After running a newspaper in Tahiti, Dede Clark came back to the U.S. looking for another challenge, which lead her to grad school at the University of Texas at Austin, where she studied film and video production. During this time, she discovered that though she liked working on movies and commercials, she really liked working with kids. "I was asked to teach an acting class at Austin Community Movie Company (ACMC). It was such fun! The kids had so much energy, were open and so willing to explore their creativity." ACMC quickly went belly-up, so Dede gathered eight children in a little rented room on Pearl St. in Austin and using a borrowed video camera, taught her first kidsActing class in 1980.
During the early years of kidsActing, while she taught acting to kids (helping some get work in movies and commercials), Dede continued to work in the film industry. Dede helped the Coen brothers launch their first movie, "Blood Simple," shot here in Austin. They looked like the poor film students they were, so Clark borrowed sport coats from UT professors for Joel, Ethan and Barry Sonnenfeld to wear and introduced them to some wealthy Texans who invested in their film. Clark, too, invested, "I borrowed to do it, which seemed crazy, but I believed in these guys." Sonnenfeld, the director of photography on Blood Simple, later directed many block-busters including the Men in Black movies. Clark worked on the film as a casting director and locations manager.
For years, as kidsActing grew and she moved locations to meet the growing demand, she was a "one-(wo)man show ." Dede was the teacher, the office staff, the publicist and the janitor. "I remember one time a man came in while I was scrubbing the bathrooms. He asked for the person in charge. Waving a toilet brush, I explained it was me."
By 1986,Dede had moved into the studio on Burnet Rd., where kidsActing would remain for over 20 years. That year she made the switch from a predominantly film/video school to one that encompassed more of the performing arts. Clark directed kidsActing's first play and first musical with kids. "I was a performer in high school and college, a dancer all my life, studied at Alvin Ailey and HB Studio in New York after college and acted, directed, and choreographed some small off-Broadway productions around NYC. Theatre and musicals made my heart sing so it was a natural progression."
In 1990, Clark spearheaded her first major musical. She teamed up with Jim Crosby, Jan Bozarth and a group of some of Austin's best singer songwriters to create the B. Iden Payne award-winning musical, a contemporary adaptation of The Velveteen Rabbit. Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, Marcia Ball, Joe Scruggs, Ray Benson, Eliza Gilkyson, Robert "Beto" Skiles and others wrote the songs, and Dede had her first of many collaborations with Noel Alford who did the musical arrangements. She remembers, "At the time, no one was doing musicals with youth performers. I took some flack from a few folks involved in theatre... the former theatre critic at the Statesman actually called me and told me he thought it detrimental for children to perform." Most of the theatres in town laughed at me when I tried to use their venue for the production. I was told that nobody would ever pay to see kids perform. " Michel Jaroschy, the late artistic director of Capitol City Playhouse, was willing to take the gamble. We ran for 36 performances and sold out for every one! It was the biggest hit they'd ever had." Clark adds, "Michael Barnes had taken over as the theatre critic, his praise and the fact that these amazing songwriters had collaborated certainly put us over the top."
The next year Clark created, "Monsters!" another musical collaborating with Willie Nelson, Stephen Fromholz, The Austin Lounge Lizards, David Garza, Jimmy La Fave and more. Noel Alford became (and still is) the musical director. Cori Chambers Stern co-wrote with Clark. To date, Clark has created eight award-winning original musicals, continuing to collaborate with the stars of the Texas music community, including Jerry Jeff Walker, Django Walker, Sara Hickman and more.
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Dede does Hannah's make-up backstage |
In 1993, Clark happily discovered she was pregnant with her daughter and knew that her life was going to have to change; if she taught classes every day after school and on Saturdays, she wouldn't see her child grow up. Austin was also beginning to suffer from traffic congestion, making it harder for families from some areas to travel to kidsActing after school. That was when Clark decided she would bring kidsActing to the families. By the time her daughter Hannah was in kindergarten, Clark had trained many teachers, expanded her curriculum and kidsActing was offering classes in seven locations. This allowed Clark lots of time to be with her daughter, who she says is her "best production." "While I love what I do for a living, nothing compares to being a mom. It's really what life is about. I thank God daily that Hannah is in my life." Being a mom, she said, definitely made her a better teacher and director, too, as it gave her a much better understanding of what kids and parents need.
In 2006, Clark had a person interested in buying her business. While she loved what she was doing, she wanted to reach out to the needy and considered working some in Africa. A while later, Clark was informed that Walgreens was buying up the block so kidsActing was booted out of its digs. The buyers of kidsActing backed out. The price of real estate and rentals was so high, she was scared she could lose it all. For a year kidsActing was homeless, teaching classes in satellite locations. Since the beginning, Clark had been renting theatres to produce all of the kidsActing plays and musicals, a situation that caused enormous difficulties as they were always at the mercy of someone else's schedule. While cooking dinner one night in
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kidsActing's new home |
April of 2008, Clark was watching the news. The director of a theatre Clark had paid to rent his space in May for a kidsActing production was on TV saying the theatre had lost its lease and moved out. After several unreturned calls and emails to the director, Clark put on her detective hat, identified who owned the property in question and delivered a letter to the owner's front door explaining her dilemma -- kids were counting on performing in the theatre that now had padlocks on its gates.
"The world is a wonderful place," says Clark. "It gives you what you need, only you may not understand it at the time." She ended up renting that padlocked theatre, remodeled it, and made a wonderful space for children. While remodeling, Clark noticed there was a school very close to the theatre. "I realized that I didn't need to go to Africa to help kids who lacked opportunity. As Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz says, "sometimes you don't need to look any further than your own back yard." With the help of a dedicated group of parents from kidsActing, C enter Stage Texas, a non-profit theatre and community center for children was born. "Last year, we taught over 600 kids in East Austin for free," Clark said beaming. "And this year we are expanding our numbers and our programs to include not only theatre, but visual arts, dance, and a program for children with disabilities." And she adds, none of this would happen without the talented, hard-working staff and teachers including Theada Bellenger, Tiffany Williams, Nina Sloan, Philip Olson, Jazmine Miller, Tom Bryan, Jai Suire, Jason Marlett, Kirk German, Gary Jaffe, Roz Bellenger, Chase McBride, Jenny Glowka, Josh Denning, Dylan Kittleman, David Blackburn, and of course, Noel Alford. This year Center Stage Texas hired a full-time development director, Sidney Pan.
kidsActing is in 12 locations, and in 2010 will teach over 1500 children in Central Texas and Center Stage Texas is happily teaching hundreds more. And her kidsActing productions have garnered many awards over the years. When asked what it's all meant to her, Clark says, "For me, it's always been about the kids. I genuinely love them. I remember a lesson I learned early on that I tell all of our teachers at trainings so they know what kidsActing is about... Once, while rehearsing a little show kids were going to perform for their parents, a little boy was on stage with one finger up his nose and one in his pants, singing his heart out. I stopped myself from saying anything to him because I realized that to do so would embarrass the child and squash that unbridled joy he was expressing." She further explains, "While we strive to have the kids do the best that they can and want our shows to look great, we will never do it at the expense of a child's well-being. We believe in protecting the innocence of childhood." And she adds, "We want the kids to feel good about who they are, learn and have fun. Creativity flows better that way. We are not here to raise stars, we are here to play a small part in raising happy, healthy contributing members of our community."
That said, kidsActing has produced many working artists, on Broadway, in theatre, film and television. "But we've also produced a lot of writers, lawyers, doctors, business people, politicians and every other line of work you can think of, too," she says. "And we've been around so long that we are teaching the children of former kidsActing students! How old does that make me?" she laughs. Looking at her energy, it does not seem impossible that she'll be teaching some grandchildren in the future, too.