photo by Gary bolen

Michael Cheak, after sixteen years away from the local theatre scene, is back and at work directing MPC's forthcoming production of KISS ME KATE. He's a kind of theatrical Renaissance man. He's directed, he's acted, and he has trained himself in these and other key theatre jobs by "doing everything nobody else has volunteered to do." He and I talked last month about his long and productive life in theatre, his approach to directing and performing and his views about the shifts and changes in the Monterey Peninsula theatre scene.

A third grade acting debut in the role of a singing cowboy in an elementary school play convinced him that he was "doing what I wanted always to do." Vintage Hollywood cinema only deepened the commitment. When his mother returned to the family's Kentucky farm from work in town as a nurse, she'd wake young Michael at 11:00 pm and seat him beside her to watch Fred and Ginger, Gregory Peck, Jimmy Stewart and a parade of other Golden Age stars on late night TV. "To this day, my favorite channel is Turner Classic Movies," he admits.

After a busy and rewarding apprenticeship in the drama department of Western Kentucky University, Michael "took whatever job I could find - acting, directing, stage managing. I've always looked like a potato, so the stuff I was really equipped to play as a young actor was for middle-aged characters, and the management usually figured 'Why should we hire a twenty-to-thirty-year-old when we can hire a real fifty-year-old?' So by the time I actually was fifty, I was already knee deep in directing."

Directing and stage management jobs included an East Coast dinner theatre circuit with JACQUES BREL IS ALIVE AND WELL AND LIVING IN PARIS, a tour with June Allyson, stage management of the Atlanta Ballet and a production of GUYS AND DOLLS "that never made it to Broadway." He's convinced that stage management as well as acting is a key preparation for becoming a director.

High up in his favorite assignments is are the 22 years Michael spent directing entertainment programs for the Army here and abroad, including ten years at Fort Ord as a Musical Theatre Director, when that U.S. Army job description still existed. "I feel kind of embarrassed having to tell people that I really enjoyed serving during Vietnam. But the fact is, till recently, I've never had more money to work with as a director and actor than I had then. So we could do a lot of experimental things. away from the local theatre scene,

"The army taught me that you'd better be versatile, you need to get to know how to do everything nobody else has volunteered for, from advanced tech work to sweeping up the stage." And, he adds, it's essential never to say "No" to anyone - a lesson underlined when he reported for duty at Fort Ord in the 1980s. The officer in charge of a newly planned event called Victory Week, asked him, "Do you know how to put together a major festival?" "I said, 'Sure!'. . Well, I'd never put together anything like that in my life, but we did it, you learn from your mistakes as much as from your successes, and there weren't all that many mistakes, so I wrote up the book on it and Victory Week became a main annual event.

"Those years out there from '82 to '91 were just absolutely wonderful for me. I'd still be out there today if they hadn't closed the post. I had all kinds of technical resources I was able to bring to the table in the local community. . . I got together, for example, with Stephen Moorer at PacRep when it was still GroveMont. We co-produced TheatreFest for a few years. And when the money was no longer really coming in big from elsewhere, TheatreFest became my cash cow. It helped me do other experimental work that might not have drawn huge audiences but which I didn't have to worry quite so much about doing."

For Michael Cheak, the shifts and surprises of a repertory schedule are much more of an ideal work set-up than the predictable employment of a long theatrical run, even if it's in a major Broadway hit. “When my friend, the late Leo Burmester, was Master of the House in LES MIZ, I saw him opening weekend and then again when we went out to dinner together a year later. He said to me, ‘I'm right where I always wanted to be, where every serious actor wants to be, and I hate it. It's such a long show, and you're up there night after night after night doing the same thing. I just hate it!’”

as Mayor of Whoville with daughters Olivia and Lily in the recent MPC production of SEUSSICAL

Michael knew what his friend meant. "In my remote youth I got a pretty good role in a summer outdoor musical. About a third of the way through the season it started getting 'old.' I found myself trying on different hats just to see if that would make if feel any better. . .I like a rep situation. It keeps your mind working. I like moving from project to project."

Reflecting on his wide experience in both acting and directing, I asked whether it's desirable to do both jobs in the same production, and his answer was an immediate, "Never." He admitted to having done both twice, once when he deeply trusted an assistant director, his late wife Sherilyn Cheak, to more or less take over himself as the lone male performer in a Cole Porter musical review with "three gorgeous women - one blonde, one redhead, one brunette."

But he says acting and directing in the same show is never a good idea. "Actors, if they're doing their job, are boy-old-girl casting network, at least not by Michael focused on themselves and on the role that they're doing and meshing that in with the rest of the cast. If you're up on stage doing that, either the acting or the directing has got to suffer. It's never as good.

making cuts with musical director Barney Hulse

"When I decide to do a show I sit down and let my mind roam free as I read it through three or four times. By then, I can usually pretty much see the show in my head as I'd like it to be - the lights, the music, the costumes and the stage pictures I want to achieve. My job then is to try to make that happen. It isn't really possible to focus as an actor and keep your other director's focus on the big overall picture."

Michael took issue pretty crisply with another Back Stage column and columnist who implied in the last issue that he'd engaged in pre-casting the current KISS ME KATE. "I have some strong opinions on that question," he said. "In the first place, it's never the program that makes that decision, it's always the director. So within one program, you might have one director who prefers to work with certain familiar actors and will call them and ask if they'll please audition. . . For KISS ME KATE, I did not call a single person. The one individual I mentioned it to, never showed up. I got what I wanted anyway." What he got, he explained, was four highly-gifted principal players, none of whom has ever done a leading role at MPC before. So, not much space for charges of a scratch-my-back, old- boy-old-girl casting network, at least not by Michael Cheak.

Michael shares the concern of a lot of earlier SPOTLIGHT ON interview subjects that local theatre managements don't communicate, cooperate or coordinate well with each other. It's a failure that in his opinion has surfaced since his days with Fort Ord, GroveMont TheatreFest and his founding membership in MCTA. "When John Jory, who was artistic director for years at Actors Theatre in Louisville, was asked if he feared the competition when a couple of new theatres opened there, he said, 'Not one bit. Nothing breeds good theatre like more good theatre.'"

with choreographer Laura Akard and cast at a recent rehearsal for KISS ME KATE

Michael doesn't find much of that kind of emphasis on the Monterey Peninsula these days. "This used to be a place where people were involved with each other in the theatre community. . . Things as simple as knowing that if PacRep or MPC or Western Stage had decided on something, you didn't consider doing it. That or you'd sit down over coffee and slug it out.

"Back then everybody seemed more alive and invigorated. Maybe life goes on and you get tired and money gets more important than anything else. . . It's sad."