Gina in FOLLIES

Director-singer-actress Gina Welch-Hagen has been performing almost as long as she can remember. "I took voice, piano and theory at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Calgary when I was a child in Canada. Passing your various grade levels at the Conservatory meant having to perform. And there were all sorts of local music and folk festivals, so I gained a lot of good experience from them and won a number of competitions."

When Gina was fifteen, her family left Calgary and moved to Long Beach, California. "I should have gone into high school, but I did so well in the entrance exams that I went instead right into the University of California at Long Beach at the age of fifteen to study theatre and voice and performing arts. We did Shakespeare and the classics, avante garde theatre too - a whole potpourri."

Marriage and a husband who landed a teaching job on the Monterey Peninsula brought Gina to Northern California and to her long involvement with the Bruce Arris Wharf Theater. "Sam and Edie Karas and Morgan Stock had the theatre back then. I’d already done some singing with local groups when I tried out for A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC, and I got the part of Desiree. I went on to do Nancy in OLIVER and, well, I’ve been going at it ever since."

Sam and Edie Karas in NORMAN, IS THAT YOU?

And not just at the Wharf. "I played Anita in WEST SIDE STORY at MPC. Morgan directed me in SUGAR, where I played the band leader. I was Lady Capulet for Roz Zanides in one of the outdoor garden productions of ROMEO AND JULIET. At one point, I directed THREEPENNY OPERA for the Monterey Opera Association. Under the tent in the Customhouse Plaza I played Ruth in THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE. And finally, I also sang for Sam Karas' retirement as Monterey County Supervisor.

Gina in ON THE AIR

"When we did an up-dated COMEDY OF ERRORS at MPC, one of the reviewers called me ‘a vivacious, tiny Tina Turner,’ which was kind of fun. . . and I‘ve done gigs where I put together different performance packages for local conventions at Doubletree, the Hyatt, and a shining example of musical fun was performing a Christmas extravaganza for Clint Eastwood when he was mayor. I also wrote a radio show called ON THE AIR.”

But it’s her long association with the Wharf Theater and producer Angelo DiGirolamo that have been the happiest and most fulfilling experiences of Gina Welch-Hagen's theatre life. "Angelo and Bruce Arris - he was a a well-known local architect - built the present Wharf Theater themselves. . . Angelo is wonderful to work with. He knows theatre. He ought to. He’s been producing it for 30 years. And with him I get complete artistic freedom. Nobody stepping in saying I’ve got to do it this way or not do it that way. Angelo totally trusts my artistic educated palate and that is a very big plus!

"I’m still performing but these days it’s mostly directing. I’m actually performing Miss Hannigan in the new production of ANNIE that I’ve directed at the Wharf, but I double cast myself - with a wonderful actress named Amanda McNew, who came to us through the Defense Language Institute.”

I wondered whether reviving a previously produced show like ANNIE stimulates new ideas for Gina Welch-Hagen or whether she likes to stick with what seems to have worked well in the past. "Oh, redoing a show very definitely stimulates all kinds of new ideas," she said. "To start with, as a director I’m in a different creative space with every production, so I am going to approach each one differently. Plus you’ve got different performers, and that re-creates the whole thing. You draw new ideas from new people, and they each have different gifts and abilities to offer. As a director you want to play to the particular strengths of your actors. So the bottom line is it may be the same script but it’s a different show every time you do it.

GIGI - Alicia with Larry Ayo - actor, director, set designer and great friend.

"My daughter Alicia starred in so many of the shows at the Wharf and eventually achieved a masters in performing arts and highest honors at Cal State Irvine. For example, Alicia played GIGI in GIGI and GYPSY in GYPSY as well as performing gigs. Her younger sister Sarah played the ingenue lead in A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC. Both girls learned dance, music and theatre from an early age, and I loved being able to include them in my productions. Another talented family member (this time the granddaughter of producer Angelo DiGirolamo), Erin Helm has shared her artistic talents with the Wharf, and we have been very lucky to have in our company."

I asked what shows that she’d been involved in that stood out especially in memory. "I loved THE SECRET GARDEN - oh, and the last MIKADO we did was just a blast! I put myself into the role of the meanie - what’s her name? - Katisha. And we had such professional singers and actors. Such fun! We did it Commedia dell’arte - and they were more than up to it!"

A bigger challenge and one Gina still classifies as a "director’s nightmare" - was a certain production of GODSPELL where "everything went wrong that possibly could go wrong. People got sick, people were suddenly transferred somewhere else. I kept gluing it together and then the next catastrophe would happen. It finally went up, but it was a different show every week, and I had to re-direct it every day throughout the production! One of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences that makes you say, :Enough!’"

GODSPELL - one of the excellent productions

High points and nightmares, she’s convinced the Monterey Peninsula, with its constantly changing input of military performers, is a prime place to do theatre. "We are so lucky to have not only a magnificent acting pool of local community performers but talents from places like the Navy Post Graduate School, the Defense Language Institute and the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Such a fantastic group of dedicated people! They come in, share their gifts with us and become a close-knit family for the duration of a show or two before they move on to share their gifts elsewhere."

GUYS AND DOLLS - with Angelo and Gina in front