TheatreAddict.com - Bakersfield Drama Blog

It's chapter 6 of the Bakersfield Theatre saga as told by Rob Long. You can comment on the blog on MySpace by clicking here, or just email me and I'll post the comment for you.


I've been delaying this one, letting it stew, trying to decide what angle to approach it from... I've been procrastinating, and for two reasons: One, school starts again on Monday, and I've been extremely busy this week, in inservice, in consulting on the auditorium, on setting up my curriculum, my production schedule, and my classroom. Two, I've had this chicken vs. egg thing going through my mind regarding Bakersfield comedy.

Actually, the debate started in my mind a few years ago, when I heard Blaine Swen had auditionned into one of the upper performing companies of Second City in Chicago. I was so proud. Blaine's one of the best improvisors I've ever had the pleasure of training. When someone you've taught does something with their talents, in a way it validates your teaching. I've watched many people I've trained go on to do great things with their skills - you'll recognize many of their names when I go through Bakersfield comedy since 1989.

The chicken/egg thing here first occurred to me when I tried to share a little of that pride with CJ Pope. She was Blaine's high school drama teacher, and I wanted to see how she reacted to Blaine's success. Now that I think about it, I remember talking about it in the CSUB dressing rooms during the Spotlight Festival, 2005. She'd heard about Blaine's success - he'd gone to Chicago for his Master's in theology, I believe, and wound up mainstage at Second City, while another mutual student, Tom Stutzman, had gone to acting school and wound up a minister. She commented on the irony. Then I asked her if she ever took pride in having contributed to her students' success, particularly in Blaine's - I remember seeing him in The Music Man at Stockdale, and I asked her specifically about him in that. She told me, "No, Blaine's always had something. You could see it in him."

So that prompts the debate in me - how many of our students already have it, and just get training from us and move on, and how many of them really get what they have from us? What if what they have is the ability to LEARN it, and both sides of the coin are true? That seems to have the ring of truth to me.

Anyway, a lot of Bakersfield's noted comedians go back to ComedySportz. Whether they learned their skills from whichever ComedySportz trainer they went through, or they had it when they got there and sought CSz out as an outlet, or some combination of both, improving, polishing, honing what they already had... I think there are people in all three classes, honestly... many of them came through CSz.

CSz started in Bakersfield in 1989. If you've read Johnny Mansbach's blog, you've got a basic feeling for the hisotry of ComedySportz Bakersfield from 1989 - 1995, and he has a link to some thoughts of mine from 95 on. It isn't the history we're here to focus on though, it's the people that came out of it. You may not know names like Johnny Mansbach, Derek Mears, Michael Purcell, Dave Spenser, Gary Kramer, Glenn Packman, Pat Blake... that's because they came through Bakersfield CSz, played, taught here, and moved on. Gary owns a huge improv company now, and Glenn plays for CSz NYC. Derek is a professional stuntman. Johnny runs his own production company, works for a film test marketer, and also for the Game Show Network. Pat is now an administrator at Shafter High School. If you don't know the name Michael Purcell, that makes me sad. He was a wonderful actor here in town, but he was also quite the quiet crusader, doing good for both the deaf and homosexual communities in town. He may still be around... I'm not sure. It'd be great to be able to get Michael back in the theatre - he's a wonderful talent, and he does great things.

But there are those who have stayed, who have grown from the seeds of CSz Bakersfield to do great things here...

Terry Willey: Terry and I were cast from the ORIGINAL group of auditionners in March of 1989, and he and I were the last two OCs (original Comedianz) to go, both in the late 90s. Terry has worked and continues to work for just about every theatre in town, after taking off several years to be able to spend time at home with his son. He came back with a vengeance though, playing Atticus Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird" last September at BCT, and Athos in the Gaslight's "Three Musketeers" just last June. Come to think of it, those two shows really kind of bookend the depth of involvement Terry has in the theatre community here in town.

Mickey Farley: Any time I see a show at Stars, it seems like Mickey's in it. Mickey was OC in '89, but left the team after about a year. Mickey's tremendously funny, amazingly talented, and charmingly self-deprecating about both.

Ken Burdick: Yep. Ken Burdick was in one of the first large influxes of players we had, in 1990, as one of the first group I had the pleasure of teaching improv to. Ken now has a Master's in music, teaches music at Mt. Vernon elementary, and loves to sing with his wife Jill whenever they can get the chance. Ken was also in "Three Musketeers" as Porthos... you may have seen him in "Sweeney Todd" and "Into the Woods" at the Spotlight, or "It Runs in the Family" at BMT/Stars. Jill, by the way, played for CSz in ... ummm, 94-95? Is that right? She's tremendously funny, but she never believes it when I tell her so.

I just realized I hope to God I don't overlook anyone here... please feel free to add if I do... no slight intended...

I should also mention that Jessica Merritt took every workshop we offered from 1989-1991. She was voracious for theatrical training, and her mother supported that habit. And she was good, no doubt about it. But she was like ten back then.

Matt Lindsay used to play for CSz... he and I used to practice 185 in the halls of BC, waiting for rehearsal. Ooops, he's not here - he's in Florida. It's just hard not to mention Matt whenever he comes to mind. We used to call him "The Tom Hanks of Bakersfield." Matt was everywhere, in everything. It's hard to believe he's moved on sometimes... he was so integral to everything.

We realized in a couple years that most of our fanbase was young, and getting younger as the team grew younger. I asked Johnny to let me start a High School League in 1990, and we did. One of the main reasons I pursued it was that we had a fan who went to BHS by the name of David Milazzo, and we couldn't see letting a 16 year old play, even though he wanted to so badly. He used to tell us how he and his friends recited our stuff like it was Python. So we got a HSL together.

We had three iterations of the HSL over the years, and they several people who are key to Bakersfield theatre came through either the HSL or CSz training...

Jeff Lepine: I remember his long hair, and the ski gloves he insisted on wearing to play Knots when we were workshopping Stockdale in the Laurelglen Bible Church hall. Jeff ran the Empty Space along with Bob Kempf when Brian Sivesind left, and he also grew into owning and comanaging CSz, which renamed itself into Major League Improv while under the watch of Jeff and Chuck Cupani. Chuck workshopped onto the team in '95. I'd go into more detail on him, but he participates in local theatre only tangentially. Improv was what he preferred to do, and he stepped out of that earlier this year.

Robert Chan: Chan came through workshops, played for me in both Bakersfield and Phoenix, and now he's in the Blacklist, as well as DJing for KRAB radio.

Jenna Widelock: Jenna always tended to stay at the fringes of the HSL group, despite her talent. She usually let her boyfriend Chad overshadow her, even though she was really, really good in her own right - I would say her style was more theatrical than the "fast and funny" ComedySportz/spot improv philosophy... I think she would excel at a longform performance. For what it's worth, I doubt she'd let the same thing happen today, as far as being overshadowed by her boyfriend. Jenna's the theatre teacher at East now, as well as running her own production company. Jenna doesn't know it, but she's one of the people in town I'd most like to work with. I doubt that'll ever happen though - she's got big things ahead of her, and all she needs is one big hit in LA to push a choice between teaching and fame. And it's not that far off, I don't think.

Chelsea Brewer: The soul of sardonic wit, I'm pretty sure Chelsea's still in town. She left for awhile, but I saw a one-act she directed at BCT this summer. That one act was easily the best of the evening, and I was extremely impressed with the material, which she also wrote. It was very honest, seemingly cathartic, and I got a lot out of it. She had moved to LA for a few years (more on that in a minute), but I believe she's back now. I could be wrong.

David Rock: David came through the Stockdale CSz HSL just like Jeff, Blaine, and James Kopp. Several of them, David included, had styles that were a little darker and more risque than the more family-friendly ComedySportz.

When Matt Fredrickson came back from Los Angeles, he hooked up with Rock and started RAT, the Royal Association of Thespians. They perform roughly quarterly at the Empty Space.

RAT pushes for the offensive, do their best to go overboard in terms of pushing the envelope. Ew, such a mixed metaphor. The show isn't for everyone, but there are always several incredibly insired moments in a RAT show. One of my favorites was a show where Oprah was questionning Jesus' paternity, whether Joseph or God was the father. Both had provided sperm samples (represented in a RAT show by milk), but before Oprah could take them for testing, Mary drank them both, preventing the testing, which caused the audience to cover them in Silly String.

Ah, the Silly String gimmick. If something in the show is TOO offensive for you, you have a voice - you get a can of Silly String to spray the performers with.

Garrett Willingham: Garrett was in the last CSz workshop I ran while owning the team, back in 1997. He was the last person I gave basic improv skills to in Bakersfield before my return to town in 2000. He recently discovered his love for stand-up comedy, and has been branching into that. He runs a Stand Up Night at the Syndicate, formerly with John Wells, who just departed for NYC.

Jason Monroe: Jason's in and out of the theatre scene, as he's engaged and actually has a *gasp* REAL JOB (running the cotton industry), but he works everywhere, and seemingly does everything. He currently does both MLI and Blacklist.

Adam McCabe: A truly gifted improvisor, Adam also was in CSz/MLI for several years, until he left in January of 05, joining the Blacklist later that year. He is currently still with the troupe.

Incidentally, the Blacklist was formed in 1997, when Garces graduate Michael Armendariz (who may be the BEST comedy writer in town, and one of the best deadpan comedians you've ever seen) and I did "The Compleat Wks of Wm Shkspr (Abridged)" at the Stone Soup Studio. The third cast member was Matt Lindsay - I have it on tape. I introduced Michael to Chan, the three of us hung out, wrote a sketch show, rehearsed it with original fourth cast member Stephanie Marney, had a great time, and disbanded when I moved to Phoenix in 1998. When Chan and I came back in 2000, we did another Blacklist show (sans Stephanie, but with Jennifer Sorkin), then they did a couple without me (along with Andy McCarty... and I'm leaving someone out) and disbanded again. Chan and I started recording stuff in Spring of '05 for the Meathead, Desi, Rocky Nash show on KRAB, added Michael, pulled in Adam, and started doing sketch and improv shows in November of '05. I left the group in June, and they've continued without me, and are doing quite well at the Empty Space.

It's tough to list all the people that have been affiliated with CSz/MLI/RAT/Blacklist over the years... I'm sure there's a glaring omission I'm going to feel completely foolish that I worked with them and I left them out... someone will be sure to point that person out to me, of course.

I mean, that's excluding the people who have come through these groups and are no longer in Bakersfield. I mentionned Lepine because he still affects Bakersfield theatre, even in his absence. But for every David Rock who is still here, there is a Doug Cheeseman, who took his talent to ply his trade somewhere else. Kym Canfield, Karen Hamm, Megan Lavender, Will Fowler, Steve Perez, Jeff Perkins, Michael Lewis, Geoff Seaton... the list goes on and on... a couple hundred people have been part of this lineage over the last seventeen years. Of course I'm going to leave most of them out... some of them are on my list and will chime in, angry with me for neglecting them. I do have respect for them all, and if they read this, I want them to know that...

Oh ye Gods, I almost forgot Inga Barks. Yep, conservative, right wing talk show host is a friend of mine who used to do CSz. We've been debating lately about education, big business, social reform, etc. We used to do it back in 91-93 too. It's always been fun for us to have arguments from such polar opposites of the spectrum, and yet still be able to do a show together. She does her show in Bakersfield, and another in Fresno, and considers Sean Hannity one of her best friends. Wow, the people I know...

So, that's it. A primer on that lineage of Bakersfield comedy. There are a few other folks who do stand up around town now and then, but I don't know them personally and haven't really met them - folks like Jim Trino... so, I wish I had more info for ya, but I don't. Til Next Time...

(Link to Bakersfield Community Theatre)