THE ODD COUPLE - Magic Circle Center - 2000
Laura Coté, Bob Lake and Sherry Kefalas (l to r)
"What gets in the way the most is self consciousness."
The subject was acting, and the speaker was Sherry Kefalas, whose job as a school counselor has both fed and benefited from her acting work. In a Monterey apartment full of mementos and reminders of her stage appearances, she and I talked about the importance, for any performer, of being "in the moment" and taking risks. Dealing with self consciousness, she believes, comes gradually with "the experience of doing different roles and chiefly in learning to take risks . . . You learn not to try to control consequences but to just let things happen."
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It all began for Sherry with elementary school skits and junior high Christmas plays. She did some acting in high school, but her chief contribution to the Garey High drama club in Pomona was as a costumer. "I left Southern California after high school to go to U.C. Berkeley. I wasn’t in any productions there, but I took theatre classes, and that really constituted my formal theatre training."
It also proved a valuable resource in her chosen career as a school counselor. In a job that involves helping others in stress situations, Sherry finds relief from her own stresses in acting. "It’s my bliss - and I’m a strong believer in following your bliss. Theatre fulfills me. It’s an outlet."
It’s also been a help in developing stage characters as different as the warm committed Sue Monahan in Magic Circle’s WIT and the flighty and superficial Kitty Lemoyne in the Western Stage’s THE ROYAL FAMILY. "Yes, I do use my experience with people in tragic or difficult circumstances when I’m working in theatre. I’m able to borrow characteristics from those I care for and have contact with in my work. Stage, like counseling, is about listening and relating to other people."
After graduate school at San Diego State and Cal State Fullerton, Sherry took a school counseling job in Mount Shasta and got heavily involved with theatre work at the College of the the Siskiyous and the Siskyou Performing Arts Center. "It’s an area where opportunities are more limited than they are here, but, like accepting the role of that 80-year-old grandma, it constituted another challenge and another breakthrough."
After six years in Mount Shasta, Sherry moved to the Monterey Peninsula to work for the Santa Rita Union School District in a counseling job that now covers four elementary schools and one middle school in the Salinas area. "I took a year off from theatre and then got involved with the Western Stage. The great thing about the Monterey area is the incredible number of opportunities. In a year and a half, I had logged in nine back-to-back productions!"
Working in Monterey also offered her a challenge even greater than playing Bubby in Mount Shasta. "They were doing A VILLAGE WOOING at Staff Players Repertory Company. It’s a one-act, two-person script by Shaw - and I got called to read for it when the actress who’d originally been cast got sick. Nick Hovick was looking for a replacement nine days before opening night!
"I had a slight stroke when I was 28. It affected my speech and language. I recovered, but I had residual problems with accessing words. And here were maybe thirty or forty pages of dialogue to be learned in about a week! Fortunately, Nick and I worked well together. He was not only the other character but the director, so I got intensive private coaching. I learned so much from him, chiefly about letting things happen organically during a performance - not planning out every move or deciding exactly how you're going to say something. . . really listening, responding to what you’re actually experiencing in that exact moment on the stage. It’s what makes the difference between a mechanical performance and a live one."
One thing Sherry has liked a lot about the move to the Monterey-Salinas area is the opportunities it offers for anyone who is wants "to participate in the whole theatre experience - from professional Equity performances to purely ‘community theatre’ events, including those that use people who never have done a show before in their lives."
Work in theatre is only one of Sherry’s spare-time outlets. Her latest enthusiasm is scuba diving, which she took up only last year. "I was at a kind of downpoint - in danger of getting depressed. I decided that I needed to engage myself in life. I thought to myself, ‘Why not actually do some of the things you’ve always dreamed of doing?’ So I spent the summer creating adventures for myself." She took some trips, drove a race car in a Laguna Seca driving class and got her scuba certification through Glenn’s Aquarius II. "Since then I’ve been diving non-stop, logged 125 dives my first year - and I’ve just got back from a dive vacation in Honduras."
Sherry hasn’t acted all this year. That’s because the only project she had on her agenda was the role of Mags in PAINTING CHURCHES due to go on in November at Magic Circle, which will close its doors in October. What a bitter disappointment it’s been to hear that wonderful place is closing down. “I think I’ve done some of my best work at Magic Circle. And PAINTING CHURCHES is an all-time favorite play of mine. I was going to be working with two of my favorite local actors and my favorite local director at an incredible theatre in what was like a lifetime opportunity. . .
"Having Magic Circle close is going to be a major loss to local theatre. It’s a safe atmosphere, a place that really respects you as an actor. They’ve employed excellent directors and designers and technical staff, and it has produced some really high quality productions. Having CHURCHES cancelled doesn’t mean I won’t be doing other things, but I’m not going to rush out and audition ‘on the rebound.’"
Sherry's next step is a tap dance class at Monterey Peninsula College. "I studied tap for a year - but that was seven long years ago, so I’m going to start right down at beginning level."
In life, as on stage, Sherry Kefalas takes risks, accepts disappointments along with successes, and keeps looking forward to exciting opportunities.