The audition
The audition
Earlier this year, Nick Kern was visiting the island with his family when Aloha Theatre caught his eye. The building’s historical ambiance and its eclectic allure captured his imagination.
“I walked in the front doors and the building just struck a cord with me, right away,” Kern said. “The portraits on the wall, the feeling of the history in the auditorium. It all reminded me that acting was something I had always wanted to explore.”
By summer, Kern and his family moved to the Big Island, and the theater wouldn’t release its hold on his imagination.
“One afternoon, I decided to check out the theater’s website and it said, ‘Auditions today till 6 p.m. for Jekyll and Hyde,” Kern said. “It was 4 o’clock. I didn’t even think about it. I jumped in my car and drove down there.”
A half-hour later, Kern was on stage wondering what he was doing there. Then, Artistic Director Jerry Tracy, gave him some lines to read before he could change his mind.
“Jerry said to me, ‘OK, read this line … then this one … then this one.’ So I did. Then he said, ‘OK, now sing me a song.’”
Kern stared at the director incredulously when it then dawned on him that the production was a musical.
“My wife about flipped when I went home that evening and told her I auditioned for a musical that day,” Kern laughed at the memory.
Despite his lack of experience, however, Kern’s audition went well and introduced him to the world of the Aloha Performing Arts Company or APAC, housed in the Aloha Theatre. Surrounded by professional actors and singers and a host of talented, stalwart volunteers, 250 strong, any newcomer to APAC is soon to realize the massive undertaking of each production.
The building
The building itself is steeped in Kona history.
Built in 1932, the then Tanimoto Theater was a movie house that entertained mostly Japanese coffee workers in Kona. As its popularity grew, its movie nights included Japanese nights on Mondays, Philippine movies on Wednesdays, American films on Fridays and double features on the weekends. It was a hopping movie house and the chief entertainment for people living in Kona. By 1939, the theater expanded to its first stage production, “Who Wouldn’t Be Crazy?”, a production that most likely was the birth of community theater in West Hawaii.
The name was changed after World War II to the Aloha Theatre. Thereafter, the theater itself bounced between community theater and movie house during the next four decades.
In 1991, a remodeling began. About this time, Tracy came aboard to become the future heart and helmsman of APAC.
The director
Tracy began his acting career at a young age.
“My first experience on stage was in kindergarten,” Tracy said. ” My teacher dressed me in a clown suit and casually told me to do something, like a somersault, across the stage. Thinking nothing of it, I did as she said and suddenly everyone clapped and cheered. I was shocked by the response but I enjoyed the sensation of being on stage. The rest is history.”
By the time Tracy graduated from high school, he had exhausted the theater opportunities of rural Missouri. He went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in speech and drama. And since 1975 he has made his living in theater.
For 24 years now, Tracy has been directing, producing, writing for, acting in and administrating the life of APAC.
“My job is really about keeping the momentum up so APAC can keep going,” he said. “And to keep up morale for people inside and outside of the Aloha Theatre, to ensure it remains an artistic phenomenon of quality theater.”
The brain
Whereas Tracy may be the heart of the theater, he describes Melissa Geiger as the brains of the organization. In 2011, Geiger auditioned for “The King and I.” At that point, Geiger was bitten by the theater bug. The very next production she was the assistant director. Soon after, she joined the board of directors, then became president of the board. Now in her first year as operations manager, Geiger is the one who holds all of the business pieces together for APAC, which is no small feat.
Geiger manages the theater’s myriad of events including APAC’s six shows, galas and fundraisers, and other performance companies. Just 35 percent of APAC’s funding comes from ticket sales; the rest comes from donors and various grants and fundraisers. Geiger hovers over these numbers to make ends meet, but for her, it’s all in a day’s work.
“It is a wonderful experience for me,” Geiger said, ” to have someone come in, buy a ticket and reminisce about being here as a kid, sitting in the balcony and just loving it. That’s what makes keeping the theater going really feel worth it.”
The performance and community
Next up for the Aloha Theater is “Christmas with Mark Twain,” a new work by Tracy, and the classic “South Pacific.”
Tracy has been portraying Twain visiting Hawaii in 1866 in a one-man show off and on for more than a decade, but is ringing in the changes this year. The action has been relocated to Connecticut and Twain’s wife and three daughters and two other characters have been added to the cast.
The play, which will be performed at the Aloha Theatre in Kainaliu weekends Dec. 4 though 20, is set in 1885, in Twain’s beloved “Hartford House.” Tracy will play Twain as an old man, looking back and reminiscing about the happiest and most productive time of his life, when he was 50 and his family was young and healthy. See story on Page 6.
The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “South Pacific” brings to life two romances set on a South Pacific island during World War II. APAC’s presentation of the musical runs Feb. 12 to March 13, 2016.
Info: Call 322-9924 or visit www.apachawaii.org