She Magazine

Taking center stage

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By Elizabeth Snyder

Women and theater share a long, complicated relationship.

It wasn’t all that long ago, remember, that men played all the female roles.

And it was only earlier this year that a woman won the Academy Award for Best Director.

We’ve come a long way, baby.

When we talked with area women who are involved in theater — on the community theater level, in radio dramas, working as writers/directors/producers or storytellers — we heard certain words repeated from everyone: empower, passion, fun, dedication, support, challenge, camaraderie.

Sounds a lot like our She Magazine readers (and writers and interview subjects), doesn’t it?

We also heard this over and over when we asked for advice to offer others on getting involved in theater projects: Risk it. Go for it. Don’t be afraid to fail.

Remember, all the world’s a stage; you just have to find your place on it.

Telling tales is a family tradition

Most children enjoy making up — and telling — fanciful tales, but they generally grow out of the habit after a time.

Not in this family.

The Saskill children not only are encouraged to tell stories; it’s practically a requirement.

For Sadarri Saskill and her daughters — Amber Blossom, 27, Misty Rose, 25, and Autumn Joy, 15 — storytelling is more than a way of life; it’s a way of making a living, too.

The tradition started with the girls’ grandmother, Rose, who entertained her family and her Chicago neighbors with stories, and she has continued with Sadarri, 51, who performs with her daughters as Sadarri & Company.

It’s an accidental profession for Sadarri, a former schoolteacher.

“A friend gave me the push I needed” to become a professional storyteller, she said. “We had gone to the library, and we overheard them talking about a storyteller coming in. We went to see the storyteller, and I was just in awe of this man; he just drew me into the stories. My friend said to me, ‘There’s your job.’

“I was too nervous to actually try storytelling, but that friend signed me up for my first gig, at a Bank One picnic in Chicago’s Grant Park. That first job was scary but fabulous.”

Sadarri has been telling tales full time for about 15 years. For teenager Autumn Joy, storytelling is something she has grown up doing.

“I started going with my mom when I was 8,” she said. “At first, I did smaller pieces, and I was so nervous. Kids were amazed that I was up there doing this since I was (their) age.”

Each storyteller in the family has a particular strength, which they use during performances.

“Autumn’s specialty is playing the piano and singing. We can connect stories to music that way,” Sadarri said. “Misty is our poet and does a lot of spoken-word poetry.”

And Amber? “I am very adaptable and can learn the characters and do accents,” she said. “I love becoming the character through facial expressions and voices.”

Through their storytelling in classrooms they teach students that everyone has a talent and something to share. They like to relate their stories to their audiences.

Misty’s poetry is something she didn’t share with anyone — not even her mother — until recently.

Now she uses poetry as a way to connect to others, whether she’s working with her sisters and her mother as a storytelling troupe or as part of her volunteer work in the Dominican Republic.

“Through storytelling, you get to meet other artists and musicians,” she said, “It’s like one big storytelling family.”

Her mother added: “Misty has an old soul; we always called her ‘our little Jewish grandmother,’ and her poems can get into heavy stuff. She has a unique perspective to offer.”

On a basic level, storytelling is entertaining. On a more profound level, it can be life-changing.

“We were performing at a local school in Kenosha, and when we were finished, one young girl came up to me and touched my skin,” Sadarri explained. “She said, ‘My parents always told us to stay away from black people ... but now I’m not afraid. You made me happy.’ That shows you how storytelling can break down barriers.”

Amber added, “The fear of the unknown can lead people to put up those barriers, but storytelling can move us beyond that fear.”

And if you think storytelling is as easy as, say, getting up and relating an anecdote, think again. It requires public speaking, volume control and crowd control.

“You have to keep your audience engaged in what you’re doing,” Amber said.

Storytelling doesn’t only reach children, either. Sadarri related a story about telling tales at a popular Irish restaurant in Evanston, Ill., earlier this summer.

“A man approached us afterward and said ‘I never realized how powerful storytelling can be.’ He told us how ‘thugs’ had moved into his area of Evanston but after our program, he said, ‘This has opened up my heart and showed me I can’t condemn an entire group of people for the actions of a few.’

“We’re not ‘in-your-face’ preachy with our stories, but a lot of our stories do have a message and can promote communication,” Sadarri added. “Education is always a theme. It’s subtle, but it’s tucked into all our stories.”

Besides English, the Saskill storytellers are fluent in Spanish, French, Haitian Creole, Russian and sign language. But they include a smattering of other languages in their programs, as well. And 90 percent of their tales are ones they’ve written themselves.

“We can tailor our stories to the venue. We’ll ask schools ‘What’s your curriculum; what are you working on?’ We’ve done programs on Haiti, domestic violence, literacy, tolerance. We can talk about really anything,” Sadarri said.

And where do they find their stories?

A lot of them are “rattling around” inside Sadarri’s head.

“I have all kinds of stories percolating in my mind just waiting for the right time,” she said, laughing. “And then they rise up, and we’ll work on making them into finished stories.”

Storytelling has taken this troupe all over the world and close to home in Kenosha, too, like their appearances this summer at Milwaukee’s Marcus Center’s Kidz Days program. But they’d love to do more storytelling in Kenosha.

“We’ve been to Florida, D.C., Haiti — all over,” Sadarri said. “But Kenosha is a hard market for us. You know how they say you’re never a prophet in your hometown? It does sting a bit, but we go and support our colleagues when they perform.”

Even that frustration, however, can’t keep Sadarri’s buoyant spirit down for more than a few seconds.

“We’re facilitators of creative energy,” she said. “And we want to give people the tools to be creative, too.”

And where does this creative energy come from? The Saskill storytellers — who welcome “guest appearances” by dad Rick, who works for Kenosha Unified School District — credit “the long line of strong women on both sides of our family,” Amber said.

“It’s so important to go back and hear those stories,” Sadarri said. “What we’re doing, in a way, carries on those family stories.”

More information can be found at their website: www.globaltales.com

Her career in theater: 50 years and counting

JaNelle Powers grabbed onto the glittering carousel that is show business at age 5 and has never looked back.

“My mother was a professional ballet dancer, and she was watching a Chicago talk show late at night,” Powers said. “Someone she had met — he was a producer in Chicago and owned summer theaters in the Chicago area — was on the show and said he was auditioning for a summer stock production of the musical ‘Carousel.’ My mother knew there were children in the show, and she had three daughters. We all auditioned. I had just finished kindergarten, and that was my first show.”

Powers was hooked. So much so that when the show ended, “I can remember lying on the floor in the theater and sobbing hysterically because the show was over, and I wasn’t going to get to come back the next day. The smell of that sawdust in the wood shop/summer theater is so clear in my mind even today. I really loved performing. I don’t know why; I can’t explain why.”

After that first show, Powers continued to work in theater, doing TV commercials, radio ads, industrial films and voice-over work. Today, Powers, 58, lives in Lake Geneva and operates her own production company, Pelajia Productions.

The professional theater company was formed in the fall of 2008 and has done several children’s shows, along with other productions, including “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,” “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” and — their most recent children’s show — “Alice in Wonderland.”

Powers’ goal is to develop a regional company that has a national reputation. To that end, she’d like a permanent venue.

“That’s the dream goal,” she said. “That’s a very lofty goal. We move around —we’ve been at the Geneva Theater and at various hotels in this area — and we need a venue. Who knows? If I keep working hard, it could happen.”

Powers has had a long, varied career in the theater, but a few roles stand out because of their personal connection to her life. She met her husband — author John Powers — doing the original 1980 Chicago production of “Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up?”

“He was at the theater constantly, working with the company, since he wrote the book,” she said. “He was always making little changes. That was a wonderful experience.

“I hadn’t done any shows before that one that were in the creative process. I was in the cast, and I got to know him ... and then ... you know... things moved from there.”

She and her husband recently acted in “Love Letters” together.

Her absolute favorite role — which she performed in one of her productions — was playing the mother in “Little Women” last summer. “My two daughters, Jacey and Joy, were in the show. And of all the projects I’ve ever wanted to do, that was one really, really high on my list,” she said.

Powers, a former school teacher, said her passion these days is directing children’s shows.

“I’ll take children as young as 3 — as long as they can walk onto the stage without their mommy,” she said. “I also teach classes at the local summer enrichment program in Lake Geneva. We have a lot of fun, and I am always amazed at how much these kids can do.”

Her advice to anyone interested in theater is “do it. If it’s really a passion, you have to go for it or you’ll kick yourself. But you need to try. Be in your church’s choir or the Christmas pageant, be in your school’s shows ... just get involved. Every experience will give you something new.

“And DON’T give up because you think that your time has passed,” she added. “I began acting professionally at 5. However, I started directing 17 years ago at 41, after two bouts of breast cancer, and I started producing at 56 after my youngest child went off to college. My father started acting professionally at 58 years old when he retired from his long career in math/computer science. He had never stepped on a stage or before a camera. He ultimately appeared in commercials, television and film and even did some theater. So my message is — it’s never too late to give it a try.”

RG Productions keeping radio drama alive and well

Don’t tell Nita Hunter and Leslie Utech that radio drama is dead.

They regularly perform classic radio shows — along with some original scripts — in their RG Productions, which stands for “Radio Girls.”

They’ve been doing shows for three years, with performances at venues including the Kenosha History Center, the Kenosha Public Museum and PM&L Theatre in Antioch, Ill.

Hunter and Utech — along with Joan Roehre — met doing old-time radio shows at WGTD “and then we wanted to ‘bring it on the road’ and perform our shows in theaters and other places,” Hunter said. “We like it that we’re vagabonds, and we like to be flexible.”

Why radio shows?

Hunter wants to help keep the art form alive.

Utech added, “And you don’t have to give up so much time to do a radio program. You get that theater ‘fix’ without a huge time commitment” because the actors read from a script.

“We all have faces for radio, too,” Utech continued, with a laugh. “Though we do encourage people to come and see us.”

Hunter, 51, who teaches sixth grade in Barrington, Ill., and considers Kenosha as her “second home,” loves bringing old-time radio shows to a younger generation.

What started as a simpler way to perform theater — holding scripts, standing behind microphones — has evolved in the three years the group has been together. “We’ve gotten a lot more theatrical over the years, adding more movement and costumes,” Hunter said. “We really work on creating a whole theater show.”

Hunter loves directing but has no interest in performing herself.

Utech, however, does enjoy performing. “I love to make people laugh. It’s a little of a control-freak thing in me. I get to control when they laugh. And making them walk out smiling is the best feeling.”

For Hunter, the camaraderie was the most important thing at first in starting the group, but it’s become more of a way to connect with their audience.

“We hear all the time from our audience members that these old shows transport them back to an earlier time,” she said.

The troupe grabs scripts off the Internet or transcribes them. Sometimes they “cobble” scripts together; grabbing the best bits from, say, three Jack Benny shows. Hunter has written original scripts, too, featuring her character, “Rebecca Diamond, Private Eye.”

“We stay true to the scripts because they are so funny,” said Utech, 42. “We only want originality if it’s a whole new script.”

Utech, who coordinates the deaf and hard of hearing services at Gateway Technical College in Kenosha and Racine, plays Rebecca Diamond and is also the group’s Gracie Allen.

The group’s future shows will include “Little Women” as part of the Kenosha Civil War Museum’s Victorian Christmas.

“This is a great show for us because it’s a strong female show,” Hunter said.

As they say in radio stay tuned for more.

Want to get involved? Go to www.RGAudioProductions.com, go to the group’s Facebook page or attend a show. You can see their shows live; watch them on Kenosha local cable access Channel 14; or hear them a week after the live performance on WRLR 98.3-FM in Lake County, Ill.

A life without theater? They can’t imagine such a thing!

How much do Patti Fitchett and Joan Roehre love theater?

So much so, when they’re asked, “Can you imagine a life without theater” — they immediately respond with a resounding “No!”

And they don’t make a dime doing it. They’re in it for the laughs.

Fitchett does theater because it’s just plain fun.

“We just laugh and laugh and laugh — even if we’re doing a serious show,” she said. “It’s just great fun — though it does give you good life skills, too. You have to show up, do your job, give it your all and learn to trust other people.”

Roehre agrees laughter is the best part of theater. “I love laughing and being laughed at — on stage,” she said.

Fitchett and Roehre are veterans of area theater groups: Fitchett, 50, started doing shows with Kenosha’s Lakeside Players when she was a teenager and performs regularly with the Over Our Head Players in Racine. Likewise, Roehre, 46, has done shows with Over Our Head Players, along with the Racine Theatre Guild and the Performing Arts Center in South Milwaukee.

Fitchett does at least one theater project a year, but she swears, “I don’t have a plan. As my kids have gotten older, I’ve had more time to do theater. And my family knows when it’s time for mommy to do a play.”

Roehre has been acting for about six years, though she first started thinking about it years earlier. “I grew up in this area but moved away in the early 1980s,” she explained. “As we were leaving town, we drove past the Racine Theatre Guild and I thought ‘someday I’m going to act there.’ My daughter was 2 years old at the time, and I waited until she was in college before doing it.”

When Roehre, of Racine, who works as a distance learning and media production technician for Kenosha Unified School District, first started in theater, she did it all, regardless of the show. Now, she decides what to do based on the play.

Likewise, Fitchett — whose day jobs are at Proko Funeral Home in Kenosha and as a bailiff in Kenosha County Circuit Court Judge Mary K. Wagner’s court — took a theater hiatus for several years while she was raising her two sons in Kenosha.

“I had a lot of stress when my son had a serious illness, and I did a small role at Sixth Street Theatre (in Racine). It was only a few lines, but it allowed me to escape the stress and worry at home for a time,” Fitchett said.

Roehre, who is married with two daughters, admits the time commitment is huge. “I can’t even tell you how much time goes into doing a show,” she said. “If you’e family isn’t supportive, you can’t do it.”

Rohre actually enjoys the audition process — which a lot of actors probably dread. “The first time I tried out at the Racine Theatre Guild, I noticed that everyone there knew each other. That’s what I really wanted. Whether I was cast or not didn’t matter,” she said. “I wanted to be with people I know and admire, respect and have worked with. It’s great to show up for an audition and have people be happy to see you there.”

Roehre’s most recent show — with Fitchett — was “Theatre/Schmeatre” at the Sixth Street Theatre. It’s a night of original sketch comedy written by the Over Our Head Players, and the show involves a lot of improv from the cast members.

Both women stress the camaraderie that forms in community theater. Roehre said when she started auditioning, she looked at other women as competition. Not any longer. “I’ve learned to not think of them as competiton but as people I can learn from,” she said. “You can always learn something from other actors.”

Theater is a cheap form of therapy for Fitchett.

“This is what I do for myself,” she said. “It’s not for my job or my family, it’s just where I go to be myself.”

Theater is all in the family for this mother-and-daughter team

For Ruth and Jordanna Gastrow — a mother-and-daughter theater team — mounting an ambitious production of “Cinderella” earlier this year for Kenosha’s Lakeside Players is somewhat of a Cinderella tale itself.

“While my mom was doing rehab after becoming very ill,” Jordanna said, “we decided to finally do the ‘Cinderella’ show we had always talked about.”

Ruth started feeling ill last fall “and they caught a heart attack in the ER,” she said. “I was in the hospital, and they found out I needed heart valve surgery. My Christmas present last year was my life.”

The two had been working together, as usual, on the Madrigal Feast at Waterford Union High School, when Ruth was hospitalized.

As Ruth tells it, “We decided to do ‘Cinderella’ and do it our way. We wanted to do outstanding costumes and a classic story.”

Their “Cinderella” project “was good for me,” Ruth said. “It was an escape.”

They worked on the script together at home, finding the writing rewarding but challenging, and making something good come out of a stressful situation.

“We love challenges and going beyond expectations,” Jordanna said.

The two have been doing costuming work together since Jordanna, 38, was a teenager. Besides the madrigal shows, they also have been directing children’s shows in Kenosha for the Lakeside Players community theater troupe the past three years.

Together they did the writing, the costuming and the directing for “Cinderella,” their most ambitious show to date.

“It was a soup-to-nuts situation,” Jordanna said. “We worked to get sponsors, did fundraising and even worked with the Minneapolis Children’s Theatre to help make the show better.”

When talking with the Gastrows about their theatrical collaborations, it’s clear to see that the two complement each other well.

“We work with all ages, and our shows have cast members from age 5 to retirement age,” Jordanna said. “But we do like to work with young people.”

“We like to empower young people,” Ruth, 64, chimed in.

Growing up, Jordanna was surrounded by fabrics from her mother’s costuming work — making it a natural transition when she started doing costuming, too.

These days, Jordanna, who works for a pharmaceutical company, even scouts out fabric stores while on business trips. She and her mother, who is retired after a career in commerical real estate, also have enjoyed traveling to European castles and then bringing that knowledge back to the students for the madrigal feasts.

“We work well together,” Ruth said. “There are some rough spots, sure, but we have really learned how to work together.”

Jordanna added, “We’ve had a long time to develop a working relationship. And we’ve found one that works. We can flip-flop between tasks; sewing and beading. My mom is the true expert, and I can ask her for guidance.”

(And lest you think this is just something the Gastrow women, who live in Caledonia, do for fun, Ruth’s husband, Bill, constructed Cinderella’s coach for the Lakeside production.)

In addition to their love for theater and costuming, the Gastrows enjoy sharing their love of history with their casts.

“It’s very rewarding to do this volunteer work,” Ruth said. “People enjoy history, and we share with them the history of the costuming. We give our actors the background of the real people who lived in 1593 (for the madrigal shows), and that helps it come alive. Also, it makes us feel terrific when our costumes work well with the actors. You’ve got to be comfortable in your costume, or it just doesn’t work.”

Their immediate plans include the next round of madrigal shows at the high school ... and then, who knows?

But — no doubt — they’ll continue what Jordanna referred to as “a labor of love” and what Ruth called, chuckling, “an expensive hobby.”

“Theater,” Jordanna said, “makes the world go ’round in our happy little family.”