Walt deFaria is a producer, writer, and director. He is on the Board of Directors of Dance Kids, Inc. He writes and produces their spring musicals and produces their annual NUTCRACKER ballet. He has directed Pacific Repertory Theatre's summer musicals of OLIVER! And THE WIZARD OF OZ and is scheduled to direct THE SOUND OF MUSIC in 1999. For much of his current work he writes the book and lyrics and Stephen Tosh writes the music. They are now working on an opera for children, based on the short story "The No-Name Ogre," tentatively planned to be performed by the Santa Cruz Opera Company.

Walt was born in Sacramento. He says that he started doing theatre in his home at the age of 7. He would turn a card table upside-down, hang Christmas tree lights from it, turn on the radio for additional voices and do theatre. In school he was in plays beginning in grammar school. He went to St. Mary's College in Moraga, majoring in business. Starting in high school, he had gotten involved in journalism, so in college his interests included his business major, writing, and doing theatre. Before graduating from college, Walt enlisted in the Army. He was under 18, so first he was sent to the University of Utah to take courses until he turned 18 and could be sent to basic training. After graduating from St. Mary's, he returned to Sacramento, did banking for a short time and taught drama in a Sacramento high school. He also did a lot of theatre during this period. Then he was called back to the Army in the middle of the Korean War. This time he got sent to the Pentagon and to New York for the Armed Forces Press Service. He was writing a show-business column for all the camp newspapers around the world.

Walt left the service when the Korean War ended. His first job was as a page at CBS. Then he went to KMJ TV in Fresno where he met his future wife and got married. Eleanor McClatchy, who owned the station, equipped this hometown TV station with all the basic equipment you would have at a major studio and Walt began producing original productions for local television.

Eventually Walt decided to try "to make it in Hollywood," so he , his wife, and first child moved to Los Angeles. He spent his time writing and tried to sell his scripts and was almost broke when he was introduced to Card Walker and began working for the Mickey Mouse Club in the Newsreel Division. This was a temporary job, and when the assignment was completed, he was offered and accepted the position of Assistant Development Director at his alma mater, St. Mary's College.

While working at St. Mary's, he was offered the position as an account executive at an advertising agency and eventually became advertising manager for Leslie Salt, representing Spice Islands. In the midst of all this he met Lee Mendelson who wanted to make a film about the Spice Islands Company. So Walt left Leslie Salt to become the writer, director, and producer in the film about Spice Islands, and stayed with Lee Mendelson, producing much of his live-action material including a whole series of NBC television specials. This was all done in Burlingame.

After a few years with Lee Mendelson, Walt formed his own company. The first show his company did was THE BORROWERS for The Hallmark Hall of Fame. The cast included Dame Judith Anderson, Tammy Grimes and Eddy Albert. He continued producing other shows, including a lot of ice shows. Then he decided to return to Los Angeles to do another production for The Hallmark Hall of Fame. He eventually ended up with Sanrio (a Japanese company) producing for them A MOUSE AND HIS CHILD. Sanrio was trying to get into the film business, so they hired Walt to run their film studio. While with Sanrio, he produced another film DON'T CRY, IT'S ONLY THUNDER.. Sanrio was trying to be their own distributor and neither film was successful at the box office, so they closed down Sanrio Productions. During this period Walt did some television pilots for Hanna Barbera, while still trying to sell THE BORROWERS as a television series.

In 1988 Walt moved to Carmel Valley and decided to go into the retail (men's clothing) business. He had a friend who ran a store on the Monterey Peninsula, and worked for him for two years, trying to learn the business. By the end of the two years he had decided retail was a bad idea. So he started doing sets for shows at Junipero Serra School. In doing one of those shows he met Carol Benton who was doing the choreography. They decided they would do other projects together -- original revues and plays -- all done at the Carmel Ballet Academy.

Carol Benton and Walt deFaria

Carmel Ballet Academy has been a for-profit school of dance for over 45 years. Carol bought the school in the 80s and created Dance Kids, Inc. as a non-profit wing of the academy. Dance Kids has expanded over the years and now is an entity in itself with Carol Benton as artistic director; it rents the space at the Carmel Ballet Academy and has its own dance company called the Carmel Ballet Company. Dance Kids' year includes four productions, a spring musical (this year it will be GHOSTIES to be presented at the Golden Bough and featuring 60 to 70 performers), an original ballet in late spring, a show in late summer as a culmination of the Performing Arts Academy summer program, and THE NUTCRACKER in December.

Concurrent with his involvement with Dance Kids has been Walt's continuing interest in THE BORROWERS. The original story is based on books from the 50s by an English author named Mary Norton. Walt has been writing a musical comedy based on the book for a number of years. In 1996 he decided to produce a concert of THE BORROWERS at the Golden Bough. It was more than a concert. The costumed cast read the story and there were some props and music stands. And there was a lot of feedback which Walt is incorporating into his latest project, including bringing in Stephen Tosh to write a brand-new score. The Western Stage is reading it and currently debating whether they will produce it as a full-blown play in late November and December of 1999.

In 1997 it was produced as a movie; it was released in England in December of 1997 and in the United States in February of 1998. Walt describes how the movie came about: "I had the rights way back in the 70s. You just keep pitching it. A group called Working Title Television and the BBC put up the money to make the series first. The series was so successful that it was relatively easy to convince Working Title Films, the parent of Working Title Television and owned by Polygram, to look at the series, and they decided they would go for it. We did a lot of pitching and a lot of convincing and they bought the concept. Then they started paying for it, bringing the writers in. At that point they owned it. I'm the executive producer which means most of my work was done prior to the making of the movie. I had script approval, cast approval and director approval. I went to England the first month to launch it; then they would ship me dailies on video cassette."

a still from THE BORROWERS by Polygram Films

The next step and Walt's goal for the last four years is to get THE BORROWERS on Broadway. He's convinced it eventually will happen and he says he's patient.

Walt describes the somewhat circular pattern to his life: "The wonderful thing that happened to me here in Carmel is my return to live theatre, that and the opportunity of working with kids. I started out wanting theatre; I veered off into television and motion pictures, and now I'm back in theatre and it's very satisfying. I think the direct response is what makes it special. People either hate or love what you've just done; you know you can hear it. So much of what we do in theatre is over with when the curtain goes down, so the pleasure has to come at the end of each performance. 'Did it work tonight?' If the answer is 'Yes,' there is no greater feeling for someone in theatre."