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Theater and Me
All of the students who worked with Jonathan gained a new passion for the theater in the four performances that were given at the Center. They found new energy, confidence, and unqualified joy in their endeavors. As a result of their joint efforts, Theater and Me won the coveted JC Penny Golden Rule award in 1995 as Outstanding Community Program. It was extraordinarily touching to hear the voices of those who had been silenced by stroke.
In the meantime, the Center’s choir classes and Performing Language classes allow students to develop the same skills.
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Theater and Me was one of the most successful and fulfilling special classes in the history of the Center. From 1993-1998, the class provided extroverted members of the student body, especially those with severe aphasia, the opportunity to express deep emotions and experience using their voices to communicate. Actor Jonathan Reis discovered while volunteering at the Palm Springs Stroke Activity Center that people with aphasia couldn’t speak, but they could sing! So he started helping them sing while lip-syncing to Broadway Shows. It was the Cabrillo Center’s privilege to have Jonathan move to Santa Cruz for a while and produce four fantastic productions. One amazing result was that a former caregiver, Gloria Plumb, whose husband had died while a student at the Center became Jonathan’s assistant. During that time, she wrote a play about her husband’s stroke, Vital Signs, that had a successful run at Santa Cruz Actor’s theater. Several of Jonathan’s acting protégés at the Center got to be on the stage professionally! Anita Rossman, a Center student who had experienced a massive stroke, played the leading role of the stroke survivor.
When Jonathan’s acting career took him to the northwest, the Center again was blessed with the talent of another. Alyson Hagen-McKenna, who had trained for the stage in London, moved to the area and took the Center’s Theater troop to new heights. Besides the lip-syncing productions, Alyson showcased talented Center students. Three gifted musicians, a singer and a former radio show host joined the cast and performed without the benefit of recorded backgrounds. Alyson also moved her productions to the main stage at Cabrillo, taking advantage of the colleges’ professional setting and production crew. Center performers even got professional head shots and lots and lots of publicity! In 1998, we lost Alyson to marriage and motherhood. However, if an actor arrives on our doorstep again, we’ll know that the students are in for a priceless experience.