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[0:00] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Hey everybody! So, when I set out to create this special episode, I intended it to be only available on Patreon. And to be clear, it still is. If you are a subscriber to Patreon, go to your special feed where you'll be able to hear the episode in its entirety. But, as it all started coming together, I realized the message of this episode was just too important, and since there are so many of you that aren't Patreon subscribers yet, hint hint, I needed to make at least an edited version available to everybody. Long story short, too late. Please enjoy this very special episode of A Musical Theatre Podcast and go to www.patreon.com slash amusicalpodcast where for only one dollar a month, you'll not only support the regular show, you'll gain access to the exclusive content we're creating as a huge thank you for that support. Content like this.

[1:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Welcome everybody to A Musical Theatre Podcast where we discuss the cultural and emotional impact of some of our favorite musicals in theatre history. My name is Jeffrey Scott Parsons, you can call me Jeff. Today we are recording a very special episode all about the importance of community theatre, and I just so happen to be doing it in my old community theatre. It's called Heritage Community Theatre. It's in Perry, Utah, which is just a couple miles away from my childhood home. And I am here with someone who I really respect and adore, and who was very instrumental in my community theatre life. Not just my community theatre life, but my life in general. Like, it was kind of a miracle that I was born and raised in a farm town and found creative weirdos like you guys. You know what I mean? I'm so flattered. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Miss Nedra Pace. Thank you for being here, Nedra.

[2:02] Nedra Pace: I am tickled to be here, and I may call you Jeffy, if you don't mind, because that's what we always called you, just out of fondness, right?

[2:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Of course, of course. We're on the stage, looking out at this kind of intimate theatre. Well, how many seats is it? Like, two something?

[2:14] Nedra Pace: Two ten. Two ten, I believe. And I haven't been here in like 20 years, maybe? Is that right?

[2:22] Nedra Pace: It's crazy. We have been here in this valley doing theatre in the Heritage for 40 years, 42 years, most of our married life. And we are sitting on a stage that, I don't know how deep it is, but it used to be about five feet shorter.

[2:35] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Really?

[2:35] Nedra Pace: Yes, and it had bleachers that went down, and some of the things we did would be on the bleachers in front. And at the back, we can see a light booth and a sound situation where they have microphones. That used to be the costume room.

[2:54] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No way, seriously? So it has evolved, yes.

[3:00] Nedra Pace: Oh my gosh, I can't even imagine. We did like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers on this stage, which that's, well, there's seven brides and seven brothers, so that's 14. Kicking.

[3:10] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, right? And flying through the air. With flea hawks.

[3:16] Nedra Pace: So I can't even imagine losing another five feet. That's crazy. Yeah. You've been here 42 years. The theatre, 50? Is that right?

[3:22] Nedra Pace: I believe it was 1967-ish.

[3:31] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay. It was started by a wonderful, marvelous, creative woman named Draca Holmes, and she started it out called the Brigham City Community Theatre, and it was in the high school. They did a few shows there, and sometime they acquired this property. It was an old LDS church, and it came up for sale. And they went about renting it and renovating it, and I have heard stories of her and a little group of people that helped her start building this stage, and I think it was probably only three or four feet high at the time. It wasn't as tall then as it is now.

[4:06] Nedra Pace: Right, well, because this would have been like the worship space, like the chapel, right?

[4:10] Nedra Pace: I believe so. I don't know what the orientation was, if the orientation was the same, but there was not a stage.

[4:15] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's incredible. Community theatres are really a unique cultural phenomenon in the country. I started doing some research in preparation for the episode, and it just so happens that a lot of its history can be traced to Utah. I didn't realize what a great tradition it is in the state.

[4:27] Nedra Pace: Yes, I believe that this is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, community theatre in Utah.

[4:38] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Wow, that's insane. I mean, for those who don't know, we had the Utah pioneers, right? The Mormon pioneers walking to Utah for religious freedom, and apparently community theatre, because only a few years after, Brigham Young made everybody start doing community theatre as a way to boost morale and bring arts to the Salt Lake Valley.

[4:50] Nedra Pace: Forget your troubles, come on, get happy. Come on now. I have to tell you a cute thing.

[5:06] Nedra Pace: Yes, please. We are in a theatre that was built in 1892, because I have a house that was built in 1892, so I remember that date.

[5:17] Nedra Pace: Oh my gosh. And so, when we go down the basement, there's a basement in this old church, and it has a dirty old couch, and we would acquire things like broken chairs and think we could fix them for people to sit on during rehearsal. And we went up to Oakley, my husband Dee and I went up to Oakley because we have some friends up there, and they have a community theatre, and it actually was a pioneer-built community theatre. And so it's got a beautiful proscenium and stuff, but if you go down the basement, it's got an old yucky couch and a hole in the wall. And I just thought, I wonder if all community theatres have a token yucky couch.

[5:57] Nedra Pace: Just a nasty couch. I would like to say that it changes as you get to professional theatre, but it doesn't. It's still a yucky old couch. They just call it the equity cot, because now it's contractual.

[6:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's cute. Now, if you don't mind me asking, why on earth did you and your husband, two incredibly creative people, pick Willard as a place to settle down and live?

[6:17] Nedra Pace: Well, you're very kind. Thank you. We met in the theatre. Dee was in Salt Lake finishing up, or at least in the process of getting his master's degree in theatre costume design. He had a bachelor's degree in theatre with an emphasis in teaching. He had his teaching degree and German. He had been a missionary in Germany. We met in a show. We met in the Pirates of Penzance, and within a year, we had married, and then we were expecting, and he graduated.

[7:03] Nedra Pace: Tremonton, someone called him and said, there is a teaching position for a theatre and German teacher, if you can believe it. That combination. That is so specific. Not theatre in German, theatre and German.

[7:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I can imagine. It's like they just do brack. Well, anyway, we took the job. He was offered the job on the spot, and we started out there, and the community responded. I should backtrack, because your original question was, why did we settle here? We both had opportunities to go into more professional positions. I was working for the Osmonds at the time we got married.

[7:36] Nedra Pace: I feel like we all have a great Osmond story, but I want to hear yours now.

[7:41] Nedra Pace: Well, I didn't see that much of them. I just did the do-do-do-do-do. Actually, we sang back up for the whole show, and we would stand there up to 18 hours at a time. Sight reading into a microphone, and it was great, except that it was so tiring. And you were married to it. I was also in the theatre, and so if there was a conflict, or they called a special recording session, I had to go.

[8:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: You're dropping them.

[8:08] Nedra Pace: And he had the same problem. We wanted roots. We wanted a family, and he was offered to go to, someone would send him to Los Angeles and see if he could make it as a professional actor, and he didn't want that. He had had one year of teaching experience and just fell in love with it.

[8:24] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Wow.

[8:25] Nedra Pace: So we moved over here and started our family, and he started with one class of theatre and five other preparatory classes, six different subjects in a day.

[8:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, my God.

[8:37] Nedra Pace: But by the time he'd been there four years, he had a full day of theatre-related classes.

[8:42] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Wow.

[8:42] Nedra Pace: And the community came out of the woodwork supporting him because the kids loved it so much. And I will tell you that I was a new mother, shut in with a kid, and so he let me come and participate, but we found that we needed each other in that position. Every year, I'd get a new skill. I choreographed, and then I did the vocal coaching, and I actually put an orchestra together, and we would do costumes and props, and we would get all kinds of support from the community, but that base was us. So we learned to work together. That's what brought us here.

[9:18] Nedra Pace: After 15 years in Tremont, we knew that our family needed a change because we were spending a lot of time on the road, taking them to dance lessons and things, and so we moved to Willard with that little 1892-year-old house.

[9:32] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I remember that you moved here when I was in fifth grade, I believe.

[9:37] Nedra Pace: I would guess that.

[9:38] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Because in fourth grade, the people who lived in your house before you had a girl that was my age, I think, and she would copy off of my paper in fourth grade, and that's why I'm like, okay, so it wasn't fourth grade. It must have been fifth grade.

[9:54] Nedra Pace: I hope she's listening.

[9:55] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, oh, absolutely. Cheyenne. I remember her name, and I finally got so done with it that I put all of the wrong answers once and waited for her to copy and then changed them.

[10:06] Nedra Pace: You're inventive, Jeff.

[10:08] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I was vindictive is what I was.

[10:11] Nedra Pace: I think my first memory of you was clogging at a Peach Days program.

[10:16] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh my gosh. For everyone who may not know, and that's guaranteed everybody, there's a festival here called Peach Days because we celebrate what? Peaches. It's a great crop here in northern Utah, and so we have a whole week of festivities, and I'm sure I probably clogged because that was how I started dancing, was clogging.

[10:40] Nedra Pace: And I don't know if I dare tell this story about you.

[10:43] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, please. I can always cut it out.

[10:45] Nedra Pace: I think your mother told me that you would go to those SELPs at school, and they would say, what are you going to be when you grow up? And you told them that you were going to be a dentist. Is that right?

[10:56] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: MBA. That was what it was. Yeah, I always said I was going into business, and that I was going to get my MBA. And my mom and I just agreed that that was going to be the lie so that they wouldn't try to talk me out of going into theater.

[11:09] Nedra Pace: I just think that's the greatest story.

[11:13] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Well, we go back a ways.

[11:14] Nedra Pace: Yes, we do.

[11:15] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And then the next contact, I believe, was this theater.

[11:18] Nedra Pace: Yeah, for sure.

[11:19] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: You and one of my daughters, Haley, were in a little summer production thing.

[11:24] Nedra Pace: That's right. That's right. And for many, many years thereafter, so many productions together.

[11:30] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I know that there was a point in my life where I felt like I needed to move because I wanted to do things professionally. But I feel like you're such a good example of why all creative people can't just live in the city. You know what I mean?

[11:44] Nedra Pace: Yes, I do.

[11:47] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Especially nowadays as we get so politically divided or culturally polarized, there is kind of this feeling that I run into where if you're artistic, you don't belong in a small town. And I don't know what my life would have been if you artistic people hadn't been here. So I thank you for making the choices you did and sticking around so that people like me felt safe and at home.

[12:16] Nedra Pace: And I don't mind thanking you for being here. Because what you find in community theater is that there's a myriad of talent around you. And if you don't have anything to work with, there's not much going for you. However, the surprise is that once you get people on a stage, and if you are a good director, or if you have some background, I was a vocalist majorly, and he was a theater person majorly. And he had a great gift for teaching and directing. So you get people up here, and you can show them how it's done a little bit. And you can guide that because you know, the vision, you know, the end product, all of a sudden, they blossom, they get it. And we've watched that over and over and over again.

[13:02] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's beautiful. I remember doing a production of Sound of Music with you, and I believe D was Captain Von Trapp. He was always joking that the score was way too low for him because he was quite a high voice.

[13:14] Nedra Pace: But I was playing Rolf. There's a moment where Rolf is either going to tell on the Von Trapps after he discovers them hiding out at the Abbey or not, right? And in the movie, of course, he tells on them. And in the stage musical, he changes his mind.

[13:31] Nedra Pace: That's right. But before he changes his mind, he yells out for the captain, or his commanding officer.

[13:38] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: His commanding officer, yes. And we were rehearsing the scene. And I shine my light on them. And I probably said, Commander! And I remember you said, No, no, no. And you're a petite person. And I remember you're standing like right over there by the stairs that come up to the stage. And you grabbed my flashlight. And with like this fire in your eyes, you said, Commander! And I realized how

[14:11] Nedra Pace: Unwilling I was at that moment in my life to experience emotions. You know what? I mean, like how I was okay with being vulnerable to a certain point, but like the idea of showing true anger or true hatred or, you know, maybe even true love, I was not ready for that. And so the theater really became the exercise for me to even just process that personally, which I just I'm so grateful for. It's so interesting to hear that from your point of view.

[14:44] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I think I experienced the same thing.

[14:47] Nedra Pace: Really? I experienced ridicule because I loved to sing and was good at it when I was in junior high.

[14:54] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Mm-hmm. You have to find somebody as a friend that understands your plight. Yeah, you feel alone.

[15:00] Nedra Pace: Yeah, absolutely. And I know that community theater became my social life. Yes, truly. Yes, it's where I went to work, quote-unquote, to have fun and to have connection and meet people and be around people who made me feel loved and safe, you know.

[15:20] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It's interesting you'd bring that up because I have a great moment in my mind when we were in Tremont and one particular girl had a really bad weight problem and she had kind of just been alone her whole life. Mm-hmm. And he put her in the show. All of a sudden she was dressing differently and she smiled in the hallway and the kids found out she had a personality and it was life-changing for her.

[15:47] Nedra Pace: I've seen that a million times. Wow. It gives me chills to think of how many experiences like that happen in these types of theaters and communities all over, you know, that may not be something that happens on the professional stage because you have to have what they're asking for.

[16:02] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: 100%. I know that those journeys happen in all of these different theaters and I have a lot of great memories. I've seen a lot of great theater here. I've seen a lot of bad theater here and it's one of the reasons why I wanted to do this episode was because I feel like often community theater can be looked at as a bit of a joke, right?

[16:19] Nedra Pace: You're right, like a punchline.

[16:27] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: How many hours of sleep have you lost in your life because of shows here? I can remember D getting up in the middle of the night and walking to the school.

[16:41] Nedra Pace: Really?

[16:45] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Things need to be done and if I'm not going to do it. My point is that I know sometimes community theater can be bad, but I believe that it can be bad and important at the exact same time and I never want us to lose sight of that.

[17:01] Nedra Pace: I agree. The community theater movement, I think, involves more people from the general population in terms of giving them access to the arts. What are tickets here? What, eight to twelve dollars or something like that?

[17:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: 10 or 12 as opposed to, you know, Hamilton which gets up to three hundred dollars if you're looking at the touring production. Not to mention the people who actually get to participate in the show.

[17:21] Nedra Pace: Performing arts as well, that it's a huge percentage of the population that what I do doesn't really even access and so like its importance can't be overstated.

[17:31] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I agree. There's that line in The Music Man that says at the end of the show, she said he's made such a change to this community and the mayor says, "What do you mean?" And she says, "In the way every kid has walked around here all summer." Mm-hmm. And I think that that happens over and over and over again. They get excited about a project and like you say they learn to get up on stage and become vulnerable and something is released in them and they know themselves better. Plus the introduction of the art itself, just art, music, enriching things that make people feel better and they're not afraid to do it.

[18:15] Nedra Pace: Enriching things that make you live.

[18:21] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Absolutely. What do I want to talk about next? Well, you tell me what do you want to talk about?

[18:28] Nedra Pace: Well, you have one of the subjects that you had outlined for me was favorite memories of performing, directing, and producing.

[18:38] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, yeah, please tell me.

[18:40] Nedra Pace: You tell one.

[18:46] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, perfect. I'm down. And how many can do we need?

[18:51] Nedra Pace: Let's just go and then we'll pick the best ones and post.

[18:51] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay. Interestingly to me, as I reviewed this and we've done a little semi-theater in Salt Lake and Ogden and stuff like that, we have just as many of these situations there. We have had them as we have in community theater.

[19:05] Nedra Pace: You're right, right, of course, of course. In community theater, probably a little more avoidable. Anyway, it's been quite fun. I will, I'm gonna start with one. Right when we were about to move, I was pregnant. It was my first child and we were doing The Boyfriend at Lagoon Opera House.

[19:26] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh my gosh, what an adorable show that doesn't get done nearly.

[19:30] Nedra Pace: Yeah, it was fun and it was all, you know, in those cute costumes and I had a slip on and I was just starting to expand a little bit. And there is one song in the second act, poor little pirouette it was called, and the kids all came off the stage and I entered and there was an older lady part there, I forget her name now, and I was dressed as pirouette, white costume with a full skirt and a slip underneath. And the minute I took a step onto the stage and the last person left, I felt this pop. Oh, and I grabbed with my elbows to get to my chair and as I sat down, I felt my slip start to slide down the back. And so we sing a little bit of the verse at the table and then I'm supposed to get up while she sings that she sings another refrain and I twirl and dance and everything.

And I sat there while we were singing and I thought, "What in the heck do I do?" So I got up and I stepped out of the slip, you know, and then they spot me. Yes, and I'm out swirling and she's singing and then the lights come up and I go back and I thought, "I hope they got that slip." Well, they didn't. They waited until the lights came up and then you see this stagehand's arm reach out in clear view and pull that slip off the stage.

[20:54] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's real, that's fantastic.

[20:55] Nedra Pace: Well, that was actually not really community theater, but like I said, look, it happens.

[21:01] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It happens. I was doing a production of White Christmas and that show's just filled with crazy costume changes and I was playing the Danny Kaye role, which is still my dream.

[21:10] Nedra Pace: Oh.

[21:15] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And my dance partner Jill, her zipper broke for the dress that we were supposed to be doing "Best Things Happen While You're Dancing." And so we're doing that dance and I'm like, you know, we're in dance position and my right arm is just really trying to pull that zipper up and it didn't. And in fact, it just kept falling and falling more and more and more until like she was full bareback, right? And that dress that she had a halter top, so like the front was fully covered, but that was fun. And what's crazy is the first line after that number is her going, "Well, that was a good time," you know, like, and the audience, of course, just loses their minds.

[22:02] Nedra Pace: You know, reminding me of something that happened here. I was in a production of Oklahoma. My dad was Old Man Carnes, so, so much fun, like, and my mom was playing the piano. So it was this whole, it was like a whole family experience. I think at some point my parents just realized, you know, we should probably do community theater if we want to spend time with Jeff. And we were supposed to be wearing cowboy boots. Well, my grandpa, who is a livestock cattleman, is a real cowboy. And so when it came time to find costume pieces, we were like, perfect, I'll go grab some of grandpa's boots that were a good three sizes way too big for me. And so every night before the show, I would put on three pairs of socks and then put on his work boots and then try and do the Oklahoma dream ballet.

[22:57] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No, surprisingly not. I'm sure everyone just thought it like, "Oh, look at that poor boy in puberty with big feet and tiny body. You know, he's about ready to have a growth spurt. We've put size 13 shoes on a five-foot boy in junior high."

[23:08] Nedra Pace: Oh my gosh.

[23:13] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Just like Ronald McDonald.

[23:16] Nedra Pace: I have another one.

[23:22] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Okay, please, please.

[23:27] Nedra Pace: We were doing I Do! I Do! Two-man show. There's a little community theater further north than this and it's in the round. Uh-huh, and they were famous. I think all community theaters are famous for just making it do.

[23:35] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, make it work.

[23:40] Nedra Pace: Well, they had decided in the round that they would have kind of a turntable stage. So they just cut a big hole.

[23:45] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh.

[23:49] Nedra Pace: Even it up, you know? Yeah, I don't know if they'd even drawn a line. But anyway, at the so this turntable was operated by a big lever in the back. They put a hydraulic, some kind of a hydraulic something underneath the stage and so it would stand straight up when it was still okay. And then if you leaned it to one way, it would turn to the right, the lever. Yeah, well the stage would turn right, so you leaned the other way, it turned to the left. And if you leaned them the further you leaned it, the faster it rotated.

[24:20] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh no.

[24:25] Nedra Pace: So we start that show. It is he and she, those are the names of the characters, and it's their wedding day. And so we come out and we sing a song and we get married and then we run out of the black curtains to go around to a different entrance because that's how they show time. Great. So they were short one person that night to get the bed on, so the rest of the show takes place with a bed in the middle of the stage and they add or take furniture off. And they had this great big iron bed that we had because we collect antiques and it's so heavy it takes three of them to get it. And so they just tuck it up and take it on. So they're taking it on the stage and we're running around and the person that was supposed to run the lever had gone to help because they were shorthanded and it's a heavy bed.

So I'm in a great big full wedding dress and we go to pass out. There's no light and we don't know how the lever works and that dress hits the lever. No, and it starts to turn as they're sitting the bed down and all of a sudden it's starting to go faster and the owner of the theater, who was one of the movers, grabs the bedspread and the bed starts whipping and the furniture starts to fly off and we have buttons and stuff and it's just hitting the audience.

[25:47] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Hold the lever.

[25:50] Nedra Pace: Yeah, I could spend the rest of the hour on that show, but I won't.

[25:55] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, look, it's always funny those quote-unquote smaller shows that you think are going to be less work because it's only two people.

[26:04] Nedra Pace: Yeah.

[26:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I've done many of Forever Plaid with an, or even Dames at Sea with theater companies who are like, "We want to do a smaller show that isn't as much work," and I'm like, "Get ready."

[26:19] Nedra Pace: You're ready to help four people make 16 costume changes.

[26:24] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That is true, and just as many props, right? As much scenery, maybe one set scenery, but sure, complications somewhere else. There's no show that is not the same amount of work.

[26:35] Nedra Pace: That's the truth.

[26:38] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's funny. That is the truth. Now in community theater, I would say one of the things that usually makes or breaks a community theater is whether people are willing to volunteer and how do you do that without getting burned out?

[26:52] Nedra Pace: You don't.

[26:54] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: You just need to like take some time when you need to and say learn to say no or, um, I think a lot of it has to do with getting a couple of prime people in place. D and I both spent a certain amount of time on the board of directors and a certain amount of time as artistic director and through that experience you find out what really works. The chairman of the board, say, is very important. He's got to have sense. He's got to know how to handle people and how to get them to work and how to get them to buy into the dream. When you have somebody that just walks the walk and says, "This is how it's gonna be," and they're not gonna listen to your needs or they don't know anything about the theater, you have to understand the theater.

[27:39] Nedra Pace: I can imagine also that with an organization that's been around this long, you can't be afraid to change.

[27:46] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No, and that's a huge thing and that's got to be tough, especially when you have people on the board who have maybe been doing things a certain way for a very long time, like from 1967 or whatever on.

[28:00] Nedra Pace: That's a bit, that's a lot of changes, right? You know, we didn't have air conditioning for years and years and years and I can remember in Seven Brides when you and did it with my daughters, those girls lost 20 pounds of people because of the dancing in a non-air-conditioned building.

[28:13] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I had no idea. Yeah, we did that with no air-conditioning.

[28:22] Nedra Pace: It was many years later. And I'd go as artistic director to the board and say, look, people walk out. And nobody could do anything about that, because there were a couple of elements that were against it. And finally, we were doing *Big River* one summer, and we had a fabulous cast, and people would get up and stand in the lobby and say, I love this show, but I'm going home. Wow. So we hit it hard. We hit it hard. And there was opposition, but it was all about air conditioning. And finally, we came up with some money from a tourism tax or something. And the accountant said, Okay, we're $16,000 short. If you'll come up with half that money, if you can gather it from somewhere, I'll find the rest of it.

So we got ourselves a little committee, and we wrote a letter and sent it out. And in two weeks, we had $8,000. And we came back and said, Okay, we called them and they're coming to Monday. Wow. And she said, We're not ready for that. We don't have the money. And I said, You said you'd have my problem. But that brings up the third component of that's the audience. Sometimes we don't take care of the audience in a community theater, you know, we just think that they'll have to make it through and they need a chance. They are willing to put money out. We were down to two stalls in the women's bathroom, you know, and it was like a 30 minute intermission. And we did the same thing. We got up here in front of the audience and said, We're trying to raise money for this.

And if you'll each put $1 in that donation box, we'll have the money. And they came through. They came through. Wow. I know of a theater out in LA, where the community voted to create this huge performing art center. It's gorgeous, one of the biggest theaters I've ever performed in, period. And so they voted to, you know, create a tax or whatever to build a theater. But they didn't vote for a tax to keep it running, which then puts most of the burden on the theater company to sustain themselves. And so this relationship between the community and the local theaters, I think is just so essential. That is huge. Our buildings paid off. Wow. Thanks to, you know, Draca Holmes and those that helped out at the beginning.

Who, by the way, has a scholarship named after her, the Draca Holmes Theatrical Scholarship. Yes, she does. And I was lucky enough to get it when I went to college. That's right. That's right. I had, I think I had two scholarships. So thanks Draca for that. Yeah. So where was I in that? Oh, sorry. So, oh crap, I totally interrupted you. Oh, there's a formula here because the building is paid off. Oh, sure. And that's that the production has to pay for itself. Royalties, costumes, props, whatever. Some lighting supplies, things like that. But donations are what keep the building intact. And there's a lot of maintenance. Sure. Bills to pay. Yeah. And then on top of that, you're living your regular life on top of it.

Oh, yes. Dragging a brand new baby down and sitting in front of the piano while you play. Right. Loud enough for the whole cast to hear. When I think of stuff like that. When I think that my dad would work all day in Salt Lake, then drive home, and then come here to rehearsal for five hours after. Like that's, that's crazy. Dee would teach school till three o'clock and then his day would start. And we would gather, and we would sew, and we would borrow, and we would find, and you know, all of that stuff. And then we'd come back to rehearsal. So you have to live it. And I think that's one reason we stayed where we did. Of course, we wouldn't have that kind of a workload in a professional theater.

But you have to have some place for family, you know, and downtime. Do you feel like you guys had enough time for family vacations? Oh, heavens no. What are you thinking? Why do we do it? Besides that, you put your money into the show. I've had a thousand, a couple of thousand dollars on our credit card before, you know, per show, because at the end result, you've given birth to something. So you go put your own money into it. Wow. Toward the end, we'd start taking the costumes we paid for home. But now I just have full sheds and garages. That's really beautiful, though, because you've given birth to a lot of kids, but you've also given birth to a lot of things. Productions. Isn't that how you feel?

It's your baby. Absolutely. Over the past year and a half, you guys have had a fun time. Would you mind talking a little bit about what's been going on in your family's life over the past year or so? Well, we had been out of the theater for about a year. I had resigned two years before we left, but we went on a mission for our church, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was December 2019, so January 2020 was when we got where we were going. By March, COVID had supposedly hit, only nobody really was sure. My husband contracted COVID. We were in Michigan, and he woke up with a fever one afternoon after a nap. We just happened to find out that our insurance wasn't accepted in Michigan that same day before he woke up.

Oh my gosh. That was a Saturday. By Wednesday, he was quite sick, and we had him in the emergency room overnight. Then we packed up and went to Wisconsin, where a daughter lived six hours from where we were. Two daughters flew in. We threw everything in a car and took him. Within three days, he was in the hospital on a ventilator. We didn't see him again. We said goodbye to him before he passed three and a half weeks later. And that was a traumatic, awful thing. He was bigger than life, and he was theatrical, as you well know. He was just fun to be with. He was my soulmate, and it took him. Somehow, the news got out. I should mention that I got COVID at the same time because I'd been taking care of him.

It was not near as serious, but I was quarantined for two weeks. I came out of my room the day after he passed. In the meantime, we had had a baby enter our family three days before he passed. Oh my gosh. It was a traumatic time. This is where community and church and family fit in. He had made such an impression on people as he had taught school for 35 years. He was part of that time. He was an administrator. They got wind that he was in the hospital, and people started posting on Facebook and sending me flowers and cards. The response was overwhelming. They talked about what a difference he had made to them. Many of them had gone into theater because they found out they were good at it. They didn't know that.

I remember one particular student who wasn't even in the theater with us, but he was a very gifted singer. Still is. He said that he had had fuzzy hair in school and was kind of an outcast and didn't really feel like he had very many friends. He said, Mr. Pace came up to me and said, That's personality, Mr. So-and-so. Personality. I thought that was kind of a life-changing thing. Facebook was flooded for days and days and days. We left that next week to come home. They were going to give us some time to get things set up to have his funeral, which was just a graveside service. It was the very early days. My church congregation had planned a little parade, and I happened to find out about it because they hadn't taken me off the email list.

That is real. That is so real. I cried that night. I wanted to slink home. I wanted to slink home and shut the doors, but I knew that that wasn't an option. When we got home, there were three of us in the car. Mickey, my number four daughter, I should mention, I haven't said this, I have five, six daughters, not five, six. She was driving, and Haley had flown with me. We were in that car, and they lined up for about a mile and had signs. It turned out to be so healing. It was full of theater people, too. That's when you know that you're in the theater. It's a network. You know if you know somebody from here, they probably know your name at least, even if you're from the southern part of Utah, the other end of the state.

All of those things link up, and it's what gives you hope. People are good when they have a loving relationship between them. That's what you always hope to accomplish in any theater production, isn't it? Yeah, that connection that just goes on and on. I feel like Facebook sometimes was built for us because we have these connections that are strong and powerful and lasting, but there's no way to keep up with everybody. At the very least, to know that there's some sort of intertwining web of all of us. You can reach out, and you are still right at that last moment when you saw them. Absolutely. There is a place in your heart that doesn't go away. It doesn't disappear. I'm so sorry for your loss.

Thank you. The community has been very wonderful to us. Outside of this theater, they said, D-Pace, we will miss you. At the bottom, it said, you have blessed our lives. That's what theater does, especially if you are artistic, and that's your language. That's your love language. Anyway.

[39:03] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's beautiful. I must say that my family was standing on the side of the road with signs, and they asked me what they should put on the signs. I said that they should write the lunce of Willard, and they didn't know what that meant. Your mother was one of the first persons who sent me a little bouquet. We have a long-lasting relationship with your family. We love you guys so, so very, very much. I hope that this has all shown you that it's worth it, that all of the sleepless nights, and all of the credit cards, and all of the sacrificed family vacations are worth the infinite connections that you probably don't even know about.

[39:54] Nedra Pace: It has definitely been worth it. My sister-in-law, I did want to include this. I had a sister-in-law that invited us to go to Lake Powell one summer. They had rented a houseboat, and we said, I'm so sorry, thank you, but we have rehearsal. She said, you'll miss all the fun, and that bothered Dee for a long time. He came home, and he said, fun? They don't know what fun is, because you walk into a room, make instant friends with 30 or more people, you tell stories, and laugh, and joke, and depend on each other, and experience an art form for 6 to 12 weeks. That's what it is. It's life in a bottle, right?

[40:40] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes. Couldn't say it better. Thank you so much for doing this with me.

[40:45] Nedra Pace: Thank you for asking me.

[40:46] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: My gosh, what a pleasure. I'm so grateful for our friendship, and our history, and for the way that you've changed my life. I hope that this inspires listeners to not only support their local artists, and their local theaters, but to also be brave and take some risks that create some art as well, because it really does change lives. I'm here to say so, because it changed mine.

[41:15] Nedra Pace: Thank you. It changed mine, too.

[41:19] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Thank you to Nedra for sitting down with me, and everyone at Heritage Theater, especially Valerie Odenthal, for making it happen. I'm happy to announce that a memorial foundation has been created in Dee's memory. The foundation has already given two scholarships to graduating high school seniors, and will be supporting the performing arts and performing arts education for many years to come. To make a donation to the foundation, keep up to date, or learn more about Dee's legacy, please visit www.DeePaceFoundation.org. That's D-E-E-P-A-C-E Foundation.org. Follow them on Instagram at Dee underscore Pace underscore Memorial underscore Foundation. I'll put all of this in the episode show notes, and also on Facebook under Dee Pace Memorial Foundation. Thank you all so much for listening. Now get out there and make some art, whether on stage, backstage, or in the audience. It doesn't happen without you.