🎼 And I’ll Take With Me The Memories, To Be My Sunshine After The Rain…🎶

Hello Gentle Reader,

I have been unfortunate to find this sad news in a multitude of ways. First, a phone call, then an email, and in my mailbox today, I found a letter. The sad news in question, dear friend, is that the place that I have called my theatre home has announce that after 60 years, they would be closing the doors.

This is devastatingly sad information to find out. And as hard as it is for me, I can only imagine how it must feel for the board of directors and some amazing friends who have given so much time, energy and love to this endeavor.

I have been so incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to experience so many firsts with this incredible non-profit. Before I get in to any of that… buckle up, this is gonna be a little long.

Dear WVLO,

When I walked in to my first audition with you, I could never have guessed that for the last 33 years I would get to play so many incredible characters on that Saratoga stage under your banner.

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to WVLO for being a safe space to play, grow, learn, experiment and connect. I learned so much with this company and many of those things that have made my life so much better and more complete. This was the first space that I felt safe enough to try new things but most importantly, was allowed to try them. I don’t know that I would have had that chance in other places.

My first show should have been King & I back in 1993. The production had just started rehearsals and I was a late addition. At this time, I was heavy into competitive dance. It was an all boys group and we had won seven championships for our category. One of those wins got us into a national competition that was going to be at the event center right by Disneyland. The only down side was that this occurred during the tech week and opening weekend of the show. It was decided that maybe this wasn’t the right time to try and be in a show since I was committed to this event. I was bummed but it made sense. I didn’t know what “tech week” was at that time or how much of a commitment that alone is.

However, I met Nancy and the Hand family at that time. I also met the Pincus’ and I am pretty sure, their daughter Judy. I never would have guessed that these people whom I have come to adore, we be so gracious to welcome me back to work as part of the stage hand crew for Meet Me In St. Louis. I had a worry that there would be some sort of hesitation to have me work on another show. Silly thought.

MMISL is where I got hands on experience being part of the group that works on the physical transition of the stage into a new look between scenes, or helps hand out props to the actors and sometimes assists with a quick change, just to name a few tasks. Without a stage crew, a show would be impossible to happen. At this time, I was still in high school and my drama teacher was directing the show. Since I was still competing, I knew that I most likely couldn’t be on stage. I spoke to my teacher about it and he made the suggestion of stage hand. I was able to compete and miss a weekend of shows so that worked out really well. It was a lot of fun and I had learned a new part of the theater world. Up until this point, I had only been a performer. Having the chance to do backstage tasks, helped me to learn how each job in the project was super important. It wasn’t just about the actors on stage.

It was this point that I truly fell in love with the world of the theatre.

In 1995, I had given up competitive dance, mostly because I wanted a job so I had a little spending money of my own and found that my drama teacher was once again directing for WVLO, so I auditioned for West Side Story. As part of the ensemble, I was so jealous at how much dance there was in the show but that I didn’t get to do. I would jokingly say this show should have been called Jet Boys and Shark Girls. And even though I was envious of the dances that I wasn’t a part of, I still got to dance quite a bit and it was SO much fun. The team of John Healy and Debbie Norris always put on a great production.

Then, later that year, I was cast as Tulsa in Gypsy. My first featured role that was outside of a school setting. From there, it has become a lot of featured roles and an occasional choreography gig and then a directography gig, the only thing I didn’t do with WVLO was strictly a director’s gig.

Since that time in 1993 as a stage hand, I have always tried to make a point of helping other areas of a production if I was able. Whenever I am an actor, I always offer help to costumes. And when I am just doing choreography. Ok, pretty much every show I offer help to costumes. 🤭

While learning a lot of this stuff in school and conservatory is great, I only really ever got the chance to be hands on when working at WVLO. My learning was focused on performing, so all the other aspect of theatre was really just reading and talking with people maybe seeing that person at work. Never actually touching a lighting board to see how to blend color or creating a sound cue.

I am really going to miss this place. I feel truly lucky that I was invited to be a part of the Diamond cast for the 60th anniversary celebration. But even more lucky that I got to be on stage as two dear friends, Nancy Hand and Judy Pincus actually got to take that bow that they so very richly have deserved.

With my entire heart, thank you to WVLO for being such a massive part of my life and for everything you have offered to me. I thank you for every person that I have ever had the chance to share that stage with. I thank you for the incredible people that I have had the chance to learn so much from behind the scenes. I thank you for the billions of times that I have laughed so hard I lost my breath. I thank you for the hundreds of dance steps I got to make. I thank you for the chance to play characters that took me out of my regular life and let me figure out someone else’s story while I was trying to figure out my own.

But most importantly, thank you for the amount of love you poured in to me. I would not be who I am without that and I am so sad that I will never get to repay it. – j.

Thank you, Kind Reader, for letting me share that little story. It has been stuck in my chest all week. I have been trying to think of ways to save this place. I am sure that the group has already thought of these things a million times. Hoping against everything that there is a way, and I am sure there is. I would love to be the person to revive this brand. I have some ideas and I have some insight where the struggles are, now it is just a matter of how to get these dots connected.

I am sure that I have mentioned at some point in the last 20 years of writing, that I would love to have my own theatre company. I don’t think that will actually happen, but what if I could help to reestablish one?

Do you have any place that means a lot to you that helped you grow? Or maybe some nonprofit that you love because of the mission? Let me know what are some of the reasons you love those places.

As always, Dear Reader, stay safe and alert. Take care of yourself and those around you. Until the next time our paths cross… ❤️

🎼 Where Is It Written What It Is I’m Meant To Be; That I Can’t Dare To Have The Chance To Pick The Fruit of Every Tree…🎶

Hello Dear Reader!

I didn’t have much to say this past year because as you may recall, I was taking some time off.

Over the last 11 months, I went through a major blast of anxiety and my doctor recommended therapy because he said I was suffering from acute depression. With everything that is happening in the world, I feel like it was a normal response to have.

Nothing went as I had planned as far as the theatrical pursuits that I had made goals for. Even my survival job was literally on survival mode. While that ended, they bought my skillset with a contract agreement and I am only giving them a year which ends in August of 26. It has already been a trying time and I don’t know how much longer I want to grow with this place and the inefficient way it runs.

Then, at the end of summer, I had lunch with a dear friend of mine, and she invited me to be a part of a cast that will be performing for a 60th Celebration. The first thing that popped into my head was all the times that I told people “sorry, I can’t. I am taking the year off.” Sadly, I have had to do it more than I really wanted, (you would be surprised how easy it is to say no after a few times.) because this was a promise that I had made to myself, and I am terrible at keeping them when they are for me.

I am not a people pleaser, but when it comes to close friends, I will do things for them, so saying no was a big deal. Initially, I was feeling like I would be missing something but I realized that I needed to complete this goal for me, because I fail all the time when it comes to keeping promises to myself.

This offer was different, however. It was kind of like a giant thank you for 60 years of opportunities given to people to play on stage and bringing different friendships together through this amazing community and it isn’t often that a chance like this comes along.

How could I say no, Gentle Reader?

Additionally, all of my goals for what I wanted to accomplish this year, were frozen. Thank you, Anxiety and Fear. With everything going on in the country, I hated going anywhere. More often than not, I simply went to work then went home. I decided that I didn’t want to risk going to any classes because all the places that I wanted to take them was in other cities and I was too afraid to drive anywhere outside of my 3 mile radius alone.

This was also a major contribution to my depression and furthering my disappointment that I couldn’t keep to the goals/promises that I had set. When I was talking to another friend, I had mentioned that I really didn’t think that I was interested in theatre anymore, which led to a talk about what I was looking for since all I had focused on in the past was this art form.

I didn’t have any answers for her. Once the doc said that this feeling could be part of the depression, things began to make more sense to me. I made some efforts to go out for more walks and journaling more. I have found that I did feel a little better and my interests in just life in general returned and I found my anxiety was lessened.

Maybe, Kind Reader, this is exactly what I needed.

Until our path across again, stay safe and alert. ❤

🎼Hold On My Heart, Throw Me A Lifeline; I’ll Keep A Place For You Somewhere Deep Inside…🎶

Hello Gentle Reader!

It has been a bit, hasn’t it?

I hope you are well and healthy and had a lovely weekend.

Sadly, I found out about two people passing away. Each dear to me in their own way and neither in the same relation circle so it’s like which ever way I turn to face, I have to look at sadness. 😒

On Sunday, I found out that my cousin, Scott, but we always called him Scotty, had passed after he’d been hospitalized and a friend from the theatre, Mike, had passed on Saturday.

If there was one great regret that I have about stepping away from family functions and such it would be because of missing my cousin Scotty. He was fearless. A little reckless, but always willing to try dares, and especially gross food mixing stuff. I remember my aunt always yelling at him for doing something but one of the main things was reaching over and honking the horn while she drove under an overpass near their home. He did it every time, so I don’t know why it always surprised her, but it did.

One of my most favorite memories was when my dad took us and my little brother to see 101 Dalmatians in the small movie theater in the neighborhood. I remember there weren’t many people in the auditorium but we were up near the front. Then the scene came on where Cruella DeVil is driving furiously to catch the large truck the dogs were in and she has to miss the bridge and drive down an embankment and into a pile of snow. As she is driving the embankment, she is bouncing all around in her car and Scotty lets out his crazy laugh that has a sort of Pee Wee Herman quality to it. It sounds to old to be a child’s laugh if that makes any sense. Think Ricky Ricardo having a belly laugh. Any how, he lets out this big “HA HA” that is so loud it makes us laugh. Then, after Cruella has got back on the road, there is a point where her hair is all crazy and there is a close up on her red eyes and they have that spiral going on in them.

For some reason, that just makes him laugh more. This in turn makes us laugh and all the way through the rest of the scene up to the crash, we are laughing so hard because of his goofy laugh.

I am gonna miss that crazy kid, but so thankful that he showed me what being fearless looked like.

Mike was a different kind of cat. He was an excellent lighting designer. His credits are in the hundreds, easily. Maybe even more but I know he worked on many of the same projects that I did. I do believe that the first show I had met him on was Gypsy. I didn’t really get a chance to know him until I was in Smokey Joe’s Cafe.

We would talk about his love of dance, the shows that he saw in New York, the show he was going to see on his next trip and sometimes about when he had done shows. I used to think that he was a grumpy man, but I came to realize that he just had a very serious face unless he was smiling or laughing.

I had never seen this happen ever, but once, I think it was during the opening weekend or maybe after the Friday night show of a production of Jesus Christ Superstar, somehow, all of the lighting cues were deleted. All of them. There was nothing and Mike came in and overnight recreated the entire show. When the cast came in for our call, we had no idea until the stage manager had mentioned it. Insane!

I think my favorite thing that I will remember with Mike was working on the lighting for my directorial projects. As a cast member to meet and interact with the lighting designer is fun and cool but as a director your interactions are much more intense. I always would give him so much sass about having to use a fog element in his designs and once he explained it to me, I couldn’t unsee how much it helped.

On Jesus Christ Superstar, not the aforementioned, at the start of the 39 lashes, the lights were much less red and you could see the faces of the upstage cast. As the lashes continued, so did the deepening of the red and we thought pulling the light from the incredible upstage cast would make a kind of hellish looking landscape as they would show as silhouettes and could bring more to the contrast in their position as encouraging the punishment versus when they had supported him. I wish I had a picture from the actual production. This is from tech week.

On Smokey Joe’s Cafe, above is probably my most favorite shot I have of the entire process. Not that I didn’t absolutely adore the cast, but sitting side by side and trying to find the most perfect hue of various lights in the different areas was the most unexpectedly fun part of directing. The back record neon isn’t on and this little moment before we added any color felt like making magic.

Thanks for piquing my curiosity in lighting design and teaching me other ways of thinking about how storytelling can be fascinating and wondrous. Thanks for sharing your stories and ideas.

So pull up a chair and until our paths cross again, my friend, I shall always remember you at your “desk”

What Is THIS Feeling?…

With David Lampke, Amanda Vogel, Andrea Furtado, Samantha Stidham, and Andi Kline — With David Lamcke, Amanda Vogel, Andrea Furtado, Samantha Stidham, and Andi Kline

With “Sugar” now officially open, I have this slight sense of sorrow.

For the last six months, I have been bouncing from one show to the next. I’ve met so many amazing and fantastic people that have made me laugh, given me the creeps (they were supposed to), or terrified me, and I have enjoyed each moment. There wasn’t a day were I thought “I don’t want to be here.” Even on the really REALLY tough days. I just thought “how can I make it better”

Last night, when I got home from the theatre, I kept walking to random parts of the apartment. I had no idea what to do with myself. For the rest of the night the only thing that ran through my head was: What do I do now?

My friends and I am sure my job would say take a break. But my head and my heart are saying FIND SOMETHING!! No, it’s more like they are screaming it! It’s been a blast just letting loose and throwing every idea I have in this last role. It’s like I’ve been given free reign to do anything that I can think of (within character, of course) to bring life to my version of Daphne. But now that the rehearsal period is over, I don’t have a new persona to “create” and I am feeling a little saddened by this. Finding my good boy cop for “Nana’s Naughty Knickers” and my inner lecher for “Promises, Promises” and my cocky masculinity that turns to kind-hearted lady for “Sugar” let me explore my brain and feelings. It was like exercise for those things. The things that get missed because they aren’t used the same way our bodies are for dancing or brains for doing crossword puzzles. I got to play pretend on my quiet by myself times and I saw such great things.

I think the best thing that someone said to me last night, even though I can’t say I agree, was “there were times that I forgot you were a guy!”

That is all thanks to the scenarios I got to play with in my head. I had to think and feel things like what’s it like to be swept off your feet by someone you just met? Or how do you break the news you need to break without hurting anyone? Or how do you feel happy for your friend that’s happy but jealous and upset with your best friend for that same reason? All of these from a female and a male perspective. I hope that some of it comes through in this show and I don’t know for sure if it does because everything is so gosh darn funny.

Oh, yeah, did I mention that this show is FUNNY!!! So ya gotta keep on top of that too!

And I think that’s what made these last six months so incredible… it kept me on my toes emotionally and mentally. Now I have this fear; what if it doesn’t happen again?

So we’ll see…

I hope you get the chance to see “Sugar” which is “Some Like It Hot” in musical form. You can get tickets at WVLO.org or by calling 408-268-3777 and leaving a message on the voicemail. It allows you to actually pic the best seats available this way.

In the meantime, since I have some to spare, I will be out and about looking for mischief and updating the blog a lot more.

Thanks for your patience during these busy but SO INCREDIBLY AWESOME few months.

♥♥

Dear H2$ Cast Mates…

Cast Photo H2$ — Photo created and taken by E. Kwong of Imagewurx

Dear H2$ Cast Mates,

Now that I have a free moment, I’d like to say… Benjamin Burton Daniel Ovington?!

Kidding!

I know it’s going to sound unbelievably unoriginal and uninspired, but I have thoroughly enjoyed working along side each and every one of you. I’ve only been in one show where I’ve laughed as much as I have in this one, so I cannot thank you enough for the tremendous hilarity you have infused the entire rehearsal process and production run with. I actually looked forward to rehearsals, a little less so when it was hot outside. But still, I looked forward to seeing all of you wonderful people. That’s why every night when I left, I said “goodbye all you wonderful, beautiful people.” For you truly are. There’s a small part of me that is a little sad that I won’t be seeing you all this coming weekend.

Now, while the previous words weren’t super original, please know that they are extremely heartfelt. I do however want to tell you the following:

Andrea – I have absolutely loved watching you on stage. Your commitment to your character choices is always 100% and makes me want to be that focused. I still want to do a project that features you! I don’t know what, but just a head’s up!

Brett – You have brought jack-assery (that’s a Brett Carlson term) to another level. There were subtleties in your performance that were genius and I take my hat off to you sir! It’s been an honor sharing the stage with you once more.

Sean – Thank you for being stuck with me once more and allowing me to interact with you. It’s always a riot when you come up with an unexpected remark. Enjoy your break, but don’t stay off-stage too long.

Greg – You, sir were so well prepared and only because you told me, I would never have guessed that this is only one in a small handful of performances. I look forward to some good things from you. Thanks for the laughs!

John – It was a pleasure sharing the stage with you. You have great energy and your so charming on stage! Keep up the good work!

Doug – It was great to do another show with you. I loved the new energy you brought to Act 2 every night. I hope it’s not another 6 years before we share the stage again.

Mike – This show, I’m sure, will have specific memories tied to it. For me, your incredible heart and friendship and kindness will be something that will always be thought of when I think of H2$.

Roberta – Gurl, you are all kinds of fierce. Your calmness always helped me focus right before we had to go on stage. I love that you also delve into your character’s past and see what you can use. It’s inspiring.

Stephanie – I really only got to watch you dance during Yo-Ho-Ho, and every time, you were fabulous in it! Those doubles! Bam! Every time. You are without question one of the nicest people I have the privilege of knowing.

Kim – You have some of the best reactionary expressions in the show! So much fun to watch you each show during Cinderella Darling (I was all stalkery and watching from the lobby)

Elizabeth – You took funny to a whole other level! I could see you doing very well in a stand up comic situation. You have a wonderful way of telling stories and finding the funny in them. You definitely were one of the wickedly funny people in the cast. Your drawings were adorable, and I will always remember the humpy camel.

Lydia – FLAWLESS!! You brainy chica! Your interpretation of Hedy was brilliant! Nuff said!

Ronnie – I feel so lucky to have had this opportunity to work with you. You humor was completely unexpected but totally gut busting! I am forever going to think of you as a closeted smarmy fella!

Cindy – I am shocked that you haven’t done more musicals! You’ve got such a great voice! So sultry, or should I say slinky?! You are an absolute joy!

Sven – I am in awe of how dedicated you practiced the Chipmunk Cheer every night. Your applause were honestly well deserved! Chip-Chip-Chip-Chip-Chipmunk! Hmph! Keep up the great work!

Karl – You are so devilishly funny! I love how much thought you put into your character. My favorite moment is when you leave the stage after “Coffee Break.” I am SO glad you are back in theatre, you’re so natural there.

Frank – Once again, you are a delight to work with. You’re always such a consistent actor, and it’s a great comfort to work with someone so dependable.

Lea – Diva, my diva! You have THE best expression the first time we see Hedy! I love that you always have strong characters. Even, if they aren’t written as such. You always give them an immense dignity that makes your characters so likable.

Chris – Another fabulous job. You’re song was always one that I really enjoyed watching from the wings. You’ll have to keep me posted on your next show.

April – Hello, Ms. Fabulous! Getting to know you and to perform with you was an absolute joy! My regret is that we didn’t get to gabbing sooner in the rehearsal process.

Samantha – Gurl, I love you! I just think the world of you. Your work at the conservatory is super evident. Every night, I loved watching you storm out angry then change your tactic and rush back in 5 seconds later. So incredible to see that transformation backstage.

Robert – Davis!! You were a rock, solid! Thank you for all your help when I missed stuff! It’s been a honor to work with you again. I can’t remember how long it’s been since the last show, but it better not happen again!

Jeff – To my “Fraternity” brother, it was a blast dancing with you. Thank you for your help during the set up of Act 2 scene 4, I appreciate it.

Melissa – Okay, you were the one I was not expecting to hear such wicked yet frackin’ funny things from. Not only that, you are so quick with the funny! I wanna be able to sing like you when I grow up. Such a fabulous voice. I am going to miss helping you down from a table.

Jen – You are a wonderful dance partner. Thanks for trusting that I wouldn’t drop you! Thank you for helping me figure out all the things that I missed during “Coffee Break” due to work. Also thanks, for the info on how to help my shoulder.

All of you have a place in my heart, and I would happily work with any and all of you again anytime! I wish you all nothing but the best in your future endeavors and incredible success in 2012!!

I love you and cannot thank you enough for the laughs and the wonderful memories and friendships that you’ve shared with me over the last 3 months.

All my best,

jery