July marks the one year anniversary of Derek's residence on the Monterey Peninsula and his association with Unicorn Theatre.

Derek was born in Oregon but was raised near Seattle, Washington. As he was growing up his father was in police work and eventually became Traffic Safety Commissioner for Washington State. Derek had a severe studder as a young child and started involving himself in speech and drama activities as an alternative to pending remedial school classes he considered, at the time, "dummy classes." Both his parents supported his interest in the dramatic arts. While in his twenties Derek's father had been a musician, doing some background vocals for Lena Horne. He also had his own band. Derek describes his mother's feelings, " She was a typical Yiddishe Mama, 'Fine, fine. We'll get you an agent; get it out of your system; then you can go to medical school.' She's still waiting for me to go to medical school. I'm 42."

So from about the age of 9 through high school Derek was a child actor under the name of Derek Landsberg. He did a series of television commercials including Scope, National Dairy, and was one of the original Crest Kids. He also did some modeling for teen clothes and sporting goods, some print ads, a few spots on some television shows, and was a featured extra in a few motion pictures. In addition he did some acting in junior and senior high school and some repertory theatre.

When he was 14 Derek was in a serious automobile accident. It resulted in some brain damage which caused some short term memory problems and some motor disabilities which had to be overcome. So Derek started getting out of acting and more into theatre work behind the scenes including union stage management and set dressing. He acted periodically, partly to prove to himself that he could learn the lines. Also, by focusing more on behind the scenes work he was able to avoid the emotional problems child actors often have when they stop being "cute" and try to bridge into adult roles.

After high school graduation Derek attended the University of Washington eventually getting a Bachelor's Degree in Elizabethan Literature. While in college Derek and some friends developed a curriculum for using improvisational theatre when working with behaviorally disordered children. They were contracted by Washington State to go into halfway houses and minimum security prisons to work with youths and young inmates. The improvisational theatre gave the young people an outlet - a re-direction for their anger and a new source of self-esteem. After leaving the University of Washington Derek joined the Army. He was stationed in Germany, and when he got out after a four year term he decided to stay in Germany and accepted at job as a civilian working for the Department of Defense (DOD). The division of DOD Derek went to work for is called Morale, Welfare, and Recreation (MWR), and since leaving the Army in 1979 he has been working for them off and on ever since.

Derek stayed in Germany from 1979 through 1987 and worked primarily for MWR with teens at risk through Youth Services and with the Department of Defense Dependent Schools (DoDDS), the school system for the military overseas. Also through MWR he ran a military community theatre from 1983-1987. They did between seven and ten productions a year, at least two of which were musicals, and also hosted touring shows from the States similar to what in the 1940s would have been called USO shows. Derek finds a similarity between his work for MWR and for the Unicorn Theatre, "Working with high school youths while also running a theatre was a lot like what is happening with Unicorn right now where we have our Family Fantasy Theatre and we have our Mainstage. I did basically the same thing. I allowed all the high school shows to be done on the community theatre stage; then the young people would also learn the equipment, the tech, and many of them would graduate to doing stuff with the community productions."

In 1987 Derek returned to Washington State intending to get his Master's degree. He took a civilian job for the Children's World Learning Centers, a national franchise of child development centers. He was contracted to develop a creative dramatics program for their ten facilites in the greater Seattle area. In 1991 Derek returned to Germany and again worked for MWR until 1996. It was during this period that he completed his Master's Degree in Theatre Arts Management through the Military Education Centers located on the military base. In 1996 Derek was transferred to the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base area of Dayton, Ohio where he ran a school-age child care center. He "hated every minute in Ohio - no mountains," and in July of 1998 he jumped when a chance came to leave the area. He took his present job, again for MWR, as one of the managers of the Monterey Road Child Development Center located on old Fort Ord, now called the Presidio of Monterey Annex.

Derek in THE CHANGELING

About a week after he arrived on the Monterey Peninsula, Derek discovered Unicorn Theatre. He explains, "I was walking around Cannery Row doing touristy things and saw Unicorn. It looked like a theatre so I walked in - just to check it out. I started talking to Carey Crockett and within fifteen minutes was involved in a project, and it's snowballed since then. Carey had spent a great deal of time in the Seattle area, so we knew a lot of the same people or had worked a lot of the same theatres. First I did lights for OF MICE AND MEN. I stage managed BLITHE SPIRIT. I did dual roles in THE CHANGLING and three roles in A CHRISTMAS CAROL. After that I began directing. I directed A LION IN WINTER, was assistant director to Richard Munyon for TWO DOZEN RED ROSES, co-directed SHERLOCK'S LAST CASE with Sonny Jenkins, and will be directing HOT L BALTIMORE."

Derek talks about Unicorn Theatre and its artistic director Carey Crockett, "Unicorn can be a challange and very rewarding. Carey is very open to new people, new talent. He likes to think that within the Peninsula Unicorn is one of the easier theatres for someone just walking off the street to get involved with. He wants to create an atmosphere where he can allow people to express their artistic interests. To quote Carey, 'There are always sixty million things going on at once.' There are so many different projects going on; sometimes it can get frustrating in how they overlap. There's usually the children's show called Family Fantasy Theatre in tandem with the Mainstage show. In addition we regularly are contracted to build sets for other shows. So you may have a couple of casts which are trying to hit and miss each other so that they can rehearse in various places in the theatre while sets are being built for something else."

Derek sees his primary role as off stage, but he still enjoys acting. Sometimes he takes a part just to prove to himself he can do it with his short-term memory problems. A few years ago he took the lead role in THE CRUCIBLE just to prove he could take the line load. He makes some comments on himself as an actor and a director, " I need to have a challange as an actor. For me straight drama comes too easily. I prefer comedy because to me comedy is a challange - to be able to create the timing, to keep the things going, to get the pace going, and not to lose it because something may be uproariously funny. As a director I like the multiple levels within the characters that you can develop. I'm continuously seeking out plays that would be a challange to direct. Personally, I enjoy thrillers or something which might give edge-of-the-seat excitement - kind of nail-biting things."