First Yolo Flatlander Contribution

Someone acquainted with this blog apparently recommended my name to the Yolo Flatlander community newspaper's editor, Sally Parker, as someone who might be a good contributor.

Thank you!

Here is the text from my first article published in the Yolo Flatlander (April 2007, p.20):

Chewing The Scenery With DMTC

Lancelot came alone and unannounced to Guenevere’s bedchamber. She sat alone at a makeup table, combing her hair. Hearing him enter, she said, “Did anyone see you?”

Just then, the lighting director, fiddling with switches in the light booth, plunged the entire theater into darkness. From somewhere in the inky blackness, Lancelot said “No, no one.”

It was “tech week,” the final, hectic week before the opening of “Camelot,” presented by Davis Musical Theatre Company (DMTC), Davis’ own year-round community theater troupe.

Tech week is when big plans meet obstreperous reality, when costumes have to fit and scene changes have to work. Boy, I could tell you stories! For example, in a recent show, one actress struggled to master a revealing costume. Amply-endowed, she needed the costume’s boostiere like the Pacific Ocean needs water, and she grew concerned at one point: "I'm afraid!" she exclaimed in her soprano voice. In spontaneous bass unison, two of us males intoned, "I'm not." (In the end, she did just fine).

And then there’s the rehearsal period too. For example, the script for the musical “Showboat” (written in the mid-1920’s) opens with the racist boor Pete (played by myself in DMTC’s 2003 production) hurling the n-word at the lead African-American actress (in order to link racism with uncouthness with one quick shock). The director carefully briefed the cast that we were NOT going to follow the script in this production, and use a milder epithet instead. I was doodling inattentively, however, and what I thought I heard was that we WERE going to follow the script. I was amazed: it was the first and last time any DMTC cast was ever rendered – completely speechless. Was it something I said?

Musicals engage many different talents (acting, singing, dancing), and the complicated endeavor of staging musicals engages yet more talents, of an organizational sort (set design, light design, scenic design). In a town dominated by academe, DMTC can function as a welcome release from the books, for the muse trapped in us all, where people’s kinetic intelligence can be engaged. For example, in “Camelot” the men have had to learn sword safety: we have real swords, after all. Outside Renaissance Fairs, where else are you likely to need to learn sword safety?

Oddly enough, many of the players in DMTC’s “Main Stage” productions, mostly adults, do not come from Davis, but hail instead from a free-floating population of theater gypsies from all over the Sacramento Valley, some coming from 70 miles away, or more, to participate. The children in DMTC’s Young Performers’ Theater (YPT) are largely from Davis or its immediate vicinity, however. Thus, DMTC, is both community-based and family-based, yet not in the least bit insular.

In America, people like to talk about equality, but the truth is we often segregate ourselves into like-thinking, age-stratified communities: academic towns like Davis are not immune either. Community theaters are among the few institutions in American life where an approximation to genuine equality can be found, where seven-year-olds and seventeen year olds and seventy year olds, rich and not-so-rich alike, can all sit down to dinner and talk about common experiences. No matter how yawning the class distinctions onstage, backstage, no one can be left out without harming the overall production. Everyone has a role to play and inclusion is stressed.

Community theaters like DMTC serve as both a springboard for new talent to enter the professional world, and a landing place for former professionals to keep their instincts sharp. Volunteers who have never done theater before can learn directly from their peers. Here’s a small selection of notable DMTC players, and what they are doing now:

• Kelly Daniells – First role ever, at age 8 as ‘Fatima, the Dancing Doll’, in YPT’s “Aladdin” in 1994; currently playing the young lead, Sophie Sheridan, in “Mamma Mia” in Las Vegas.
• J. Scott Browning – First DMTC role as Albert Petersen in “Bye, Bye, Birdie” in 1999; just appeared in “Emma: The Musical” in San Francisco, in February.
• Mara Davi – First DMTC role as Maria in “West Side Story” in 2001; currently playing ‘Maggie’ in “A Chorus Line”, on Broadway.

Theater talent is widespread in the community and thus it is wise for all theaters to follow DMTC’s example and maintain an open audition policy, because you never know who will show up. Even first timers can dazzle, as Bev Sykes, theater reviewer for The Davis Enterprise, recently noted regarding “Camelot”:

As the royal couple exited, the curtains closed and Lancelot du Lac (Tae Kim) appeared in a spotlight. When Kim opened his mouth to sing, everybody in the near-capacity audience sat up straighter. We all experienced a stunning moment together. Kim, a medical student newly moved to the Davis area, is, amazingly, making his very first theatrical appearance--ever, yet he has the confidence of a seasoned professional and a voice worthy of any professional production.

With those kinds of possibilities at hand, who wouldn’t like to do musicals? Despite a 22-year history, with 10 YPT and Main Stage shows a year, only about 3,100 people have ever participated in DMTC shows, indicating that many people love to come back for more. DMTC strives to maintain an energetic balance between newcomers and established players, though, so you never know who might be onstage next – it might be you!

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Marc Valdez is a frequent spear-carrier at DMTC (http://www.dmtc.org). He details his misadventures at: http://marcvaldez.blogspot.com.