"Her full name is Stephanie; primarily she's known as Stephi (She grew up as "Stephie but dropped the "e" in her early twenties). She's been in two productions on the stage of the Outdoor Forest Theater this summer. For the Forest Theater Guild she played Dolly Levi in HELLO DOLLY and she's currently playing Mother Abbess in THE SOUND OF MUSIC for Pacific Repertory Theatre.

Stephi was born in Westchester, a part of Los Angeles. Her father was a corporate credit manager for an air research corporation. Her mother was an administrative secretary with the Federal Aviation Agency (she retired last year at the age of 83). Stephi says she inherited musical talent from both parents. Her mother plays the piano and encouraged Stephi to take piano, violin and voice lessons from an early age. Stephi also took ballet. In his younger years her father was concertmaster for the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Junior Division. Following that he was a professional violinist until a horseback riding accident snapped his left wrist. Stephi describes him, "He was a proud, 'Old World' Frenchman. I do remember a few times he would play the violin for my mother and me and

Stephi as Dolly Levi

we would dance together around the room. His friend, Mischa Nova, a gypsy violinist, would come to our house and play the violin with Dad." Stephi says her first awareness of live theatre was seeing PORGY AND BESS at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles - she felt she had died and gone to heaven. She adds, "Another highlight was seeing Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Lovett in SWEENY TODD. I saw it twice in one week and vowed that someday I would play that role, which I eventually did."

Stephi started singing lessons at the age of eight at the suggestion of the family's pastor who thought it might help her overcome a very hoarse, deep voice. But her love of singing started much younger. She relates, "My parents once told me that I actually started singing at just under one year of age. Up to that point I hadn't uttered a sound. One day my mother was hanging clothes in the backyard and heard singing coming from the playpen a few feet away. She ran over and there I was, singing 'On Top of 'Ol Smokey' at the top of my lungs - letter and note perfect. All the neighbors came to hear me sing. Dad was sure that I had been vaccinated with a phonograph needle."

Stephi was a Theatre Arts major at El Camino Junior College and a Vocal Performance major at the University of Southern California. She also studied with Sherman Marks at U.C.L.A. She considers her most valuable training was with Peggy Feury and Bill Traylor at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. In addition she's had extensive choral training and experience - church choirs and quartets, college choirs, I CANTORI on the Monterey Peninsula. She comments, "The first and best training came from singing the alto parts of those beautiful old German-Lutheran hymns." Stephi's first real professional acting job was in THE FANTASTICKS at the Crossroads Theatre in Hollywood. Stephanie was just out of her teens. The production was reviewed in Variety, the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner and the Hollywood Reporter. Stephi was thrilled except for when when she was described in Variety as "the perfect blend of beautiful princess and ugly duckling."

In 1987 Stephi moved to the Monterey Peninsula. She had visited the area many times in her early teens and always knew that she wanted to live here. She tells about how she began doing theatre on the Peninsula, "My first husband was an artist. He didn't want me to perform so I didn't - for nine years. The marriage didn't work out and we eventually divorced. Two years passed when I got a call from Gina Welch-Hagen. She was directing H.M.S. PINAFORE at the Wharf Theatre and needed someone to play Buttercup. Gina got my name from Kelley Alexander with whom I sang in the Gospel Review Quartet. That's how I returned to theatre." She continued acting at the Wharf Theatre - as Miss Hannigan in ANNIE and Fraulein Schneider in CABARET. Stephi says none of this would have been possible if it hadn't been for her second husband, Larry, who she calls "my greatest fan." It was Larry who urged her to take the part in PINAFORE. She relates, "When we were first married Larry came home one day from work and heard me singing in the shower. He thought it was a radio and came to tell me that it was dangerous having a radio so near water. I told him it was me he heard singing and he was shocked. I hadn't told him that I sang or anything about my past life in theatre. He vowed right then and there to do whatever it would take to get me back on stage and do what I was meant to do." He definitely got her back on stage. On the Peninsula she has performed for Pacific Repertory Theatre, the Forest Theater Guild, deFaria Productions, Dance Kids, Inc., the Wharf Theatre, the Western Stage, Ariel Productions,

Stephi as Miss Hannigan in ANNIE

and Monterey Peninsula College Theatre Company (That's where she got to play Mrs. Lovett in SWEENY TODD - one of her favorite roles). Her next show will be STEPPIN' OUT, a project of her friend Bradone Fisher, produced by AGOG Productions, and to be presented at the Golden Bough in December. She still continues her theatre training; she's currently studying "voiceover" and attending the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco.

A lot of Stephi the performer is Stephi the singer. She says her favorite singing is at church on Sundays. During the week she sings at luncheons, special engagements, and private parties. During the holidays she sings with a quartet called Peninsula Harmony Company along with her friends Mitch and Phyllis Davis and Keith Wolhart. Stephi also enjoys teaching the performing arts. She is in her fourth year as Drama Consultant for Tularcitos Elementary School. She also teaches junior division and adults in the Actor's Workshop, a group she started four years ago as she explains, "for beginning actors who want to learn the craft of acting and seasoned actors who want to work their craft." She says her attitude towards teaching is to be supportive and nurturing, saying "I like THIS very much; now let's work on THIS over here." Stephi says that her full-time vocation is "performer" and her avocation is "commercial and fine artist." She has painted several murals for the Red Onion Restaurant chain in Southern California.

Stephi has been in many productions for many theatre companies. She tells what she likes in a director, "Attention to detail. A director who challanges and asks for more than you think you can deliver, who inspires because he or she is inspired. Someone who's done their homework. Someone with kindness, good manners and a sense of humor." She also gives us a list of pet peeves, "Excessive talking backstage, critics who write out the entire plot of a play as part of their review, actors who never hang up their costumes and never clean up after themselves expecting someone else to do it for them, jealousy, those who fail to promote and encourage 'older talent' concentrating only on youth, elitism." On the positive side she offers her view of what makes Monterey Peninsula theatre special, "There is a superabundance of talent, a great variety of performance material, and many wonderful theatre companies."

Stephi concludes with some comments on the value of the performing arts, "It's the most humbling experience to be part of the personal growth of other human beings. I see it all the time in my classes - performing arts enlighten, inspire, give us purpose, a reason to feel good about ourselves. We actors are the storytellers. We 'get the word out.' I once worked in a show in whch one of the actors had AIDS. It was his first show. I'd just come off stage and saw him sitting off to the side, slumped foreward in his chair, head resting in his hands. I sat down beside him and asked how he was doing. His reply was, 'I love this. You have no idea. I'm having the time of my life...and this is only the beginning!'"