So, this section isn't about movie theaters. If you have any hint of a thespian in your veins, you know we're talking plays and Broadway musicals. I myself was never an actor, but always part of the "backstage" crew, whether it be musician or tech.

This new era began September 1995, not long after starting college. I was called in to play piano for a Christmas show at the Cabrillo Playhouse (San Clemente, CA), a tiny local community theater which sat only 66 people. The show itself was a hodge-podge of Christmas songs infused into a two-act program, but for me it became a subtle introduction to the ways of the stage. While that same Christmas show would go on to become a provisional annual tradition, I became involved with the technical aspects for all the straight plays during the season, first as a Stage Tech, then Stage Manager (also running the light/sound board) and finally Lighting Designer. The pay wasn't much, but the experience was invaluable.

In 1998 I expanded to Costa Mesa Civic Playhouse (Costa Mesa, CA) as an accompanist for full-scale musical productions. My first musical was The Fantasticks, and let me tell you that was a hell of a challenge. Pretty sure I wouldn't have survived were it not for my background in musical theory. They kept me around for the following years, filling my schedule with more musicals for entire seasons. Personal favorites would be Fiddler on the Roof and Joseph & The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. (You'll find the full list of shows on my theatre resume.)

In October 1999 I started playing for the Newport Harbor High School theatre department. This was in addition to the other shows going on at Costa Mesa. At one point I was playing for 3 shows at once, all while still attending college full-time. Looking back I'm not quite sure how I did that.

Granted all these shows were paid contract gigs, but on very small budgets. With the hours involved between auditions, rehearsals and performances, it worked out to be less than minimum wage. Eventually it became too burdensome to continue. Despite meeting a ton of people and making a multitude of friends, in 2002 I found a full-time job and quietly slipped away from the theater world.

Over the next few years I managed to stay loosely involved here and there, playing for a few benefit shows, sneaking in an extra Christmas production, or as a webmaster/photographer for theater companies, but nothing like the 3-month commitment of a full-scale production. By the time I moved to my own place and took on new responsibilites and hobbies, involvement with theater productions had all but gone extinct. Maybe if the winds of life change in the future, I could find myself back at the piano cranking out show tunes once again.