April Bender has a motto: If you fear it, do it. The star of many Hat Trick Theatre productions says she's naturally shy — too shy even to have a head shot, the enlarged photo-with-résumé that actors use when auditioning for roles. But long ago, Monica and Chris Steele of the USF School of Theatre told her that she'd come into her own once she got into the habit of doing just what she was frightened of, and since then she's done just that.

About playing Clarice in When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder?, she says, "I don't like playing a vulnerable person — that frightens me. So of course I wanted to be her, because it scared me." Appearing partially nude in Burn This? "Again, I said, yeah, let's go ahead and do it, because it scared me, and I wanted to get over that challenge."

In fact, Bender, 27, is so good at overcoming herself, I just assumed, based on her acting, that she was a tough, no-nonsense, take-no-prisoners sort of woman. Instead, she turned out to be charmingly modest and not temperamental at all.

The occasion of our meeting was Bender's upcoming role in Choose Your Own Shakespeare, as created by local theater person Lani McGettigan. The play is constructed like one of those children's adventure books that offer two different endings to the same page; you choose your favorite and find out where it leads. The difference in Choose Your Own Shakespeare is that the audience will decide which fork in the road to take, and then the players will offer Shakespearean dialogue fit for that direction. For instance, we might watch two lovers meeting for the first time, at which point the audience will be asked: Does their rendezvous go smoothly or do they screw it up? If smoothly, the actors launch into the first romantic scene between Romeo and Juliet; if badly, we see the first embarrassing encounter of Orlando and Rosalind in As You Like It.

All the dialogue is genuine Bard, and though most of it comes from his romantic comedies, there are also bits of Macbeth, Othello and Measure for Measure "to tie up some loose ends." And the effort required? "It's been an absolute beast for Lani to put together, and a beast for us to memorize and stage, but you will never see the same show twice," Bender says. "It's going to be a different outcome every night, and it's going to be such fun."

Bender was animated and enthusiastic when we talked about Choose Your Own Shakespeare, but when I asked her about herself she immediately became more cautious. Still, she told me the facts: born in Hollywood, Fla., grew up in Orange City, and got her first taste of acting as a member of her church's youth group drama club. "I had so much fun because I was able to, I guess, be out there without having to feel bashful, 'cause I could pretend to be somebody else," she says. Eventually she went to Daytona Beach Community College, then moved to Tampa to finish her bachelor's degree at USF. There she met the Steeles and absorbed their program of aversion therapy.

Bender says they taught her to "love the work. If it scares you, if it makes you uncomfortable, dive in head first. That's the greatest gift you can give to yourself and to the audience. Because people don't want to leave their homes and sit in a dark theater for two hours to say, 'Oh that was nice and safe.' People want to be thrilled."

Bender graduated from USF in December 2004, but has never felt compelled to try her luck as an actress in New York or L.A.: "It's just not in me." Instead, she became a founding member, along with Joe Winskye, Jack Holloway and others, of Hat Trick, then known as Bayshore Productions and performing at the Viva La Frida Café.

Her first show — and the last one at Viva La Frida — was The Death of Zukasky, in which she played a fast-thinking executive. Then Hat Trick moved to Ybor City's Silver Meteor Gallery, and has been playing there ever since. Bender has been involved in almost every one of the company's best shows, from Bash in 2005 to Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You and Burn This. In 2006 she won the Best Actress award in Creative Loafing's Best of the Bay issue.

But even the increased notoriety didn't lead her to audition for any other company: "If I have the choice of doing a show for Hat Trick and helping them, as opposed to doing something that would be good for my own résumé and my own personal growth — I'm just not there yet."

And Bender, who has a day job leasing apartments, doesn't even accept money from Hat Trick when there are profits to be shared: "Whenever we do profit, I always turn down my share and I want the company to have it … My passion is to see this company, that I was there for from the beginning, I want it to thrive."

Her loyalty to Hat Trick even extends to the Silver Meteor: "I love it. I love the homeless neighborhood cats that kill the cockroaches and the mice, and meow and beg for food. I love the toilet that doesn't work in the girl's dressing area and you have to jiggle the handle every time you flush it. I love how the guys' dressing room always smells like there's something that died under the floorboards. You know, it's close to me. It's near and dear to my heart."

Unlike many of her thespian contemporaries, Bender plans on staying in the Bay area: "Right now my heart is here in Tampa. I've made a life for myself; I've got these extensions of my life. This is like my family, I love these people, and I would do anything for them."

At the moment that includes the very unusual Choose Your Own Shakespeare. "We're going to do it Globe Theatre style," Bender said. "The house lights are going to stay up; the groundlings will be able to see us as clearly as we can see them, and it's going to be audience interaction. We would encourage them to bring props if they want to, they can drink during the play, they can talk right to us, 'cause we're going to be messing with them right back."

Give it a look. And if you find April Bender messing with you during the show, don't take it wrong. She's actually afraid of what she's doing.

Which is why she does it so well.

This article appears in Jul 9-15, 2008.