Interview with Julie Fulkerson, board member

By Mark McKenna

Mark McKenna: You are a board member, and it sounds like you have been involved for a long time.

Julie Fulkerson: I’ve been involved as a community member because Dell’Arte is such a part of our community. I was actually in some of their plays. Just fun stuff, I am not an actress. One of their crazy productions they wrote in a part for me.

MM: Was that "Korbel"?

JF: Yes. I was the mayor of Korbel. It was type-casting, because I had been the major of Arcata.

MM: Tell me about how long you have been in this community?

JF: I was born in Arcata. I left for a few years to live in Europe [Vienna] and teach in the Bay area, but I’ve been back here since the early ’70’s. Even back then, Dell’Arte was a fairly big deal and unusual. We had a lot of community theaters back then, so, Dell’Arte, because it was in Blue Lake, was considered fairly avant-garde. It was such an odd place to start up a theater. My memories of the early performances are that they were excellent. They were markedly different than anything else we had locally.

MM: How would you characterize Blue Lake then back in the mid ’70’s, as compared to now?

JF: Then I was much more aware of the productions and much less aware of the school. I saw many of the productions at Center Arts in Humboldt State. They were based in the local politics. There was something that came from Planned Parenthood and something that came from the natural resources, salmon restoration and so forth. They were steeped in the community’s politics. It seemed to be a prevalent theme at that time. I’m not sure, chronologically, when they started doing the performances for kids, which is also another big chapter that most of the people in the community are aware of – the theater productions around Christmas time. That is a big deal for people who probably never attend the theater otherwise. It is a great inroad for many, many families, because it is free.

MM: How would you catalog your growing involvement with them?

JF: Because I am really involved in the community in many different ways, my first involvement was because this was a fun, safe way to expand the consciousness of the community. Some really challenging issues were dealt with on stage. Somehow they, well Joan, Michael and Donald have really done a great job at laughing at all of us equally. "Korbel" for example had some really heavy political overtones, but there was equal opportunity to be made a fool of. So, it was good for all of us to see ourselves through the characters. They had a way unlike politicians to talk about these issues and bring them, put them in our faces. I think my first memories were that this was theater that could change, or at least make us look at, our beliefs. Then, of course, the second part of that was that they were good. They were really good. People wanted to be there and they would be sold out, there would be packed houses. And then for me, there was the community aspect. The fact that they were doing it often on a shoestring and there was that sort of pig’s ear into a silk purse kind of a phenomenon, which I am very fond of as a model. Well, first of all ,they chose Blue Lake. Not Eureka or Arcata. So, right from the get-go they took on a bigger challenge.

MM: Now you were mayor of Arcata for a while?

JF: Yes. I was on the City Council for eight years and I was on the County Board of Supervisors for two terms.

MM: Are you still involved in local government?

JF: I did not run again. I am one of those people that believe everybody should take a turn. I dropped out of elected politics and now I am involved in other projects. I do a leadership-training program, and I am involved in developing a health-care plan for Humboldt County, and I do some other work, some other consulting in the community. So instead of the broad issues of an elected official, I have very specific projects.

MM: In what ways do people like yourself help support what Dell’Arte does?

JF: I have a business, so we buy advertising in the program and we sponsor shows, which then provides tickets for people who can’t afford them. I was in a production, so there was a lot of rehearsals and showing up out there, helping with fundraisers. And I haven’t done a lot of that. They don’t demand a lot from board members. They are very self-reliant. One fundraiser I would mention is that they had something at an apple orchard one year. A colleague of mine who was on the Board of Supervisors who was perceived as my complete opposite; conservative, Republican, very flamboyant, red hair, very dramatic – I am very progressive liberal to the left, and would look a lot more conservative than she was – we did a song together. We sang "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better." Jane Hill wrote great lyrics so the two of us could do this thing. We’ve done it a couple of times for Dell’Arte. They’ve been good at bring people like this woman Anna Sparks and I together. Now Anna probably would have never gone to a production out there just on her own. That was a way of drawing someone in like Anna. And it was also a way to demonstrate that you can create teamwork in interesting environments. We had two politicians, opposite ends of poles, singing a crazy song. I tried to help when they were raising theater dollars for the building, but I am not that affiliated with people with money, so that was a hard one for me.

MM: How else have you seen Dell’Arte’s influence on the community?

JF: I’m not sure there is that much that I would add. I think that, because they are good, they treat it very professionally. Because it is mostly fun, there is a lot of humor, and people come that would not have access to theater otherwise. Lots of performances are in the day, there are performances outside, there are lots of opportunities for kids and their parents to show up. Then, of course, their work in the schools and the parades and the mask-making and all that is so much more interactive and intergenerational. They have tied a lot in with the Native Americans. I think they stand out in the crowd for bringing new people into the theater. People coming there not being afraid, which is something I think is a real problem. We have Humboldt State, but I think there are people in town who would not think of going on to campus. They just don’t do it. Nobody on campus makes it welcoming, and there are people who wouldn’t even check it out. Of course, there are people that do, but they are all the predictable people. Dell’Arte, again partly because it is in Blue Lake, an old logging town with a bunch of bars and not a whole lot going on, must in some way seem a safer place to go. When I go and I see the audience there, they are very different than anyplace else in the county. It’s not your typical Junior League, socialite crowd. It is a complete mix of people. It is fun. You get to see all the different parts of the community there in the audience. Then, they are not doing the classics for the most part. People are looking at more current, neighborhood issues, community and regional issues.

MM: I’ve been hearing a lot about their integrity over the years, developing a real trust among people in the community.

JF: Now, that is a crazy thing. You know that movie "King of Hearts"? I think of that movie often for Blue Lake. Here are these crazy and talented people in this little town. And then they come out on the streets. What are these old-timers thinking? So they manage to make friends with them. Some of the tales are priceless.

MM: What do you see as major mistakes you perceive that they have made? Where have you seen them struggle?

JF: The only thing that comes to my mind – I am struggling because I want to come up with some problems that they have had to solve – the closest thing I can come to is the fact that the three founders – even though it is hard for me to admit and I know it is hard for them – that they are getting older. They have other things going on in their lives and don’t want to take on so much. I think for awhile they didn’t bring in the next generation at that level. They had the teaching and other roles filled. But it felt like maybe there was going to be a big age gap, which I have seen happen in a lot of organizations here. I have a business that is 18 years old and I have people my age working there, and then I have this generation of young people. So, how do you sort of build the steps and the bridges for people to move into roles of more responsibility? I would think that would be one of the biggest challenges. They have certainly nurtured and brought some brilliant people into their organization, but I am not sure there has been a lot of places for them to stay along the way. When I say that, I am sure they would be as honest about that as anybody could be. I think it is bloody remarkable that they are all still doing it together.

MM: Have there been people who have been less than pleased in the community?

JF: I have never heard a word. I see a lot of people and I know a lot of conservatives and liberal folks and I have never heard anybody say, "Oh those Dell’Arte people, they should leave town," or "What are they doing." I have never heard anything like that.

MM: What do you see in the next 20 years for their surrounding community, and what their role could possibly be?

JF: I think their biggest challenge is how do they pass this on, this whole culture that they have created. How does that stay with the new personalities? I think that is a big challenge when the organization is based on the people and not some big mission or principle. They did it, they are it. I suppose money is a big challenge. Although they seem to be successful. I can’t think of another organization in our community that is as successful as they are.

MM: Is there anything else that you would like to add?

JF: You’ve heard about their Cornerstone project? I went with Michael one day to a meeting in San Francisco where there was the executive director of the San Francisco Opera, the symphony, the Museum of Modern Art. About ten directors, one board member and Michael. All of these people except for Michael are not theater, dancers or musicians. They could all have been doing what they are doing for Sony or RCA, so they had a very different view of the world and their work than Michael did. It was interesting for me because I think the conversation made me realize that Dell’Arte are really doing theater for everybody, for people. That sounds cliché, because that is what theater is for. I have San Francisco series tickets and I go to the opera and I go to the theater, but I feel like those folks are missing a lot of communities, a lot of the work they do does not address the issues of the community. That is the biggest quality that Dell’Arte brings to our region.

MM: Can you point to, even in that day, what helped you get that a-ha that what the others were talking about was coming from a different place than what Michael was...

JF: There was a discussion in part of it about how to sell the arts to the residents of California. I remember thinking about why you would want to take something that has worked so well for the milk industry, or the chicken industry, or the egg industry and adapt it for the arts. It felt like it was completely counter to what you would want to do if you were trying to reach people’s need for creativity and art in their lives. It didn’t seem like a statewide campaign kind of on the chamber-of-commerce level was the way to go about it, hire some hot-shot agency to come up with a slogan and a logo and a soundbite. That makes it that much harder for small, original companies to market and sell themselves because they are not like San Francisco Opera.

MM: How does Dell’Arte they galvanize people to get behind their business plan?

JF: I think they have really been doing it. I know there was a fundraising campaign a few years ago. It was before the building was complete and they were trying to find money for blocks of rooms and things like that. They were very creative in attracting donors to the project. It was not traditional. It was not, let’s take them to the Eureka Inn for lunch. People went out there to Blue Lake. What works well in our community is networking. You just bring people in. Donald, I remember, made quiches and divided them up and talked about what these pieces of pie represent. It was kind of a hands on, visual, fun. It takes a lot longer because they are getting money from people like me. If I send them $100, I feel like I am sending them a lot of money. It is tougher, but it also makes it more real. I think that is why Dell’Arte is unlike a lot of other theaters.

Mark McKenna is artistic director and an ensemble member of Touchstone Theatre, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of the Lecoq International School of Theatre in Paris. He has taught theater classes at Lehigh University and the University of Pennsylvania, and the MFA Theatre Program at Towson State University. McKenna is active in the growth of the Network of Ensemble Theatres. He is a board member of Alliance for Building Communities, a regional community-development corporation.

PERFORMING COMMUNITIES
Carpetbag | Cornerstone | Dell'Arte | Jump-Start
LAPD | Pregones | Roadside | WagonBurner
Commentaries