Matthew Russell Hendrickson
THEATER scene
Matthew has been involved with community theater for over 35 years.
He is currently a designer’s assistant for Brotin Design, a founding
member of a local film production company, Oscar Dante Motion,
and is still heavily involved with local theater.
Meet
Steve &
Kae Spencer
S
teve and Kae Spencer have been
part of the local community
theater for many years. They were
both, in their own words, “theater geeks”
since high school. But it wasn’t until
they moved to Morgan Hill that they got
fully involved with community theater.
Steve’s first acting role in the area was
in “Deathtrap” for South Valley Civic
Theater. Kae was a costumer for many
SVCT productions until she returned
to the stage in “Ten Little Indians,” also
for SVCT.
Over the years they have worked
locally with SVCT, Center Stage,
Limelight Actors Theater and Pintello
Comedy Theater. Other theater
groups include Dragon Productions
in Redwood City and Laughter
Productions. Steve’s first directorial
debut was for a teen production of
“Wash Your Troubles Away” for SVCT
1n 1997. Kae had her directorial debut
in 2004 for SVCT’s production of
“Inspecting Carol.”
It was also in 2004 that Steve was
diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease.
Rather than let this diagnosis take over
58
his life, Steve decided that he was
going to do something about it. One
of the largest groups that raises money
for research for Parkinson’s is the Fox
Foundation, founded by Michael J.
Fox. Steve and Kae joined the founda-
tion and in 2008 mounted their first
fundraising event with a production of
“You Can’t Take It With You” at SVCT.
Since that time they have put on ten
productions to raise money for the Fox
Foundation. During that time they have
raised approximately $50,000.00 which
has gone directly to research programs
that would normally be scrapped if it
was not for all of the collective efforts
of people like Steve and Kae. There
are thousands of members worldwide
whose efforts fund these programs.
As Steve and Kae put it, “We became
involved with Team Fox because the
foundation has a lot of information
about Parkinson’s Disease. We were
impressed with their philosophy of
aggressively funding research. Raising
money for research is our way of
fighting this dreadful disease. We are so
grateful to the local communities and
GILROY • MORGAN HILL • SAN MARTIN
august/september 2019
businesses for their generosity
and support.”
Steve has been in many productions
locally but he counts two as his
favorites. The first being Charlie Baker
in “The Foreigner,” by Larry Shoe; and
the second was the 23 characters from
“Greater Tuna” by Ed Howard, Joe Sears
and Jaston Williams. Kae counts her
two favorites as Mezepa in “Gypsy” by
Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim, and
as Melissa Gardner in “Love Letters” by
A. R. Gurney.
As far as motivation for being on
stage as an actor, Steve enjoys being in
the moment on stage for a great scene
and sharing that moment with the
other actors on stage and giving that
experience to the audience. Kae enjoys
the process of taking on a completely
different persona and making it
believable for the audience.
As far as the motivation to be a
director, Steve enjoys working with the
cast to bring his vision of the play to
life for an audience. Kae enjoys taking
the words in the script off of the page
and bringing them to life.
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