit in the comfortable glider chair in his room, laptop in hand, to reply to e-mails or work on scripts.

Often, though, bedtime ends up being two adults (including her husband of 19 years, Leon Rosen), a 100-pound kid and a 75-pound dog in a Cal King bed, she said.

  Counting blessings

Burgess Rosen is currently working to increase arts education at all of Laguna’s public schools; at her son’s school, El Morro Elementary, she coordinates the Class Act program, which links Pacific Symphony musicians to students.

She also writes and directs the symphony’s youth education productions.

Her latest passion is putting on a free monthly open mic night at the Woman’s Club.

She would drop everything, though, for her son.

“As a mommy, your priority should be your child,” Burgess Rosen said. “I don’t think there’s any more important job than raising our next generation.”

To that end, she has chosen to move her annual Lagunatics revue to later in the year, in order to take a long-awaited RV trip with her family during the summer.

“If I have one regret in my life, it’s that I spent three summers of my life doing Lagunatics instead of spending them with my kid,” she said.

In a typical week, Burgess Rosen’s life is filled to the brim.

“It’s exhausting,” she said. “My brain gets fried.”

But it’s also addicting.

“I’m really really blessed and amazed that I’ve made a living doing what I love, and that’s what I wish for my child,” Burgess Rosen said.

“As a mom, the ultimate thing you want for your child is a long life full of friends and accomplishment, whatever that is.”

CANDICE BAKER can be reached at (949) 494-5480 or at [email protected].