Diamond Head Theatre has entertained and edified Honolulu audiences for a century, and with a nod to the future this anniversary season is aimed at families and young theater-goers<\/p>\n
It’s 1914, and Charlie Chaplin is being introduced to the world in his film debut. The world’s first commercial flight, covering 17 miles, is starting service between St. Petersburg and Tampa. And the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria is launching World War I. Meanwhile, over on Oahu, far removed from war and planes, but momentous in the entertainment arena, a group has convened, the Society Ladies. They meet to read each other’s play scripts, and in 1915 they formally become an acting troupe, The Footlights. Little did those few forward-thinking women realize that their humble undertaking would prosper over the next 100 years (and change buildings eight times, from the original post on the corner of Merchant and Richards streets) into the vibrant thespian mecca we know today as Diamond Head Theatre.<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_0_placeholder\n
“Culturally, theater was considered rather naughty and risque at that time,” says artistic director John Rampage. “The fact those ladies had the courage to form a theater group was quite astounding.”<\/p>\n
And the theater proudly remains cutting edge to this day, often being the first community theater to produce or secure rights to a production, sometimes while it’s still playing on Broadway. Touring companies rarely come through Hawaii, so Rampage and his partner in glorious mischief, executive director Deena Dray, have filled the gap with huge-scale shows involving complex sets and demanding a large and talented cast. Take recent musicals The Titanic<\/em>, Show Boat <\/em>and Spamalot<\/em>. And coming up this season is Shrek<\/em>.<\/p>\n If ever there were a duo in history meant to work together, that prize couple of nearly 20 years is Dray and Rampage. You see them on stage at the premiere of every show, trading banter and rousing the audience to laughter as they thank season sponsors and deftly make a pitch for continued community support. They’re the yin and yang, the right and left brain, the creative side and the business side.<\/p>\n One of their most successful endeavors is investing in Hawaii’s children. Also going on 20 years is Shooting Stars, which Rampage directs. While DHT offers various theatrical classes, Shooting Stars is a step beyond most theater programs.<\/p>\n “With Shooting Stars, they have to audition,” says Rampage. “It is not uncommon to have 35 to 50 children audition for only five available slots.”<\/p>\n The performance arts program is geared toward children 8 to 16, preparing them for stage and the audition process, and also for the less glamorous side of showbiz, rejection.<\/p>\n “A group of about eight young (Hawaii) men pushed right into main stage productions a few years ago, when they were 14 and 15,” recalls Rampage. “They all moved to New York and they had a miserable time at first because they had never gone through rejection. Rejection does not mean you didn’t do well. In fact you may have done the best you’ve ever done and you still didn’t make it. But you didn’t make it because you were too tall or too short or too young.”<\/p>\n DHT takes passionate youngsters and not only readies them for the stage, but also molds them into contributing community members, many of whom do move on to bright careers in New York and Hollywood. They also tend to come and give back to their Hawaii family.<\/p>\n Here’s a sample of some of the luminaries born at Diamond Head Theatre:<\/p>\n Rebecca Hirota <\/strong><\/p>\n Hirota’s first production was Sunday in the Park with George <\/em>in 1994, at age 12. As the little girl, Louise, she was the only child in the cast. A Shooting Star, she also went on to perform in Scrooge <\/em>and Will Rogers Follies<\/em>.<\/p>\n After graduating from Punahou, where she also occupied herself with theater, Hirota earned a master’s in acting from Columbia University. She lives in New York and has secured parts on TV shows including Law & Order<\/em>, as well as appearing in numerous commercials. Look for her in a Verizon commercial airing any day now.<\/p>\n “Working at DHT doing Sunday <\/em>was the first time I got a taste of what it felt like to do professional theater,” says Hirota, who visits family in Hawaii as much as she can. “I’d worked with Ballet Hawaii before, in the chorus of Honolulu Opera Theatre and with Pacific Northwest Ballet’s traveling company. But in terms of musical theater, the quality of people DHT brought in gave me a taste for something more and made me feel like a real grown up. The people I worked with became my family, and I still see and thank them today for guiding me through my introduction to a different level and experience of theater.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sterling and Yasmeen Sulieman<\/strong><\/p>\n This beautiful and talented brother-sister team first appeared at DHT together in Scrooge <\/em>in 1993. He’s now being cast in major roles in movies and TV, and she’s a global recording artist.<\/p>\n Yasmeen, who had been singing since she was a toddler, tried out for a Punahou production and didn’t get in, so mom went after something even bigger and brought her to the Scrooge <\/em>audition. Little brother tagged along, sang Happy Birthday <\/em>at tryouts and scored a part in the cast along with sis. The dynamic duo continued to sing, dance and act their way through several more shows together at DHT.<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_1_placeholder\n Sterling was also in school plays and a member of 24-VII Danceforce.<\/p>\n “My college counselor told me UCLA was a reach, but I believe it was my resume and my audition that not only secured me a place in the theater program at UCLA but also won me a very nice scholarship,” notes Sterling. After college, he quickly found work acting and dancing in regional Los Angeles venues, and toured the U.S. and Latin America with High School Musical: The Concert <\/em>tour. Then he moved to New York where, among other opportunities, he had a co-starring role on All My Children, <\/em>before returning to LA where he has starred or co-starred in top shows from Pretty Little Liars <\/em>to 24<\/em>, NCIS <\/em>and much more.<\/p>\n “There is a lot of rejection in this business,” says Sterling, “but when you do get to work it is so much fun, and always worth the struggle.<\/p>\n “DHT was where I did my first show that wasn’t part of school. It was at DHT that I started making friends with other kids who were so passionate about theater and performing. It’s impressive to see how far so many of my peers, starting as early as Scrooge <\/em>and Oliver! <\/em>(at DHT), have come. Diamond Head is definitely where I officially got my start. It just snowballed from there.”<\/p>\n While Sterling pursued acting, Yasmeen dabbled in outlets from a national tour of Little Shop of Horrors<\/em>, to TV and Off-Broadway shows, but her passion is singing. She lives in New York where she writes her own songs, mostly dance music lately, which she has performed throughout Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Europe. She made her Broadway debut seven months ago with an ensemble role in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical<\/em>, which continues to have a strong run.<\/p>\n “I hadn’t done theater in a long time, so Beautiful <\/em>is sort of a return to my Diamond Head roots,” says Yasmeen.<\/p>\n Now that she is comfortable with her role, Yasmeen has begun songwriting again. She and Sterling both remark on how often they run into fellow Hawaii performers in New York and LA, and how much the two of them would love to come home and give back to the local performing arts community … hear that, Mr. Rampage?<\/p>\n Andrew Sakaguchi<\/strong><\/p>\n Sakaguchi got his start in 1982 at age 11 in DHT’s Oliver! <\/em>After that first taste of the stage, he appeared in countless shows there since, including A Chorus Line<\/em>.<\/p>\n “(DHT) was the first community theater in the country to do A Chorus Line<\/em>, when the rights became available,” says Sakaguchi. “It was amazing as a young person to have the opportunity in Hawaii to learn from Broadway veterans like Jim Hutchison and Donald Yap, old-school professionals with high standards and vast knowledge. They inspired me to pursue a career in theater.”<\/p>\n Sakaguchi toured with various shows, and worked throughout Europe and in Japan, before spending 10 years teaching at Mid-Pacific Institute and Punahou (his alma mater). Although he moved back to New York, he keeps close ties with DHT, most recently choreographing and directing the season’s closing show Spamalot<\/em>.<\/p>\n “My dear friend and mentor John Rampage gave me my first such opportunities at DHT, and I have been so grateful that the theater continues to bring me back,” he says. “DHT pretty much raised me, and though I may live in Brooklyn, I am most definitely a local boy.”<\/p>\n He now teaches at National Dance Institute, a nonprofit that works in partnership with New York public schools. He also continues to direct, choreograph and perform, most recently appearing in a workshop for a new musical, Behind The Painting<\/em>.<\/p>\n Here in Hawaii, we’ve also been reaping the benefit of DHT’s keiki programs. It’s not unusual for much of DHT’s cast and stage crew to have had their start in Shooting Stars.<\/p>\n “We are training young people to love and support theater even if they no longer perform,” says Rampage. “They’re rising up to become a new audience who appreciates it as an art form and truly understands what it takes to put on a show. And you need that educated audience as much as you need those educated performers onstage.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Starting off the theater’s 100th season is Mary Poppins<\/em>, which has “enormous appeal whether you’re 6 or 60,” says Rampage. Next up is holiday season family show White Christma<\/em>s, followed by the single non-musical, To Kill a Mockingbird<\/em>. Then comes South Pacific <\/em>starring Tony nominee Loretta Ables Sayre, another DHT success story, who was plucked from DHT when Broadway came through to audition the revival version of the show. She’ll be reprising her role as Bloody Mary. The season concludes with 42nd Street <\/em>and Shrek<\/em>. The first brings tap dancing back into style and the second will be a technical feat as far as costumes and set, but says Rampage, “If we can sink the Titanic, we can come up with a green ogre.”<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_2_placeholder\n While Rampage is occupied with the shows, Dray is behind the scenes coming up with the funds. She raises $850,000 a year from corporations and individual donors, and has managed to get a profitable 72 percent of DHT patrons on board as season subscribers. Speaking of numbers, Dray stays busy managing human resources, including 600 volunteers, a 42-member board of directors, 1,200 students in DHT’s annual performing arts program and a total yearly audience of 40,000.<\/p>\n Dray promises a spectacular opening night of Mary Poppins <\/em>and a season full of celebratory highlights fit for a theater that has prospered for a century. A fantastically big to-do will be a 100th anniversary gala April 25 at Sheraton Waikiki. Rampage promises a party packed with entertainment that guests will not soon forget.<\/p>\n “This isn’t just 100 years of theater, it’s 100 years of social and cultural life in Hawaii,” says Rampage, pointing out that all those years ago, to get the rights to a show meant allowing three to four months for a letter to travel from Hawaii to New York and back. Then came telegram, followed by telephone.<\/p>\n “This community theater is unique because they recognized there was a need for art and theater, and it wasn’t coming from Mainland so they developed it themselves. We have trouble getting certain types of materials for costumes now<\/em>. Back then they were up against tremendous odds, but they made it work. That says so much about the people who lived here, who started it, who kept it going ― they were not daunted by the fact that they did not have what a similar theater would have on the Mainland.<\/p>\n “Even when (Rampage first performed at DHT) back in 1975, if the news missed the plane, you didn’t get it till the next day. Television was a week late. Live television … we didn’t get anything live, so live theater meant a lot more here. Mainland theaters haven’t had that kind of history.”<\/p>\n It was also a time when guests arrived at the premiere in formal attire, when the likes of dance legends Arthur and Kathryn Murray cut a rug in the lobby at intermission, and opening night parties were at Michel’s. Because Diamond Head Theatre exists in a geographically remote place and because of its timeworn status, the theater has throughout its history attracted world-renowned choreographers, directors and actors who might not normally be associated with community theater. But it’s the “everyman” in the Hawaii community that has really built up the foundation of the theater.<\/p>\n “This is a momentous anniversary across generations,” points out Dray. “When I talk to people who grew up with us, or whose family members have been ushering or who have been subscribers for 25 to 40 years, it’s lovely. It’s a testament to the legacy of how valuable we are to the community, what joy we bring to people’s lives every year, every generation.<\/p>\n “John and I are following in footsteps laid many years ago, to have a theater everybody can be proud of. It really is a community institution and a community jewel.”<\/p>\n