Gary Bolen is a theatre professional whose years of stage and television experience haven’t dimmed the idealism he brings to the job of co-chair (with Peter De Bono) of the MPC Drama Department. "The arts aren’t the smart way to invest if you’re looking to make big money," he said last month, "but if you want to nourish your soul it’s the only way to invest. I want to be part of what contributes to the next generation of artists."

For years, Gary Bolen was a kind of theatrical juggler who kept in the air a daunting combination of academic study, professional work on stage and television, and the nurture and teaching of theatre students. Having "caught the theatre bug" from a teacher who spotted his acting gifts in high school, Gary began an intensive study of acting and directing at UC Irvine, then at California State Fullerton and then at the Pacific Conservatory for the Performing Arts in Santa Maria.

CABARET - Cal State Fullerton 1978

"PCPA was my real epiphany," Gary said. "There you’re working with the best and the brightest, getting an experience of the way professional theatre actually works. All this theory you’ve talked about in theatre classes becomes real and immediate. . ."

But the Pacific Conservatory epiphany also offered a challenge. "Was I doing all this theatre because I was used to doing it, or was it a real passion?" . . For 18 months, Gary took a long break, doing non-theatre jobs like selling shoes. "I realized I missed it so much - needed that creative outlet so strongly, I had to go back. I was able to answer the only real reason for being an actor: ‘You act because you must.’"

So it was more graduate work at Fullerton, whose semi-professional Cabaret Repertory Theatre provided the first paid acting gigs. "I was finally getting more than gas money. Not much more, but a little.

"But I began to realize I was happiest when I was working in academic theatre. Not to sound precocious, but it had a purity: you were doing it for the experience and the joy. I knew I was never going to stop acting unless they made me stop, but I wanted to teach."

An immediate effort to train and qualify himself for that goal proved to be the kind of learning experience that comes largely from discovering what not to do. "I went to UCLA into a PhD theatre program that turned into such a chaotic mess that it finally had to be disbanded. I decided to switch to a Master of Fine Arts in Acting - but in the process I got involved in a lot of directing classes. I was almost immediately hired to be the Director of Adult Education at the Laguna Playhouse in Orange County."

MY FAIR LADY MPC Theatre Company 2000

An assignment at Antelope Valley College ("...where the deer but no antelope play") led to Gary's first work as a director of musicals. "I’d never even considered that kind of thing. I thought of myself as being involved in ‘serious theatre,’ whatever that meant!"

"I was starting to join that vast middle tier of actors who all make a living but never break through to stardom. I had a shot at a few pilots, none of which ever got picked up.

Juggling timetables all over the map continued and intensified. Sometimes it meant teaching at two colleges 50 miles apart in the same day, having rearranged rehearsals or classes to meet a TV shooting schedule for “Days Of Our Lives” or “The Young And Restless” in Los Angeles. "Some days I put in 280 to 290 miles before going to bed.

“But as time went on I got sick of people half my age interviewing me for acting jobs. You’d walk into an office and there would be somebody who looked like they’d maybe been hired to make coffee, and without bothering to read your resume, they’d say, ‘What have you done?’ It got so I would reply, ‘You first. What have you done?’”

Gary had discovered and was nurturing a gift for communicating - a quality he is convinced is central to the job of directing. "The cliche comment of every actor is, ‘But I really want to direct.’ And somebody needs to say to some of them, ‘Please don’t!’ So many are graduates of the Nike School of ‘Just Do It’ Theatre - and they do it by instinct but can’t break it down and communicate it to anybody else.

Directing FOLLIES at MPC 2001

"You need to be able to give actors - particularly young actors - the tools that will inform what they have to do in the play. I remember teachers who were helpful when I was floundering - and others who could only say things like, ‘You’re not relating!’ - but couldn’t tell me what the hell they meant by that.

"I think anyone can learn acting to an extent, but if I, as teacher, tell you I can make you talented, that’s a lie. But I can, if you put your trust in me and honestly invest yourself in what we’re doing, make you better at what you already are. And if you are honestly talented, I can maximize that, but you have to commit. . . My most naturally gifted student is now a fry cook in Texas. Great on stage, but too lazy to promote himself or get any better."

A continuing love for teaching and directing led to what Gary describes as a "bizarre weekend" that climaxed at Monterey Peninsula College. Gary had found himself called for finalist job interviews at three West Coast colleges on the same weekend - one in his native Orange County, one in Olympia, Washington, and one in Monterey. "MPC was my first choice. My wife had family up here and we’d been coming up here for years. . . I got offers from the other two schools but, I told them I needed 48 hours to decide."

NOISES OFF MPC Theatre Company 2004

Last of all came the interview at Monterey Peninsula College. "I managed to get word to the coordinator of hiring that I had two other offers. But, not to be coy about it, I said this was my first choice. . . But I needed a decision from MPC within two days. Thanks to some wonderful help from Peter De Bono and Connie Gamiere, the day Olympia and Orange County needed answers, MPC offered me the job."

Gary’s enthusiasm and idealism have helped him through the rough economic storms that have blown through arts departments in almost every college and university in the country. "It’s always at the back of your mind," he admitted. "Season ticket sales are way down almost everywhere, but I think that’s partly because theatre managements need a new way of thinking. People no longer want to commit to a whole season. It’s got to be one show at a time - a succession of events, rather than a whole season."

"Our production of SEUSSICAL THE MUSICAL, for instance, will be marketed as a 'family' event, as well as a part of our season. . . Now that I’m department co-chair, of course you keep asking. ‘If we do this show, will it attract enough of an audience?’"

Yet Gary Bolen insists he is still a "just-around-the-corner" kind of guy. "I believe if you put out quality productions, people are going to respond and want to support that effort. Ultimately it’s a question of maintaining your passion for what you do."