Smile

What makes Tanya Haas smile? “Spending time with my husband of going-on 30 years, or my children who are all now adults, or my friends who always accept me just as I am.” She was born and raised in Cincinnati and has lived in Carmel for the past 18 years. Haas fell in love with acting the first time she got on stage her freshman year of high school. “I love the excitement of bringing a story to life.” Haas has performed in more than 50 shows since high school, most recently in Carmel Community Players’ “The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940.” CCP’s “Godspell,” which is on stage now through Sunday at The Ivy Tech Auditorium in Noblesville, will be the eighth musical that she’s directed and the 10th youth production she’s directed as a drama teacher. She was asked to direct the youth production of “Back to the ‘80s” in 2016 when the original director dropped out, since she had been the drama teacher, directing school musicals for Midwest Academy, for a few years after helping to introduce theater to her oldest son’s English class when he attended the school. She and her husband raised six children, so she is used to “wrangling children” through her own life experiences. She is also directing Basile Westfield Playhouse’s summer youth production, “The Somewhat True Tale of Robin Hood,” July 27-Aug. 6. Haas has worked with kids since she was a kid. Her first jobs were babysitting, and then she was a preschool teacher and taught religion classes throughout high school and college and after she got married and started a family of her own. “My parents raised my brother and I to be big theater aficionados from an early age. My parents still go to see over 100 productions a year.” When she’s not directing or acting, she enjoys volunteering a few times a week taking care of refugee children while their parents are learning to speak English, but especially enjoys spending time with her husband and children and friends.