Here we are at what might best be described as a greenhouse for past, present and still gestating creative projects, all of them collaborative in one way or another, giving me an opportunity to introduce you to some of the talented people I've worked/am working with.
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The result of sending out those demo tapes was that I was hired to host the 7pm to midnight slot at KKUA Honolulu. Both the Station Manager and the Program Director let me do my thing. I populated my radio show with a cast of characters I performed live in a diner setting. Listeners could call in to The KKUA Honolulu Cafe and order a Dan Fogelburgers or some Fleetwood Mac n' Cheese.
Management eventually pulled the plug on my antics by encouraging me to do a talk show format.
curtains up!
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KUAM
My first job in radio at a little station on the top of a hill in Agana Guam. I was mentored and encouraged by Station Manager Jon Anderson, newsman Rick Hutto. Channel Director Dave Hoebing and Morning Drive host JQ Fanihi aka Jerry Roberts pictured here
(Guam Photo - KUAM)
KKUA
My next radio gig was the 7pm to midnight slot at KKUA Honolulu where I populated my radio show with a cast of characters I performed live.
(Hawaii Photo - KKUA)
Commercial Radio
I partnered with an imaginary sidekick: a precocious tap dancing, curly topped 5-year old named "Shirley" when I first arrived in Hong Kong. She spawned an episodic soap opera that had her driving a taxi, making a bundle of money on the stock market, featuring in a martial arts movie, and getting kidnapped by a triad gang. Featured voice talents were Mr. Sammy her Cantonese tutor, Andy Chworowsky, Job Stewart and Ajay Mehta. Program Director Mike Souza gave me a lot of creative freedom, but Shirley retired her tap shoes when I left Commercial Radio's English channel and that crazy Saturday afternoon show.
(Hong Kong Photo - Commercial Radio)
FM Select - I was approached to help build a radio station from the ground up. I responded with an enthusiastic, "Yes!" to join Hong Kong's first fluidly bilingual radio station. I interviewed a number of local fellows before landing on the talented Harry Wong to co-host the show. We were the first voices heard on air when the station launched. Great fun!
(Hong Kong photo/poster/t-shirt - FM Select)
on the radio...
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Hello Hong Kong! Over my 40 years in that magical city, I was able to get back into professional theater, radio, and commercial voiceovers, was invited to teach acting at Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, co-created interactive mystery theater, directed and performed in a musical revue, co-created a hippydippy comic strip, and hosted a Saturday afternoon radio show.
It was there that my imaginary sidekick, a precocious tap dancing, curly topped 5-year old named "Shirley" spawned an episodic soap opera that had her driving a taxi, making a bundle of money on the stock market, losing it all during the '87 crash, traveling to Beijing with Sir Percy, featuring in a martial arts movie, and getting kidnapped by bandits. Featured in Shirley's episodes were Mr. Sammy, Andy Chworowsky, Job Stewart and Ajay Mehta. Shirley retired her tap shoes when I left Commercial Radio's English channel.
The Actors' Rep was started by Seppie Hope née Vale and Sheelagh Cullen and, back in the 1980's, was Hong Kong's only fully professional English-language theater company and I was thrilled to join the company!
My first appearance with the company was as a frog in "Ladders and Snake" with Seppie and Martin Clarke
I had some part in writing and a larger part in performing in all three of the original Actors' Rep musical satirical revues, "Skitsoid", "Bastoid Son of Skitsoid" and "Paranoid" presented and underwritten by Commercial Radio. Creators and fellow performers included, Barry Bakker, Peter Lally, Harry Rolnick, Stuart Wolfendale, Andy Chworowsky, Jenny Tarren, Claire Vousden and Hilary King,
Partners in Crime Interactive Mystery Theater co-created with close friend Hilary King resulted in our writing, directing and producing a half dozen insane scripts each resulting in either a decapitation, kidnapping, theft, poisoning, electrocution, stabbing or hatcheting of a nefarious doctor, rich young playboy, priceless sculpture, rock radio DJ, rising young Broadway star or rightful heir to the jewel encrusted chastity belt of Saint Ammonia, hitherto sunk in a trunk at the bottom of the South China Sea.
Hilary and I also produced and directed a Broadway revue we called Harmony and Glitz the original cast of which was Lindzay Chan, Martin Clarke, Dominic Holmes, Sheri Dorfman and Scott Gibson. Later iterations included Beth Blatt, Jane Fondiller, Allan Seiler and me.
While pioneering the use of theater for training and coaching business clients in Asia under the banner Spotlight on Success, and producing corporate entertainment as Strategic Entertainment, I was writing the weekly columns that appeared in the South China Morning Post. Little did I know that 30 years later they would be the inspiration for The View From A Broad
While teaching acting at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, I was asked to direct the Dance Department's first musical production of "Bye Bye Birdie" which I set in a housing estate with the original Fabian/Elvis rock n roll heartthrob a Cantopop star. Script all in Cantonese, lyrics in English. One of my students was a talented singer, dancer, musician Charles Teo. Charles came to work for me at Strategic Entertainment and played a very important role as choreographer, composer and co-director of many, MANY shows for Sun Hung Kai Properties in whose shopping malls they were performed. The Good Buddies was a live weekly bilingual, musical, interactive, family show that ran for 4 years at New Town Plaza in Shatin. I wanted a show that posed the sorts of questions kids could be talking with their parents about. It was thrilling to watch that happen! So many of the students I had at the APA became performers over the years in the Good Buddies and larger seasonal shows we produced. I was getting too busy so hired writer Rebekah Walters who dug right in and was so nice to work with.
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In 1995 I approached writer Nury Vittachi to collaborate with me on a one-woman show I wanted to write about Hong Kong and what it meant to me. Nury agreed assuming it would be a comedy but the journey to the end result took me back to a personal tragedy I witnessed one night on a quiet street in North Point. It is one of the things of which I am most proud. With the help of sponsorship from Allan Zeman, Daniel Ng and David Tang and so many others but outstanding on that list was my Stage Manager and touring buddy, Susan Lim. We took it to the 1996 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and received a glowing review and 5 stars in The Scotsman... two days before we closed. We performed the show in Australia, Manila and in two separate runs in Hong Kong. It was published in City Stage Hong Kong Playwriting in English.
I started a small professional theater company, Caught in the Act, with Andy Chworowsky and directors Hilary King and Scott Williams flew in France and the UK respectively to direct "The Baltimore Waltz" and "Ancient History". Doug Baker performed in three of our productions and directed Andy and me in "Love Letters", a play that Doug and I had performed together more than a decade earlier with The Actors' Rep. Other performers over the years included Wendy Mok, Andrea Miller, John Tustin, Gus Scott, Sheri Dorfman, Charles Teo, Peter Lally and Scott Gibson.
Other creative bits and pieces over the years included a rock n' roll riddle comic strip, contributing a chapter to a great book on applied improvisation, writing for the Harvard Business Review, a turn as a "wedding singer", and a few engagements at the Grand Hyatt's Champagne Bar as a chanteuse with the able backing of Peter Lally on piano and Ernie Provencher on upright bass. I got very publicly fired from my morning radio show slot at the same time I opened at the Hyatt. A full page article of me in a strapless gown, looking agonized and crooning into a microphone, "Champagne Lady Sings the Blues"... aaaaacccckkkk!