Interview with Elena Coates and Dwight Clark
Leading Cast of THE DEAD GUY at Stages Repertory Theatre
By Theresa Pisula
Saturday - April 8, 2006
In Stages Repertory Theatre’s production of THE DEAD GUY, written by Eric Coble, Elena Coates plays the blonde L.A. Reality TV producer Gina Yaweth and Dwight Clark plays the title role of THE DEAD GUY Eldon Phelps. After having just seen the Opening Night Premiere of THE DEAD GUY the night before, I was intimidated at doing this interview with the 2 lead actors in the play because their characters were just so “out there.” I was telling Elena and Dwight this before the interview and they both laughed because the whole concept of THE DEAD GUY is waaay “out there.” All 3 of us were laughing at the start of the interview which is right before the second performance. Elena, who is the Publicity Director for Stages Repertory Theatre and who plays the aggressive publicity hound in the play, introduced me to THE DEAD GUY.
Elena: (Laughing) we’re really nice people in real life. This is Dwight Clark.
Theresa: (Laughing) Hi, you were awesome last night. Was it fun doing it?
Dwight: Oh yeah.
Elena: I had so much fun last night.
Dwight: I did too.
Elena: Oh my God it was a blast. And all day I’ve been looking forward…..you know a lot of times the first Saturday is sort of like, the air’s let out because everything is geared toward opening night. But today, all day I get so excited because I get to do it again. It gets more fun every time I do it.
Dwight: Truly, it does.
Theresa: (pointing to The Dead Guy) you look so young, like last night you looked like a punk. I said to myself “Who is that punk?”
Dwight: Good. That’s good.
Theresa: How old are you?
Dwight: 30…..something. How old am I now? 37.
Theresa: 37? Wow, I thought you were younger than that.
Elena: I thought you were younger than that. I just turned 38 on Tuesday. I can’t believe you’re my age.
Dwight: Wait a minute, I’m 38. I was born in ’67.
Elena: You’re older than I am? Dude…..
Dwight: Yeah. God, that’s insane.
Elena: I know isn’t it?
Theresa: And with the baseball cap, you look even younger. In the beginning of the play you are such a Loser. Just like any guy that you would meet at the bar, saying those pick-up lines. But at the end of the play, you turn into this larger than life……being (laughs).
Dwight: Right. Good. That’s…..I wanna hear you say that.
Theresa: You became so much more than just the Loser. Okay, who goes first?
Elena: I’ll go first because it takes me longer to do my hair (laughs).
Theresa: You look a lot different than the Elena I knew before because now you have blonde hair.
Elena: It’s a little strange to take a character home with me every night. Sometimes, when you’re playing a character, you put on a wig, and you take everything off. When you leave the theater, you’re just you. But I go home and look in the mirror I go “Whoa okay.” I’m not quite myself. And I won’t be until the end of this process.
Theresa: Have you ever been blonde before? Have you ever dyed your hair blonde, ever?
Elena: Nope.
Theresa: I used to, and you turn into this totally different person.
Elena: Well, for me, it’s how you’re perceived. Like I keep forgetting that I look different from my normal appearance and then I think of how I might be coming across to people differently as a blonde. It’s really weird, I mean, nobody’s said anything to me or acted in that particular way but we all make assumptions about other people that we don’t know. And I always think, wow I wonder how I’m coming across now, a lot differently than I was normally.
Theresa: What did your son say?
Elena: Nothing. He kinda looked at me and I said, “Hey Henry its momma” and he went, “Okay, I’m going outside to play.” He just didn’t care. But he still likes to pull my hair no matter what color it is.
Theresa: I talked to you right after you had your son and since my sister Victoria who lives in California just had a baby recently, I understand it completely transforms you. Did you do any plays after you had your son?
Elena: The first play that I did was SILENT. It was here at Stages Theatre last fall in October and Henry was a year and a half old. So, I breastfed for a year and I really took my time because it was exhausting, frankly. You know, it takes a few months for them to sleep through the night. And then when you’re breastfeeding it takes so much energy and I still had my job here at Stages and so, just trying to spend time with him and feel like I still had some things of my own that I was keeping up with. It was nice it was really nice to take the time.
Theresa: Being a mom, how does it affect your Acting as a character in a play?
Elena: You know what’s really interesting? When I did SILENT, I felt…..
Theresa: What was your character?
Elena: I was a French princess, the year was 999 A.D. and I had been sent to England by my brother who was the Duke of Normandy to be part of an arranged marriage. And it was because my brother and I had a falling out. So, he was doing it as a punishment. And I go to England and I find out that the person I’m supposed to marry is this 14-year old boy. And my character, she’s just livid, she’s furious.
Theresa: How old was your character?
Elena: It doesn’t say but she’s insulted by the fact that her betrothed is a boy. She’s an adult, she’s not a child. But the role was really demanding. It was physically demanding, there were some fantasy sequences that were really interesting. There were knife fights. I got to punch out a character and I got to stab a character. It was all this really physical stuff.
Theresa: And you did your own stunts?
Elena: Oh yeah. It was really, really fun. But I felt so liberated in a way that I had never felt before and I think it has to do with the loss of self-consciousness that comes when you have a child. I mean, I don’t know that everyone needs an event like having a child to get to that point. But you become accustomed to setting yourself and your needs aside in a way that you aren’t required to do when don’t have a child or someone who’s dependent upon you in that particular way. And I think that that really was totally liberating for me as an actor because there were so many things that I just could not concern myself with, you know?
Theresa: There are so many actresses right now that are having babies, Kate Hudson, Denise Richards, Julia Roberts…
Elena: I just felt like it made me a much better artist. And I never would have expected that. It was a really, really neat experience.
Theresa: That’s good! Tell us about the part you’re playing in THE DEAD GUY.
Elena: The thing I think that’s most fun for me is that I really am playing two separate characters. Because the person Gina Yaweth has this on-camera persona that she’s created for herself, which is the producer Gina Yaweth. And they’re very different. So it really is like two different people, in a way. So, I get to have fun being Gina the person. And then I get to add this whole other dimension to it which is also really cool, with the phony accent.
Theresa: Gina Yaweth as the producer when she’s in front of the TV camera.
Elena:…the phony British accent. This is the host that she’s created for the show, which is not who she really is. The private Gina, she’s just a little frantic. And the host is not, the host is in control, the TV producer who is in control of everything.
Theresa: Which one falls in love with the lead character?
Elena: That would definitely be the real Gina. I mean the on-camera persona is doing her job. But I think there’s something about Eldon and his connections to other people that they both actually begin to see as the play progresses that are very intriguing. She doesn’t have that in real life. I don’t think she has anybody who would show up for her just because she’s her. And Chrissy does that for Eldon.
Theresa: Joanne Bonasso plays Chrissy, THE DEAD GUY Eldon Phelp’s girlfriend.
Elena: You know she comes in at the end and he goes, “Did you come here to see me just ‘cause you know me?” And she says, “Yeah.” And I don’t think Gina has anybody like that in her life. I don’t think she’s afforded herself that kind of intimacy with anybody else.
Theresa: How did you become a part of this play? How long have you been with Stages Theatre?
Elena: Well, I mean I’ve been working on the staff here for 5 years. It’ll be 5 years in July, 2006. But this project, this script came to us over a year ago and Dwight and I were in a reading in January 2005 that we had in the Arena. We had private subscribers and some other people to come and just listen to the script for the playwright. Because Eric Coble (the playwright) and Kenn McLaughlin (the director) have a long friendship, they go way back. They’re like brothers. Kenn McLaughlin is the director and Eric Coble’s the playwright. And so, Eric goes “I’ve got this play and no one’s done it yet,” and we wanted to hear what it sounds like.
Theresa: How did they meet?
Elena: I think they met in Cleveland when they were both working at the Great Lakes Theater Festival and Kenn was running the Education Program and Eric was an actor in the program. They met and work together there. Kenn has directed a lot of Eric’s work
Elena Coates stars as Reality TV Producer Gina Yaweth in Stages Repertory Theatre's Production of THE DEAD GUY. This Multi-media Extravaganza Regional Premiere is written by Eric
Coble and is Now Showing at Stages Theatre at 3201 Allen Parkway, Houston, Texas through April 23rd, 2006. Call ph.713-527-0123 for tickets and reservations.
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ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT: ERIC COBLE
Eric Coble was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and bred on the Navajo and Ute reservations in New Mexico and Colorado. Before turning to playwriting, Eric received his BA in English from Fort Lewis College in Colorado, and his MFA in acting from Ohio University.
His play BRIGHT IDEAS opened Off-Broadway at the Manhattan Class Company in 2003, directed by John Rando, and has since been published by Dramatists Play Service, with dozens of productions across the U.S. Other scripts include NATURAL SELECTION, PINOCCHIO 3.5, VIRTUAL DEVOTION, CINDERELLA CONFIDENTIAL and PECOS BILL AND THE GHOST STAMPEDE. His plays have been produced Off-Broadway and on four continents including productions at The Kennedy Center, Actors Studio, Laguna Playhouse and Stages Repertory Theatre. He has won numerous awards and an Ohio Arts Council Grant. Eric is a member of the Cleveland Play House Playwrights Unit, as well as a writer for several nationally broadcast radio programs. Though he has three screenplays in the labyrinth of Hollywood, he still writes, acts, and plays with his family in Cleveland, Ohio.
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Elena: But Eric came down from Cleveland to stay for a few days and we had two days of rehearsal. And then we had a live reading that we recorded, the stuff where the accent came from. The ending was completely different in the reading than it is now. It grew a lot, I think, I mean, he continued to work on it after that but that’s when we first got involved in this play.
Theresa: So basically, when Stages decided they were going to do this play, Kenn cast you in the lead female role.
Elena: Well, one hopes. I think he cast the reading with the people that he thought were good for the role. I can only assume that he liked what he saw and asked us to stay.
Theresa: Tell us about your past background, your past acting experience. How did you become an actor?
Elena: It was one of those things that I always wanted to do but was always afraid to take the plunge. So I didn’t really get involved until after College. And I moved to Houston and thought, “You know, I’m going to do it.”
Theresa: So you graduated with a Theatre degree?
Elena: No, I have a degree in English and History from Texas A&M and since I’m from Austin, I had to get out of town. I got this degree after college and I didn’t know what to do with myself.
Theresa: Were you born in Austin?
Elena: A-ha. And then I moved here because the job market in Austin was terrible. I just started taking Acting classes. I took classes around wherever I could find them after college. I started auditioning for plays, I got a headshot and I just started doing stuff, and taking workshops for people when they come into town. During this time, for regular work, I was temping a lot. You know, oil companies have a lot of work. I was sort of in the Oil Industry for awhile. I knew I didn’t want to get locked in. I did that for 3 or 4 years, it was like, “This is long enough.” I didn’t want to get stuck here so I went and got a Master Degree at St. Thomas University in Liberal Arts. My concentration was Literature because of my background in Theatre.
And then I got a job at the Alley Theatre and I was their Education Director. I was in Development for a few years and then I was their Education Director for a year. And then I left and worked at an Acting Studio here for about a year. And then we moved to Austin, I did theatre stuff there both on the producing side and the acting side. I actually worked a lot with the children’s theatre company there called Second Youth and did about 5 or 6 shows with them. And then when we moved back to Houston in 2001, that’s when I started here at Stages Repertory Theatre. Actually, the year that I moved to Austin, I did my first Early Stages show here, which is Little Red Riding Hood, the musical and it is so much fun. And I was so excited when we moved back to Houston. When we got back I started doing Early Stages again and got a job and started working here at Stages Theatre.
Theresa: Who are your most favorite actors and directors?
Elena: It’s so hard though because I never really think of actors in terms of favorites. Although, I will say I will see just about anything with Johnny Depp in it. Did you ever see Dead Man? It’s this black and white, weird, I mean he chooses these very eclectic projects and he’s so versatile and I think he’s really, really…..I admire him a lot. I love Judi Dench, of course.
As far as directors, Kenn McLaughlin is fabulous. I love Rob Bundy (Stages Theatre Artistic Director). They’re the reason why…I mean we’re a small theatre and we don’t have a very large budget and we don’t pay as well as some of the larger theatres in town but I think people really, really like the work here because of our personality as an organization. I think Rob Bundy particularly as the Artistic Director has lent a great deal of cache to the theatre. He’s so collaborative and he’s so open and I think he really looks at it as a holistic process. The reason why each person is involved is because they have something to offer not just to carry out a mission or to carry out a vision but to actually add something to that vision. I think that’s kind of our reputation, generally speaking, which is really nice.
Theresa: The business end of running a theatre and the artistic aspect, trying to make both of those parts work is always a struggle. Especially when you’re trying to raise money, you wonder, how does Rob Bundy do it?
Elena: Well, Kenn McLaughlin is actually the managing director so he handles the business side and Rob handles the artistic side. I think the place where it intersects the most is when we choose the season. Because from an artistic perspective, Rob wants to create a season that’s balanced that offers something over the course of a year that it’s gonna be continuously stimulating and interesting to the audiences that expresses our artistic personalities. Sure, you have all these artistic elements to it, but you have to determine how much money we expect that season to bring in so that we can determine you know: can we do this play or is it too big for us or if we do this play and we don’t think that many people are going to come because it has a very limited appeal. You know, is something about the subject make it less appealing to a broad audience? Well, then how does that affect the other decisions we make if it only brings an x amount of dollars. I think really the choosing of the season is probably the closest it comes to a shared responsibility. Even though Rob as the Artistic Director has the final say on what we do, other facts play into that. It’s a very complicated process but it doesn’t necessarily look complicated from the outside, but it really is. And it’s really interesting for me to be a part of this discussion, to participate from that side of it too.
Theresa: Because you’re the Publicity Director of the theatre?
Elena: All the managers of the organization, we all read the scripts and we all give our feedback and we all have discussions about how we think each play is gonna do and how it fits in. Collectively, everyone who works for the organization is responsible. I mean all of us, our mission to make the theatre as successful as possible. My particular responsibility is to communicate with the media and to create education and outreach programs. The official title is Community Relations Director.
Theresa: Is there a part that you would like to one day play?
Elena: I got to be Beatrice at the Shakespeare Festival which is such a dream. Oh, it was so great.
Theresa: What is it about Beatrice that you loved so much?
Elena: Shakespeare writes a lot of, most of his lead characters are men, you know? And so it was really nice to play this Shakespeare character. I mean the language is so beautiful and it’s fabulous to do Shakespeare. It’s a challenge but it’s also poetry. It’s really neat to do it.
Theresa: My grandfather named all of his children characters of Shakespeare. My Uncle Butch, his real name is Romeo from Romeo and Juliet, my mom’s name is Portia from The Merchant of Venice, my other Uncle Arthur is from King John and then I have my Aunt Lydia. Is the character Beatrice something you read when you were younger and was she someone you always wanted to play?
Elena: Well, sure, it’s out there. I know the story, from literature classes, movies, plays and other adaptations in theatre. She’s just a really developed female character that has such a central presence in the play even though a lot of his plays are really more about the men. It was a really, really great opportunity. I think it would be great to play Lady M.
Theresa: Lady M? Oh, Lady Macbeth (smiles apologetically). Sorry.
Elena: (scolding) I don’t want to say it! We’re in a theatre and I have a show in an hour so I gotta be really careful about superstitions. You know, that would be a really great character to play, too. She’s really pretty neat. And Dwight and I actually did a residency where we did a bit from that play in a high school classroom where we get to teach high school students.
Theresa: You know, I didn’t know about that superstition not to say the M-word in the theatre until recently, when I saw Orson’s Shadow at the Alley Theatre.
Elena: No, that superstition is really out there. Well, I should probably let you talk to Dwight ‘cause we’re getting close to the show and I don’t want to rush anybody. Thanks for coming to see the show and putting us on your website.
Dwight Clark stars in the title role in Stages Repertory Theatre's Production of THE DEAD GUY. This Multi-media Extravaganza Regional Premiere is written by Eric Coble and is Now
Showing at Stages Theatre at 3201 Allen Parkway, Houston, Texas through April 23rd, 2006. Call ph.713-527-0123 for tickets and reservations.
Theresa: Okay (turns to THE DEAD GUY). Tell us about the part you’re playing.
Dwight: The character’s name is Eldon Phelps and he’s from a small town in Colorado. And he’s really not much of anything in the world and he’s a real Loser. We see him at the beginning of the play as really at the lowest point that he’s ever been in his life.
Theresa: Rock bottom (laughs).
Dwight: Rock bottom. That’s how we get to see him at first.
Theresa: As the play progressed, we begin to like this guy. Towards the end, we were all rooting for him, the audience really wanted to vote on his death. During intermission, I was looking for the voting booth where I could check off all my different options. I mean, the applause meter was going over the top and it got really loud in that small theatre because the whole audience was cheering for this guy’s death. The whole crowd was really anticipating how he will die. Some people wanted to save him and some people like me who couldn’t wait to see his death. It was kind of weird because it got everybody going into this kind of morbid type of mood (laughs). I hate to admit it but it was kinda sick to hear the huge applause toward the end and I was one of the ones cheering! How did you become a part of this play? How does one become THE DEAD GUY?
Dwight: I did the reading with Elena from the very beginning when Kenn received the script from Eric.
Theresa: How long have you been with Stages?
Dwight: I guess my first show here was in 2000. I’ve been affiliated and I’ve worked fairly steadily with Stages for six years now. I started with Early Stages (Stages’ Childrens Theatre) I think I did two full seasons every show with Chesley Krohn. She’s an amazing director. I started out from that aspect and then became more aware of the theatre itself and how it works and how it’s run which is incredible. It’s one of the only theatres in town that I love to work with. They run a tight ship. That makes it so easy for an actor to come in and do what they’re supposed to do. And then I’ve done three main stage productions also in the last six years.
Theresa: Lead roles like this one?
Dwight: No, no, they’ve been support roles.
Theresa: So this is your first lead role?
Dwight: This is my first lead role on the main stage, yeah.
Theresa: Wow! That’s awesome! That’s a huge opportunity and you do such a great job!
Dwight: Yeah, I’m very excited about it.
Theresa: How old were you when you first wanted to be an actor?
Dwight: I guess, well……
Theresa: How old? (Laughs)
Dwight: It really starts young (laughs). It was the puppet shows at Christmas and my brother and I were the entertainers when the family got together. I guess I probably really started about 7 or 8. And then in High School, I was quite serious about it. I mean, you know, as far as High School got. INTENSE! But so I guess it was really my junior and senior year in High School where I went, okay, this is really what I want to do. My High School director took a group of us in our senior year to New York and we all auditioned for league schools, Theatre League, Carnegie Mellon, and Juilliard. And I was accepted by two schools and I chose to go to North Carolina School of the Arts, which is in a really small town. It’s really a bizarre little school, you know, but there were these art kids. It’s a High School and College concentrated on a very small campus.
Theresa: Where were you born?
Dwight: I’m a native Houstonian. I decided to go to North Carolina because of the Art School. The North Carolina School of the Arts is a huge, prestigious conservatory, really. It’s a world wide audition and they accept 40 people. So, I was super privileged to be accepted in their program.
Theresa: Wow.
Dwight: So, that’s kinda where it started. Then after North Carolina, I decided to come back to Houston, got involved in the Houston Theatre scene and I’ve been here ever since apart from four years I tried out in Los Angeles. Then I came back! So I’m here now, this is home.
Theresa: Who are your most favorite actors?
Dwight: Actresses: Judi Dench and Maggie Smith. Meryl Streep, they’re the best. Actors, it’s gotta be Kevin Spacey. Johnny Depp, I totally agree with Elena on that.
Theresa: Yeah, I do too. How about directors?
Dwight: Our directors here at Stages. Michael Wilson at the Alley Theatre, I’ve worked with him. I don’t think he’s there right now but he’s an amazing director. Film directors would have to be Scorsese, all the big guys, Spielberg, of course.
Theresa: What qualities do you look for in an actor?
Dwight: I guess I watch the process, I watch the way they think, how they respond.
Theresa: how they become the character…
Dwight: Yeah definitely characterization, how they’re responding, the physical life of the character.
Theresa: What kind of research did you have to do to become Eldon Phelps? (Laughs)
Dwight: Eldon? (Smiling) When I first read the script, I knew who this guy was. I’ve had some low points in my life being an actor. A lot of those raw places that Eldon comes from are there. But really, I think it’s so amazingly written, the pace of it is so important that…it’s so well written that it’s all there. In my first read of it, I knew who this guy was, I knew how he thought. I knew how he moved. It was just there. It was so full of it.
Theresa: He was so good. And you are awesome.
Dwight: It’s so fun, soooo much fun.
Theresa: What qualities do you look for in a director?
Dwight: A director who really works with you. I love an actor’s director. In that I mean, one who’s really interested in the motivations behind the person, who the person is. There’s also a director’s director and to me, that’s someone who’s more technically minded. In this particular production Kenn McLaughlin has both of those qualities. He knows the technique. He knows the technical structure of it and how it all works mechanically and physically. But he also understands the characters in their emotional lives. So, we get both of that.
Theresa: Who influenced you as an artist?
Dwight: Well, I’ll tell you. When, I guess, I was in junior high when I saw the movie Ragtime. That inspired me so much to really kinda look and go, gosh, that’s just, the craft of Acting and the craft of a Production that emotionally pulls an audience in and taking them on this journey. So, I guess it was a movie. It wasn’t a person, you know what I mean?
Theresa: Ragtime, the huge epic production, wasn’t it? with all the Ragtime music…
Dwight: Yeah. Oh gosh, it’s just amazing.
Theresa: What do you want the audience to gain from watching THE DEAD GUY?
Dwight: Well, I want them to have a really good time (smiles). No really, that’s the most important. And also, from the feedback that we got last night…
Theresa: What kind of feedback did you get?
Dwight: A couple of people were embarrassed to tell me that they do watch reality shows. I did have one person say last night who said “You know what? I don’t think I’m ever gonna watch a reality show the same way again. I’m serious!” And she was so serious about it. I was thinking, “Wow, that’s great!” Good, because you know, the medium of Television is so much a part of our lives. And I think, which is another factor to your question, is that people can really identify with how present the Television is in their lives. In their home life and how it affects their family and everything they do.
Theresa: I watch reality shows all the time. I feel really guilty about it but I still watch it. Subconsciously, we watch TV all the time but consciously we know how really harmful it could be.
Dwight: Yeah, exactly. In fact, working with Kenn McLaughlin one of the first things we do in the first two rehearsals which are four-hour rehearsals is sit around the table and just read the script. We read the words just to get it going on and then we talked about all the issues and that’s one of the things we’re talking about is how influencing Television is. And how people use it for different reasons, for escape, and people have their needs and why they invite the Television into their lives. We had a really great conversation on that.
Theresa: Was Eric Coble, the playwright involved in the conversations as well?
Dwight: No, he’s been via communication with the director Kenn McLaughlin. He wasn’t present during the rehearsals. But he got here Monday April 3rd.
Theresa: As far as reality shows go, there’s so many of them now because TV is so addictive. And as long as there’s that demand, the TV people will continue to supply the viewing public’s need. The Television industry doesn’t really care how bad they are as long as they’re making money from it. Just today, I was watching the Sweet Sixteen shows on MTV. Have you ever seen those?
Dwight: No, I haven’t.
Theresa: They go through temper tantrums, these sixteen-year olds.
Dwight: Oh my God…
Theresa: And the camera follows them around. And there’s this one teenage girl whose parents are super-rich and she’s turning sixteen so her mom would take her to Paris to go shopping for her 16th Birthday party. But then she’d go shopping on her own and she’d spend too much money so her mom would cancel all her credit cards by phone. But then it would be a happy ending because her father would get her the new car for her birthday that’s just the perfect color she wants. And then everybody would talk about how idiotic and bratty that girl is. But I couldn’t believe how many people were talking about that show and criticizing this girl because I thought I was the only one. Like, I would tell them, we will sit there and criticize this teenage girl, when we should be critical of ourselves for watching this stupid, idiotic show. But in the end the TV industry wins because everybody’s watching.
Dwight: Wow. I would have to watch that…
Theresa: And then there’s Tori Spelling’s new show NoTORIous. It’s a reality show that’s loosely based on her life. But it’s not really reality, it’s like they have a script and real actors playing her mom and her dad who’s Aaron Spelling. So, it’s like her life.
Dwight: Like a mock-umentary kinda thing or?
Theresa: I don’t know what it is. It’s something brand new, like ground breaking. She’s Aaron Spelling’s daughter you know, so she can do whatever she wants. It’s like a reality show but much more refined. It was good! I felt kind of guilty like, why am I watching this stupid show? (Laughs) But it was a good show.
Dwight: (Laughs) Yeah.
Theresa: But this is all what’s going on right now. Or have you ever seen The Newlyweds with Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson?
Dwight: No, I didn’t. No, I swore off reality shows.
Theresa: Oh, you don’t watch them at all? But you’re in it right now (laughs).
Dwight: Yeah. I’ve seen a few…but enough to just go, God, I just felt so emotionally manipulated because it’s not really real. They set up these things. You think what you’re watching is so real but they pick and sift through just to find the right people to get that audience to pull in. It’s all…it’s so fake! Which is so bizarre that it’s called a reality show, you know?
Theresa: Well, having been a part of this reality show THE DEAD GUY, if you were ever offered to be in one, would you be part of a reality show?
Dwight: Right. No, I don’t know. I’d…I’d…I couldn’t even answer that.
Theresa: Okay, let me ask you this. If you were Eldon Phelps would you take the deal? Would you sign those papers? Would you sign on the dotted line?
Dwight: YES!
Theresa: But you’re gonna die!
Dwight: Well, he’s in it for the quick fix. He really doesn’t think of the consequences. And he doesn’t believe them.
Theresa: And neither does the audience. Everybody’s waiting with bated breath. And in the end, the whole world fell in love with him. And it’s almost like in the old days when the Gladiator goes in the middle of the Coliseum with this wild animal, like a spectator sport, everyone is watching and waiting to see how this guy dies. It was cool the way Eric Coble was able to draw everybody into the theatre and start rooting for this guy to live or die. You did an awesome job. I was so amazed. ‘Cause like we were really rooting for you, you know? So what do you normally do if you don’t watch reality shows?
Dwight: I watch documentaries. That’s my reality TV. I love learning about people, different lifestyles and cultures. And I don’t feel guilty about watching them, you know?
Theresa: Oh, documentaries are the best. They’re very educational.
Dwight: If a documentary is done the right way, it can honestly give you a real portrait of what you’re watching. Some directors can impose their ideas a certain way to manipulate you. But a really good documentary will just give you a straight-on view of what you’re witnessing.
Theresa: Are you involved in any other part of this theatre? Or would you want to be?
Dwight: Umm…that’s a good question. I love working here. I love this theatre as far as being an actor goes. I certainly would be interested in taking on some administrative work here.
Theresa: What would you like to say to the Houston theatre-going audience?
Dwight: Come see us. I want to invite people to come especially if they’ve never been to Stages to come check out the work that goes on here. Because the talent pool in Houston just by itself is amazing
Theresa: And the talent pool of Dwight Clark is pretty amazing too. Right before he left to go to his dressing room to prepare for his role as Eldon Phelps in THE DEAD GUY, he confessed to me that he does a lot in this play. You will see that he’s practically the whole show. Mr. Clark would like to dedicate his work on this project to his father, Norman Clark, who recently lost his battle with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. He states: ‘With the help and thanks to the staff at M.D. Anderson, WJE and Glenna, there is still hope, and in the words of my dad, “Keep on keeping on.” I love you so much, Dad.’