What one thing keeps drawing US actress Robin Givens back to these shores? Her resounding love for the Island.

Out of all the places she’s visited, the film star said this was the only island she could imagine herself living.

“I remember when my younger son was born I actually started looking at preschools here,” she told The Royal Gazette.

“Maybe in this big grand world where you can’t figure out things sometimes, Bermuda, to me, is a place that still has a certain civility about it.

“We were talking to a taxi driver the other day about how people toot to each other in their cars and it seemed so caring and loving. That’s what I like about being here. Maybe I’ll get to retire here one day.”

Ms Givens is a frequent visitor to the Island. She travelled here often for the annual Celebrity Tennis Classic at Elbow Beach.

She returned last week to hold auditions for her play Joy in the Morning, which will show at Ruth Seaton James Centre for the Performing Arts on November 28. It was first performed here more than ten years ago.

Based on a spiritual memoir by her mother, Ruth, the play tells of a woman who loses the love of her life and subsequently loses her faith in God.

To find healing, she starts seeing a physiatrist and their relationship strengthens to where they both realise they need each other.

“It’s very inspirational and about a journey back to herself and believing in God again,” Ms Givens explained.

“Everyone who sees it leaves with the same experience and comes away from it feeling really good. I’ve had people come to me after the show and say the play could have been about them.”

This version, however, is very different from the original.

“We’ve got the play to a place where it’s really solid and it’s very different from the last time people saw it in Bermuda,” she said. “It’s probably closer to a Broadway show now.

“And since we will be doing a US national run next year, I wanted to bring it back to where it all began.”

Canjalae Taylor, who sang in the play as a nine-year-old, has been recast in the upcoming production.

Other members of the original cast are also encouraged to audition.

Ms Givens said she hopes to cast as much Bermuda talent as possible.

“I want people to come to the show and see their friends and family on stage,” she said. “There’s an immense amount of talent here, so I know it’s going to be a nice production.”

Ms Givens is probably best known for her role in the film Boomerang, starring Eddie Murphy. She was recently cast in Tyler Perry’s The Family That Preys and the 2010 thriller Enemies Among Us.

But it’s her first role in 1991’s A Rage in Harlem that she’s most proud of.

“I grew up with the old-time actresses like Greta Garbo and Eva Gardner and love them. That role was very much that Lauren Bacall type of character,” she said.

Since those early days she’s seen the entertainment business change for black women, but not as much as she’d like.

“[Late American actress] Ruby Dee, who was a friend of mine, said this business for black women is like going to the ocean and only being allowed a piece of it. So in that respect, we haven’t come that far,” she said.

“But I’ve realised the responsibility lies with us to tell our own stories.”

Outside her entertainment career, her most important role is as a mother to sons Buddy and William.

“Being a mother comes first to me,” she said. “They say your parents start raising you and your children finish raising you. And nothing has made me happier and filled me up every day more than being a mom.”

The challenge for all working mothers is juggling their tasks and “keeping the balls in the air”.

But she said she finds joy in simple activities like dropping her youngest child off to school and taking both sons to tennis practice.

“I think you have to find out what’s important to you,” she said. “For me, every day I do yoga, which helps slow me down, because I’m old enough to realise [life] goes quickly.

“In America it’s a place where people are constantly striving for things and that’s become so important rather than just dealing with what you have and being grateful for what you have.”

She confessed to still having a few things to check off her professional bucket list.

She wants to direct her first film in the near future. She also hopes to get her memoir, Grace Will Lead Me Home, made into a film.

Tickets to Joy in the Morning can be purchased from 27th Century Boutique and Elbow Beach Hotel. They will also be available online at www.bdatix.bm and www.robingivensjoyinthemorning.com.