Rosainys Almonte

Every highlight tells a story. For theater kid Mary-Margaret Duggan, each mark on the page is another step toward taking main stage.

One morning when she was about ten, Mary-Margaret Duggan sat at the living room’s couch while her mother combed her hair.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” her mom asked.

Without hesitation, Duggan said, “A legend.”

Looking back now, she smiles at that answer.

“Such a weird thing to say when you’re like 10 years old,” she said. “But I said it anyway.”

Now, a Southern Miss student, Duggan just wants to survive and be the best person she can be. Back then, though, she added, “That was kind of like my mindset — I wanted to perform.”

She did just that in sixth grade, landing the role of Jasmine in Sacred Heart’s play production of “Aladdin” and belting out “A Whole New World.”

But seventh grade brought changes, Duggan explained, “Center stage was only for people in elementary school, and I was in middle school now.”

So, Duggan moved on to cheerleading, admitting, “I was like, okay, I’m gonna do cheer…let me find some way to perform.”

That year, someone from Mississippi School of the Arts —a special boarding high school focused on creative areas like acting, singing, dancing, etc.—visited her school.

That was an opportunity Duggan couldn’t pass up, but reality hit when she checked her grades to see if she qualified for MSA.

“I had alphabetical grades,” Duggan said. “I had A’s in maybe History or English, and then B’s in the sciences.”

“The sciences and maths always messed me up,” she added.“ I was just not very good at school.”

But the struggle went deeper than grade.

“I didn’t feel very smart,” she said, pausing. “And I have a learning disability — I have dyslexia.”

Even so, she refused to let that define her. She kept pushing, determined to reach MSA, and along the way discovered that the skill she’d fought hardest to master — reading — had become her proudest accomplishment.

“I love doing it,” she said.

She dove into 85 books last year alone, yet admitted that reading took a long time for her to understand.

As a child, Duggan remembers struggling to read and write, not mastering writing her name until age seven. She felt the odds were against her.

“Everybody else knows how to read, and I’m the odd one now,” she remembered.

Now, Duggan considers herself a strong reader, though dyslexia still affects how she processes words, especially aloud or on stage. That challenge became evident one day, when doing a cold read, she stumbled over the word “chest.”

”Somewhere in my brain, I read the word chest and I said closet,” she said. “Not because I saw the word closet, but because chest is similar to the word closet.”

Reading scripts without preparations remains a hurdle, but Duggan stays confident thanks to her family’s unwavering support.

“My family has just been so kind to me and has always taught me that I can be whatever I want to be, that they’ll love me no matter,” she said. “Like, my family has always been like, okay, you’re gonna be able to read, but even if you couldn’t read, I would still love you.”

That mentality, she said, made her feel important no matter her abilities — and gave her the push to conquest reading.

“And that’s what made me realize, okay, I’ve got this,” Duggan said.

Her twin sister, Betty Duggan, echoes that constant support, especially when she is struggling with cold reading.

“She’s gotten really great at doing it on her own,” Betty said. “But, we are always there for her, when she needs somebody.”

Still, there have been times when Betty’s sister has faced rejection, as reading struggles closed off opportunities.

“She’s had to practice things that like somebody could do easily but it’s taken her a long time to do and a long time to perfect,” Betty said.

That effort, Betty explained, has left her sister feeling both rejected — for working harder just to keep up — and proud in mastering her craft more deeply than the rest.

“She knows how to read a script on the fly,” Betty said. “But, understand and do script analysis while she’s reading because she’s had to do that.”

That skill has shaped her path in the university’s theater program. Betty said her sister has appeared in three mainstage productions, learning all the lines for the women’s roles in “Big Fish” and “Rhinoceros”. She also plays as an ensemble member, playing ukulele and singing.

Betty added that her sister has worked both on stage and behind the scenes, balancing university shows with community theater.

“She’s always working on something — there’s rarely a time when she’s not in a play or doing something,” Betty said.

That dedication to her craft, Duggan said, comes from how much theater fulfills her — it challenges both her mind and soul.

“Theatre is a place where I am constantly learning and challenging myself, and that is why I love theatre so much,” Duggan said. “It is my safe place where I can work to become a better person and connect with people from many different backgrounds.”