BLACK COMEDY Magic Circle Center

"I’m kind of a big kid myself," she admitted when we met in what must be the most comfortably upholstered greenroom on the Monterey Peninsula. "So I’m thrilled to get back into children’s theatre. In May, I’m even going to work again with five-to-seven-year-olds, and that’s really thrilling. I base the work on storytelling. We think about what I call the ‘three p’s’ of a good story - people, places and problems. All that - plus some poetry. I can hardly wait!"

Fresh out of Illinois State University and full of enthusiasm for children’s theatre, Dawn’s first theatre job was with schools involved in the Idaho Theatre for Youth. "We were constantly on the road - which I loved - doing shows for schools all around the area." But three years of touring were enough to persuade Dawn that it was time to return to academia, if only because she’d started graduate work at Illinois State but dropped out to take on the job in Idaho. She landed a place at Cal State Long Beach, where she earned an MFA in acting.

"One of the perks was being allowed to teach the undergraduate theatre students - introduction to acting, that sort of thing. It was hard work but absolutely great experience. And we had a theatre company called CalRep and did a lot of wonderful things. My favorite was TAMING OF THE SHREW. . . But another really wonderful challenge was the role of Anne Bronte in the Los Angeles premiere of THE BRONTE CYCLE."

PRIDE’S CROSSING The Western Stage

After Long Beach, Dawn came north to do the role of Liza Hamilton in Western Stage’s massive millennium revival of EAST OF EDEN. "Being in Salinas as part of a huge cast in a piece of such epic proportions was an amazing new experience . . . And I fell in love with the area. As a Middle Westerner, I’d been missing the change of seasons when I was working around L.A. Here, you can at least feel them change in a way that you don’t further down south."

After EAST OF EDEN and a brief return to Southern California, Dawn returned to Salinas to do PRIDE’S CROSSING. It was Raleigh Dick, who played opposite her, who introduced her to Magic Circle. "Raleigh phoned and said, ‘There’s this new little theatre in Carmel Valley, and they’re doing a

THE LARAMIE PROJECT Magic Circle Center

show called WRONG TURN AT LUNGFISH. Why don’t you come and audition for a part?’" She did and was given the role of Anita Merendino, met Magic Circle Artistic Director Elsa Con, got to know the Magic Circle setup and went on to appearances in THE LARAMIE PROJECT and the theatre’s recent hit BLACK COMEDY. Meanwhile, she had assisted in and then taken management of the theatre office.

Fresh from her work in the Peter Shaffer farce, Dawn moved straight into rehearsals for a forthcoming Unicorn Theatre production whose title I am old enough to remember was that of a long-ago Harold Lloyd slapstick comedy. Dawn assured me this CAT’S-PAW, with its strong political overtones, is as different from a creampuff thirties movie as it is from the fun and games of BLACK COMEDY. And her role - a newspaperwoman - a far cry from the ditsy debutant Carol in Peter Shaffer’s farce.

"It’s not funny. It’s frighteningly timely . . . All about terrorism."