Odyssey Unscripted Episode 12: Odyssey's Leading Lady, Queen of the Costumes! - Featuring Cheryl Yeager

Introducing Cheryl Yeager! Cheryl has been around since Odyssey’s inception, and she has become the pillar of costuming within the company. She is responsible for countless costume creations, props, alterations, and many other jobs that make her incredibly important to the infrastructure of the company. From many late-nights of costume designing to traveling with Odyssey as our head of wardrobe, she has done it all! Presenting Cheryl and her many duties, as well as her incredibly successful dance career will give our audience more insight as to who our wonderful leading lady is and how pivotal her role is in the company. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Well, welcome everybody. My name is Daryl Yeager. I'm the founder and artistic director of Odyssey Dance Theater, and we are here with Odyssey Unscripted, which is our podcast, and I think we're very excited today to feature someone I know very well. At least I think I know very well. Cheryl Yeager, who is my life partner and also our costume mistress for many, many years. I mean, we we met when we were in Ballet West many, many years ago. I think we both have a different version of the story of how we first met. But I've always said that I went up to her and asked her to go out with me, and she said no. And I said, because I asked her if I wanted to go. That's true. Yes, that's true. So so it was it was because I asked her to go see The Exorcist. So I said, come see the Exorcist. It was a movie, you know, just you know, I wasn't thinking. And then I stalked off in the corner, and I I I thought, wait a minute, wait a minute. Maybe it's not me, maybe it's the movie. So I kind of sauntered back over there. I said, Well, you wanna you wanna uh sure you don't want to go to the movie with me? Sure, you don't want to go to the movie, and you said no again, right? I said no. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

I said, well, and this is it, this is like during rehearsal. So, you know, the first of the day in rehearsal, and then the middle of the day, and then at the end, he said I said, uh, well, you want to go out for dinner, you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:54

She says, Okay, I'll do that. I was like, I was like, okay. I'm I'm not a dweeb. I did uh she turned me down twice.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

So that should have given me a clue about our future. The horror movie. And then our big thing we're famous for is thriller, the horror movie.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

Yes, that's very, very true.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Partly my idea.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

So but uh we went out on that date, and I believe it was the paprika restaurant. Is that what a German steakhouse, and we went there and we just sat and talked and talked and talked, and I just knew right then and there I was gonna marry her. And I had been dating this other girl.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Oh, this is a good story. Tell this one, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

So I didn't know about this until I wasn't dating another girl at the time, and and after that date, you know, I called her up and I said, Um, you know, I found the girl I'm gonna marry, so I'm gonna goodbye, you know. It was super cold, super cold. But you know, I knew, I knew, you know, and how long did it take you to figure out that you were gonna say yes to marry me?

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Well, we'd been dating like a month, yeah, and we started talking about this is real love, and we started talking about getting married. So, and we never had like uh any of this stuff that you guys did. We did, we just said, well, here we are in the company. And what's funny was Tom Root and Mary Bird came to the restaurant that night and saw us there.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Yeah, he was the principal dancer in the company.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

And so we came in the next day and everybody knew we'd been we started, we were here.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

We had a date. We had a date.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

So our first immediately, because they were really big about that.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

Yes, yeah, they didn't want us to get married. They told us not to get married at Ballet West.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

The company manager and the they said they brought us in for a meeting and said we don't want you to get married. And we're like, What? You can't tell us that we can't get married. And like, well, we've got people that are requesting the two of you when you do when you do uh solo, you know, potatoes, and we want to see them. And so you're a you know, you're a an up and coming, you're bringing in ticket sales, and so you know, we just don't want to get married.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Well, because typically when when partners become involved with each other, they typically have lots of fights. Yes? Yeah. Have you guys had lots of fights yet?

unknown 4:37

Not really.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

Not really? Okay, that's this is good.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

That's a good thing. This is good.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

This is a good sign. It's a good sign you can still work together and be be involved.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

In the studio there were holes in the walls, one from fisting up a little higher above the bar, and there were kicks in the f wall.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

Those Texas boys got a lot of.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

Yeah, we got got kind of rough.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

All three of the Daryl, Mark Llanum and Daryl and Joe Clark were all from the same studio in Texas in Emerald.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

So yeah, we were we were, you know, every every time after class we'd be working on, we call it wood shedding. We'd like work on our double tours, you know, and work on the the the things that we wanted that we weren't so good at, you know what I mean? And you know, when we still sucked at it, you know, we punched the hole in the wall. Stuff like that. You know.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

Or when you were fighting with somebody, you know.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

Or when you were fighting with your partner and stuff like that. Anyway, they told us we we were we had our first date on the Ides of March. Yeah. We were engaged on the 26th.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

22nd of 22nd of April. April, a month later.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

And then married on the 26th of July.

unknown 5:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

So it was like, whew. It was wham bam. But you know, for me, when you know, you know. So why wait? You know, we uh we have some people in our friend family that have said that that were together for like years before they ever got married, and they said, Why did we wait? Why did we wait? You know, missed up. If you know, you know, right? So she said yes, and we got married, and we still danced together, and things were great in the company there for a couple of years. We danced together for a couple of years.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Yeah, and we had one time where Daryl's really fast. So he sees it, he does it, he's got it. Or he can hear it and he's got it. I'm not good with either one. Visually, I'm better. I'm a visual person.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

So she would she would be a little slower.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

So Mr. C would ask me to demonstrate all the time in class. And I but he would only show in the front, and I'd do fine in the front, but when I had to reverse it, I'd mess it up. And he'd get frustrated with me, and I'm like, don't ask me.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

So so I would get frustrated from time to time, but we never really had any.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Yeah, got frustrated one time and he and we got together and we said, you know, he said something really sweet. He said, You're the most important pertin person in my life, and I should treat you better than anybody. And after that he always was patient with me.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

Well, because I think sometimes when you have a relationship you tend to look at the other person as a reflection of yourself. So anything if if she's slower, then it's reflecting on me, you're right. And it's a very selfish attitude, I think. And so but it's really hard to get out of that, you know what I mean? So I had to really, you know, slap myself a few times and say, No, don't don't go there. That's not fair. You know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

And so But he he forgets it. I worked so hard to get it that I still could do seven odd and you know, I'm sorry. And you know, I mean it's still in my head. I could still still do all that, a lot of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

So plus you do it four thousand times.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

So when did you when did you start dancing?

SPEAKER_01 8:26

I was seven.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Seven years old.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

And I my mom got me private, my sister was doing ballet, and my mom got me private lessons with this lady in her basement. And I ended up babysitting her kids the whole time. I'm like, mom, this is not ballet. And so the next year I was eight, and that's when they accepted, and I started with Bene Arnold. Bene Arnold, yeah. She had her own studio, and it was all classical ballet, and I loved it.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Bene Arnold was the ballet mistress for ballet West for years underneath William Christensen.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

Yeah, almost from the very beginning. She was a soloist with the San Francisco Ballet, and then came out and she she was really good with the kids. She was we had fun, we was really hard though. Like um, you were she was very strict, and she had a studio where the curtains would close and the parents weren't allowed to watch. And I know she would be peeking. I said, I I I didn't think about that, but I I knew how hard my parents sacrificed so that I could have those lessons. And so I'm like, I'm gonna take advantage of this. So we'd be doing, and this is eight-year-olds, we would do uh sixteen count grandpliers, sixteen, you know, we build up to this, but you know, it was still like more difficult than than uh.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

How could you do a sixteen count grandplie? And uh I'd never get back up.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

You know, after a couple of years, yeah, after a couple years you'd be doing um 16 rendezams on l'air, and and um it was real old school. Old school, very strict, couldn't get couldn't get a drink of water.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Water was the movie The Red Shoes? There's there's a couple of sequences there of gl of class, and it's kind of like that in terms of like I mean, you go rendezvous, you do 16 of those puppies, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 10:31

I mean it was then back is still.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

If you watch the clo if you watch the the the classes in the red shoes, you'll see kind of the old school ballet stuff, and it was it was tough, it was hard, you know.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

We did I feel like we did a cross between we did Chicatti and we did um um I'm saying some Russian but the the Mr.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

C Vagonova method, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

Vagonova, but but Mr. C's um um came from Danish.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

And so we did we did some Bourneville after we came when when Bruce Marks came into Ballet West, we they had Bourneville uh soloists and principals come and teach us the real Bourneville style. Very unusual and different and fun. Like you're jumping at the bar and moving away from the bar.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

Tondu grumbama. That's how you started the class.

SPEAKER_01 11:31

And they jump like jump like crazy crazy.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

And uh I was I was lucky enough to have Tony Lander from American Valley Theater, who was Bruce Mark's wife at the time. She taught me the flower festival potato, which was the Bournemouth piece, and it was so challenging. It was great, it was amazing.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

But Bene Arnold is the one who originated that idea putting the dollar in between your thighs to do Blu-rays.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

Right?

SPEAKER_01 12:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

So I I I I snuck that onto my dance just recently.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

But they're like sticking them, but they got shorts on and stuff. It's different than tights, you know, in your legs.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

There were some cheaters, yes. There were some cheaters. You know.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

And we go across the room. But she did also did like pantomime, uh-huh, which is an unusual thing. And I always did that with my little kids in January. We do do a pantomime, and it helps them be more expressive and not be afraid of using your your emotions and face and things, and we would so you started at eight. I really started at eight. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

And then and then when did you how old were you when Ballet West started looking at you?

SPEAKER_01 12:47

Well, uh, when I was uh eleven, Fene became full-time. She couldn't teach anymore. She was it was too much for the the company. And so we and we started going in the summer to the University of Utah. It was Mr. C's program for the summer. And so we started doing that with Madeline Gavers. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

And we always did the can can so Madeline Gavers as a teacher, she'd be she would smoke throughout the entire class.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

One in each hand.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

One in each hand.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

And then the pianist on the other on the other on the piano would have hers going.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Yeah. So they'd be all smoking. And she's kind of like, she's kind of like, okay, 32 rana jams.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

You know, she was sides everywhere. But she was old school, you know, she was old school.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

But yeah, I mean, I'm I'm amazed we didn't all get lung cancer from from them smoking so much during class, you know.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

Yeah. And then uh uh so you were eleven, you were eleven years ago. So when I was 12, I went to the program with with the University of Utah.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

Okay. And that was back then the University of Utah was the actual official school for Bally West. Right. They didn't have their own school at that time.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

So we had so it was now three times a week and we were doing point. We'd been doing I'd been doing point with an A. So we were doing point class. Uh and then we did Saturdays with Mr. C. And they s also started doing uh potato classes with the company members. Oh, cool. The males, and so we got to do um that on Saturday, and it was kind of an invitation for that. Then they started a program called the Junior Ballet for Ballet West. And it was an invited program, and I got invited, and so um we had to wear our hair in classical bun in the back, parted in the middle, just like you'd see in Swan Lake, the long sleeve leotard, ballet of shoes with ribbons, and and then we also did point on that too. And so we had guests from and um Carolyn Anderson, Loki Barnett, oh yes, uh, was the teacher that changed my life.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

Really?

SPEAKER_01 15:26

Like Benet didn't stretch us. She was so limber, she I feels like she didn't need to she wasn't thinking about that. So my arabesque was down here, and after Carolyn for a few months, I was up here.

SPEAKER_02 15:38

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

And it it she had so many wonderful things she taught us. Yeah. And uh uh but uh and we mostly had her, and that was my my changed my life.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

At this at this age though, there's a story that you've told often about when you were back at you here you are becoming, you know, a ballerina.

SPEAKER_02 16:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

And but at sh at your high school, you had kids junior high. They had a dance club.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Yeah, I I so I decided to do the dance club. It's ninth grade, and it was still in the junior high.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Uh-huh. So tell me that story because I I love the story. Well, I don't love it, but I think it's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

So they were doing their little dances, and uh, it was our gym teacher. She was a tennis player, a state champion tennis player, you know, but she ran the the dance program. Dance program for the anyway.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

Obviously, well, well recommended.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

And I was doing the drama classes and everything. I I was doing well in that. I I really did well in comedy. Okay, so this was the spring program. We did a fall thing. You learn the dances, the girls come up with dances they do, and the teacher assigns you to these groups. And we had we were in several different programs during the year. And then in the spring, you had a big there was a talent show, and then there was all where you could uh where I individually submitted myself for a solo on point and everything. And then we also had um the spring program with all the dances and they were gonna do another do na new dance. So they said, Can Mrs. Stevens, can we can we pick our own people this time? She said, Yes, as long as everyone's picked. So I we're you know, they're like, Oh, we want so-and-so, and we want so-and-so, and and so I'm standing there, and it feels like an eternity when you're the last one standing there. And and uh one of the girls said, Mrs. Stevens, no one's picked Cheryl. And you know, it's like and and in the school newspaper they put, oh, Cheryl's in the nutcracker, and so-and-so and so-and-so is in the nutcracker. And with Ballet West, and uh I did it all from nine on, I was in the nutcracker. All the children's roles and all, you know, working out. So I'm standing there, and I so somebody finally goes, Well, she could come with us, you know. Anyway, so then the story continues. So I did their little dance, and I could dance rings around anybody. In fact, Mrs. Stevens set sent a letter home to my parents because when we did gymnastics, you get on the balance being you're doing arabesque and ponche and all that stuff, you know. And you got that, but uh, but there's no leadership there. There's no one that's trained in this and watching over you that you don't get hurt. So we're like, there's she said, We're gonna fail her if she doesn't join the gymnastics team. And my parents said, She's a dancer, she doesn't want to do that, we don't want her hurt, we're not gonna do that. And so it took a while to to convince her. So then when she saw me do my solo in the talent show, she's like, Oh, and maybe it started making sense. So that I wasn't just doing ballet, it was the real deal. And so anyway, I I didn't win the talent show, it was a modern dancer one, but she was really good too.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

But but still, I mean that just kills me to think little Cheryl just sitting there last when she's the best dancer in the entire room.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

Well, it it's it's because I wasn't popular. Well, but still and so and I knew that, but it still hurts, you know. So then when we out to the talent show, my teacher sat there and she did two talks about me. One in our gym class, but then when we got to the dance club meeting, she said, Okay, now there's Cheryl. She talked for 15 minutes about how talented I was and and how how much she respected that I how I acted when that happened and no one picked me. And I could dance rings around everyone, and I sh and she she even said something to the effect of well, you know, you could you could um you could have said something, but you know, you did their little dances that were okay, you know, but it it could have been something different. And then uh I remember when I was in the company, and then at my senior year, I did was an apprentice. So I did all the cores with them and learned started learning everything. And then uh we did 60 lecture demos. 60. I did a tour six zero every high lecture demos.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

We go to Twilla, we do Tintic High. I mean, we went the whole company would go and do these lecture demos all over the state.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

Yeah, they don't do that now, but you know, yeah, we did those.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

We did it was like also like at eight o'clock in the morning, you know. We did do like three a day, you know. We weren't this school, go to the next school, go to the next school, you know.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

And they weren't weren't Marley floors either. It's slippery and it's challenging on point, especially.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

But we would spread Ajax on the floor, Coca-Cola, spray Coca-Cola, trying to get it like sticky enough to to dance on. And then we had one dance that we did for those lecture demos where we're rolling around on the floor a lot. And we we come up. We literally had Ajax all over our costumes.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

It was it was it was an experience.

SPEAKER_00 21:49

It was an experience, but but you joined the company.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

I joined the company, so they I got the William F. Christensen scholarship, uh-huh. And they required You to have a 3.85 and they and they called me in and they said, We want you to dance in the company. It we've had no one be able to pull off doing both. The university at that level of training and your grades. Yeah. And be gone. So we did six weeks in Aspen with multiple every week we did different full-length ballets. Yeah. Then in the fall, we did um five-week tour, 64 nutcrackers. Spring, we did a five to six week tour. That was the hard one. And I think was that your first one? No.

SPEAKER_02 22:41

No.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

You weren't there that year. So, and then we did came around and got ready for Aspen again. We had one month off for the year. That's a lot of performances. So you get really used to to uh dancing together and keeping your lines perfect this way and this way. Yeah. Sometimes I say Odyssey is not ballet lines, but it's it's close. And our company was known for performance for theater.

SPEAKER_02 23:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

And that was where Mr. C came from with the vaudeville. He was in Vaudeville. So when when like um Daryl came and he said, Um, um, I want to do Drosselmeyer. And they said, What? He's this young kid, you know, wants to do Drosselmeyer. I said, I'm an actor. I want to do, I want to do the character parts. And he did the cutest Drosselmeyer, and I was the doll. And so he he would go, Don't touch her. She's mine. Don't touch her. As he's as she's rolling me out there, it was really fun.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

And anyway, I've got a video of her doing the doing the doll that you could have.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

And uh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

She was she was amazing, and she was chosen out of all the dancers in the company when we actually filmed William Christensen.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

Oh, and they did a PBS film.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

The PBS film of the nutcracker. She was chosen to be the doll.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

The doll and the merliton solar and the Merliton solo. And you guys have seen that one, but yeah. But I that was my second year.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

Yeah. So No, that was the third year, because you were doing Arabian.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

Anyway.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

I uh if that video I have for you also has me doing the Arabian.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

So we weren't we weren't even up to solo level, you know. I was a demi soloist. He was a he was a core.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

Core. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

Core dancer. But she was really good. And so I figured I I'll latch on to her, you know. We'll be going places. We we actually did the best flower uh flower potato in the nutcracker.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

Yeah, no one's no one's been able to duplicate it.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

Do what we did. She used to do a double pirouette plie double turn in second before I caught her and ended up in a ponche.

SPEAKER_01 25:04

Yeah. But then it was the end. So it ended up at the end. The end. I changed to take her into a uh we had to change the music with a conductor too.

SPEAKER_00 25:14

I would take her up into a lift, sorry, a lift, and then I would flip her into a fish. Yeah? Did we do two rotations or just one?

SPEAKER_01 25:24

I I think we did one. It might have been two. I felt like a lot. Or one and a half. It was actually one and a half.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

I think it was one and a half.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

I don't know. Anyway, it was fun.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

But you know, we got dun dun dun dun. And that's how we ended.

SPEAKER_01 25:40

And we ended there. Yeah. When before they ended up at the top.

SPEAKER_00 25:43

Yeah. Everybody else just did the lift. And that was the one. Before they end. But we flipped it.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

And so we were doing that in rehearsal. They're like, just do it, just do it. And I had had this spirit experience before this, where I walked in the rehearsal room and they had put me on the list to learn a new uh solo role. And one of the dancers said, Why are you here? Well, I my name's on the board to learn the part. Well, you haven't earned enough right to be here with us. She was a principal. They weren't all like that, but that's ballet, though. You know, it's so cutthroat. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

Yeah. And she was she was my best partner. I loved her. You know, loved dancing with her.

SPEAKER_01 26:33

And we had a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

And uh, you know, we got in trouble a lot because we'd be sitting in the corner doing crossword puzzles or something together.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

Right.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

You know.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

So and Daryl, he's he's tough. So um he uh so we're over there and we're learning Carnamina Burana. This is that that week where we started dating, right? Because we started working on the we were understanding a couple, and so we were learning the whole part, their whole part. Yeah. And so I was doing like a word search or something with Daryl, and Bene looks over and goes, Do you know this? Have you learned this? And Daryl's like, Yeah, I know it. So that was the first one. So the day before the performance where we're doing Carmina Barana.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

Yeah, course. And it's it's the it's uh it was a full evening show. I wasn't like 50 minute.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

Yeah. Uh no, we did pot of these first.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

Yes, so it was the second. It was the closing closing piece of the program. Oh but it was a big, big 50-minute piece.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

And the core is all solo work and extremely difficult lifts, right?

SPEAKER_00 27:44

John Butler, modern Yes, it was it was amazing. And so the guy that I was understudying, he hurts his back. And so, um, but you know, I'm just kind of a lowly core guy, and I thought immediately, well, okay, I'm in. You know what I mean? Here I go. And but they pulled Frank over here, Frank who didn't even know that particular part, he had little seniority to me and brought him over and started teaching him. And I said, Wait a minute, I know this. Why are you doing this?

SPEAKER_01 28:18

Well, well, I think you just said, Benet, I think you've made a mistake.

SPEAKER_00 28:23

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

There was silence. You could have heard a pin drop. Yes. Okay, come in my office. Off he went. Okay, I'll never see him again. Because we have all of us in that room have watched many people leave and never come back.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

And never come back.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

Or say, I'm I'm I'm out of here. Because she was tough.

SPEAKER_00 28:44

And uh So I went in the office and they said, Do you know this? I said, Yes, I know this. Okay, we're gonna go back in there, we're gonna run the entire piece, and you're gonna do everything full out. The rest of the company is gonna mark. They're not gonna do lifts, they're not gonna do lifts, not gonna do any of that stuff. So we went back in, we did the whole 50-minute piece.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

She explained it to everybody, and they're like, Well, we had been standing there, no one said a word. No one in our in our places. We're all like and then I said this. What did you say to her? I said, What did you say to her later? And he said, I said, Look, this doesn't make sense. I know the part, you don't have time to teach him. He's a really weak partner. You've got the hardest girl to lift. Yep, and I can do this. I'm strong, and you know, anyway, so it really made sense what he was doing.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

So everybody, everybody thought I was gone a goner.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

So, but we went through the entire piece and I did everything, did every lift, did all the choreography, and after it was all over, Benet says, okay, you can do it.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

And the guy that was supposed to learn it was relieved. He was really he was really and I had experience with him a little later, and my wherever he had his thumbs, my whole skin had been ripped off, and he it was bleeding when I took my leotard off. And his girlfriend said, Oh my gosh, I'm gonna go talk to him. You know, and I'm like He was a bad partner. He he just wasn't good and he wasn't strong.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

A bad partner is one who lifts and then drops the girl and doesn't make sure she gets to the floor.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

Well, and he wasn't doing using this part of his hand.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

Yeah, he was using his thumbs.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

That was bad.

unknown 30:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:49

But anyway, that was that was kind of my introduction to fun fun with Benet.

SPEAKER_01 30:56

And that's when I knew, okay, this guy's cool. Because you know, I'm the person that just doesn't say anything, and I just suck it up, and and he's he's gonna fight for us too. And he did. And so when we went in and we were doing that in the background with a big lift at the end, and they're like, ooh.

SPEAKER_00 31:18

So everybody else tried to do what we were doing?

SPEAKER_01 31:21

Yeah, they they couldn't do it. So they called us in and said, We want end of rehearsal, let's let's see you do it again. We want to see this and take a look at us. And they said, Okay, we're gonna start rehearsing you with a core.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:37

And uh it was awesome. It was awesome. It was fun.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

The worst, the worst time, the worst performance we had though is we we were at Kingsbury Hall at the time. This is before they had redone it, you know, and to cross over, you had to go down the stairs and through the hallway, back up the stairs on the other side to cross over. You know, there was no they actually built a thing in the back. There's the loading dock there, and they built a box to put Clara in.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

To bump out with a little drone for the snowing, she's back there and she's like, it's freezing.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

So one night, one night we were we were walking to the theater, we were walking through the parking lot there, and she slips and twists her ankle.

SPEAKER_01 32:23

On the ice.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

On the ice.

SPEAKER_01 32:25

We were doing opening night, the leads.

SPEAKER_00 32:27

And so that was it.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

That was done.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

And so she it was it was the ankle she turned on, you know. So we were doing that double turn in second. And so we got to that point. Well, everything was going fairly well up to that point.

SPEAKER_01 32:40

Well, it was about a week later.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

Yeah. But she she goes to do the double pirouette and plie to do the double turn in second, and the leg just gives out on her. So she lands on her butt, facing the audience with a tutu like this.

SPEAKER_01 32:54

Yeah, it was bad.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

She was just going, whoa, you know, and and I, you know, and I'm looking at her, and I just walked over and went, here we go. Let's go. Over my hand and pulled her up. We walked off and did the rest thing. We we went into the wings and she's like, Oh, she's crying. She's like, Oh my gosh, it's okay, it's okay, we can do it, you know, get through the rest of it.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

But it was just So finale, we came out and I did, I said, Okay, I'm gonna do four pair rats instead of two, and then at least have some redemption. Yes. Yeah. I don't know if I ever got over that.

SPEAKER_00 33:31

But yeah, that was that was it was hard. That was hard. But but we've all had you know, we've all had on on stage goofs that happens every now and then. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:43

But they don't laugh about it. We laugh about it.

SPEAKER_00 33:45

Yes. But we got we got married and we danced for two years. Uh, we both became soloists in the company. No, you were principal. I wasn't yet. Oh. Okay. When you got pregnant and we were when we had our first.

SPEAKER_01 34:02

Weren't you the principal then?

SPEAKER_00 34:04

No, I'm still a soloist, no.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

I thought you were principal when I when they made me.

SPEAKER_00 34:08

Oh, not yet. I was making$200 a month.$200 a month.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

And that's not our take-home pay either.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

And that's not the take-home. That's just that's that's the gross, right? So we get to that point, and then so we have to decide, okay, is oh, it's time for us to start a family, but I'm gonna lose half we're gonna lose half of our income. You know what I mean? And and they were not only that, a significant half. Well, and now it was only 200 a month from me.

SPEAKER_01 34:39

Bruce Mark said, you know, the thing that was really important for me, if you've ever seen the movie The Turning Point, if you've never seen it, watch it. It's absolutely spot on. Spot on about ballet. And of course you see Buriznikov in his prime, and and the the moments of do I keep doing my career, which I could have, and they s and Tony had three boys, had three different pregnancies, and came back and was prima ballerina assoluta, knighted by the queen, the king, amazing ballerina, yeah, the highest you can get. And she had three kids, and they're like, you can do this, you know, and um I just felt like I didn't want to do that. So um I didn't come back. We we came back for a couple of things. We after I had two kids, we did some things.

SPEAKER_00 35:42

We did some things together. We did a gala, and we also did punch and judy together.

SPEAKER_01 35:47

We did punch and judy, Daryl's one of Daryl's pieces. We did the opera together in Oklahoma. And Oklahoma 42 shows the on point. Yes, the ballet. That was really cool. Yeah, and Daryl says, Oh yeah, my wife, she's dancing again. I'd taken one class in how many five years. And and what's cool is you're you lose some of that extra muscle, and like fifth position is so nice, and I was thinner and weight less, and but first rehearsal, we're doing lifts, and Daryl lifts me up, and we hear this, and I'm like, Daryl, put me down. And I had cracked a rib in the back. You know, I wasn't in shape to handle the lift, so I did the whole thing with that cracked rib, 42 shows. We changed the lift a little bit, yeah, and then I was so dumb. I'm like, oh, bring the kids to dress rehearsal. So Aaron is four, three and a half, and Amanda's a baby, and my parents are watching the kids, and in the dream Laurie Ballet, he's gets shot, dad gets shot, and mom gets carried off at, you know, it's wild, violent, and and and my son's going, mommy, mommy, mommy, yeah, yeah, it's first rehearsal, but still like, what am I thinking? What have I done to my children? You know? I'm like, I'm not ex well, and even if you explain it, they're not gonna understand at that age, you know, what's happening to mommy? It's pretend it's not real.

SPEAKER_00 37:26

You have to realize she was she was on the cusp of becoming a principal dancer. I mean, I I was made a principal dancer shortly after that. But she was on the cusp of becoming a a pr principal dancer in the company. And so she made the decision then that the family was the most important thing. And it still kind of broke my heart because she was so good. You know, but at the same time, you know, now here we are 51 years later it's been okay. It turned out all right.

SPEAKER_01 38:05

I watched a lot of children. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 38:07

Took in kids and but what so what happened was is they needed help in the the costume room when she got pregnant, and so she started going I said, listen, they're doing building Don Quixote. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:20

And I said, Well, I'm I'm just sat in the grade home ex sewing, and I always sewed things and um uh I had learned to make raggedy and dolls and uh I perfected that. But they said, Well, we need we need sewers. I said, Yeah, as long as you show me what to do and tell me what to do, I can do anything. I've I'm used to old machines. I was the only one that could work the old singer, so I made a lot of armor and cool stuff for the yeah, anyway. So um they hired me and I was getting big. So I got through Nutcracker and then uh Yeah, had to keep adding panels to it. The Merliton costume had a little panel in it.

SPEAKER_00 39:08

But we actually did the flower potato, but she was five months pregnant.

SPEAKER_01 39:12

Yeah. Almost five months.

SPEAKER_00 39:14

And I still did this lift.

SPEAKER_01 39:16

Only with him, though, not with the other guys.

SPEAKER_00 39:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:21

But uh but that's how she got involved in doing costumes and stuff. And sometimes those costumes were just so poorly made, not by her, but but but by other seamstresses. I remember one girl, she had a tutu, and it split right in the crotch.

SPEAKER_01 39:36

In the crotch, and it was like we're like, it's rising up, what is going on?

SPEAKER_00 39:40

The tutus kept rising up.

SPEAKER_01 39:42

And we had to stitch every sti every seat double stitched.

SPEAKER_00 39:45

So she came, she came off stage and propped her leg up and then seamstresses were.

SPEAKER_01 40:06

But it's traumatic, something like that. And she got through it, bless her heart.

SPEAKER_00 40:09

I just remember her with her leg hiked up in the wings, and you guys just sewing a thought together.

SPEAKER_01 40:15

A new costumer next day. Yeah. So I mean, it's you know, you don't but I learned so much doing that.

SPEAKER_02 40:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:23

And then when we went, Daryl taught at BYU, he was over the ballet theater department.

SPEAKER_02 40:28

Uh huh.

SPEAKER_01 40:28

And they said, Oh, we need another one of these costumes. And I'm like, Oh, I'm praying I get it right, and we had to dye it, and and they said, Would you like to do the be the costumer ahead of? I'm like, No, I'm not ready for that. Especially after been with Ballet West. I like, no, no, this is a big deal. So then when Daryl said, Well, we don't have any money, we're starting the company. Well, and Daryl even said, I think we need another year. We're not ready for this. But here we are. So I'm pregnant with Elizabeth. We had three other women in dancers who had little babies. So I watched all of them while they're rehearsing and taking class so that they could do this. Because we couldn't pay them. We really did we even they even get paid a little bit that first year.

SPEAKER_00 41:25

The very first year, no. They didn't. We we we were hoping we would get money from the ticket sales, but we didn't make enough. I had to pay for the theater and stuff like that. And so there wasn't enough left over that very first year. But from then on, after that, I've always paid the dancers.

SPEAKER_01 41:43

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:44

Anyway, that was but I I told her, I said, uh, you know, we haven't don't have any money. Can you can you make some costumes for us?

SPEAKER_01 41:55

So for years, my budget was I don't know. I gotta come up with some. So when we got to the first thriller, this is we had, and it was a really different show. We had a band and they were all dressed up as zombies, and we we had quite a different show. Yeah, and then um, you know, thrift store zombies, I still do that, but the the skeletons, I there was uh bones all over the floor in my basement, all over in the kitchen. They had an ironing board in the studio with the dancers and an iron and fabric. And I had drawn the bones, and they were helping me cut out the bones for the fingers for both sides, for you know, that's 60 bones you gotta cut out, and so they were cutting helping me cut out the bones, and we were putting them on the gloves.

SPEAKER_00 42:54

That and then those gloves are still around, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01 42:57

They are still there. Those we have new ones that Crystal made that was so much easier. We're intermission. And I had some helpers, Joel and Throckmorton and Pam came in and they did some unitards, and I was doing some alterations for them. So the dancers are lined up behind me. I'm in the dressing room, and I'm sewing the alteration and I'm handing it to them like I'm on next, I'm on next. This is that's how bad, that's how scary it was. That first show. And uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:33

So But we pulled it off.

SPEAKER_01 43:35

We did. We got through the first show, and then we knew we had and we knew we had something special. I feel really lucky though. I got to be the first one to to be to watch Frankenstein, and the little Elizabeth was sitting on my lap, and and um uh uh I laughed so hard because of all the little ballet potato things that you know, and it was lost. Shorter. And uh all the little bits have been added over the years. But then and the same with Jason. So they pulled me up, said, Oh, Cheryl, we need somebody. So they go up for the first time and I sit on there, and I'm like, I don't know what's happening, you know. And I got to be the first one to be the audience participation person. So that was really special.

SPEAKER_00 44:18

Oh, that's cool.

SPEAKER_01 44:19

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:21

So since then, Cheryl has become the costumer extraordinaire over the years, and and she she always she always says she hates hates it when I come up with an idea because I usually give her only like two weeks to do a whole show.

SPEAKER_01 44:39

To do a whole show. You guys put together a whole show in two weeks. But think how much I have to do. So first time that we we were doing uh it was maybe the fourth year. Say it was a sixth year, I think it was. Daryl said, I'm gonna start paying you.

SPEAKER_00 44:55

And so Yeah, you have to realize during those first five to six years, we were doing like three jobs. We four we didn't pay ourselves, we didn't get paid at all.

SPEAKER_01 45:04

Daryl's going teaching at the U at like seven in the morning, teaching all day at center stage, doing the company, doing the center stage company.

SPEAKER_02 45:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:12

So I'm doing all those costumes. I'm doing company costumes, I'm doing all the costumes for the whole center stage. I'm doing um the company, senior company, which he made Veronica do, and the company, and Odyssey. And so I'm doing all three and Odyssey.

SPEAKER_00 45:34

And wow, actually, laying it on you, didn't I?

SPEAKER_01 45:38

He's he did, yeah. So he says, Okay, keep your hours for for thriller. So I did, and he's like, I said, Well, I handed him the paper, it was 450 hours. Now we're only doing two weeks with thriller back then. One was we went down to uh Cedar City and did thriller down there that year.

SPEAKER_00 45:58

450 hours and fifty hours. I didn't pay you for it for 450 hours, did you?

SPEAKER_01 46:05

But but I said, Well, I told you, I said you should you should give me a salary or something. It's it's not gonna be good.

SPEAKER_02 46:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:14

And he said, Well, I said, Well, you go to bed, but I'm down there in the furnace room sewing. Yeah. So my little furnace room is like this big. This big. And I've got three machines in there, and so it's spilling out everywhere, all over the basement, you know.

SPEAKER_00 46:36

You should see our house from time to time when like like this last week we've been cleaning all the costumes. Yeah. Well, I mean, there's just costumes hanging everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 46:45

Like they was warming up a rack out on the patio in the garage.

SPEAKER_00 46:51

It's really I mean, when you guys finish your performances, it the work continues for us, you know, in terms of you know, moving trucks, doing all this other stuff that uh it takes to get we have we have a couple of stories though, if it's okay, about backstage uh goofs that happen to be.

SPEAKER_01 47:12

Well, because as a costumer, the the costumes boo-boos are the most traumatic.

SPEAKER_00 47:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 47:19

And funny. Right? And I remember one one time we were get together and said, best stories for costume malfunctions.

SPEAKER_00 47:28

So there was this one piece we were doing and let it be. It was Fool on the Hill. And we had ever all the guys had like then I was making fun of Osama bin Laden. Right?

SPEAKER_01 47:39

Can't do that now.

SPEAKER_00 47:40

He was the fool on the hill. But the all all the guys had turbans and and beards. And the girls were in the what are the burkas. The burkas. They were in the burkas doing the four. Boo rang, boo-ang on the stage and stuff. Or little swarms. It was actually a very funny piece. It was very good.

SPEAKER_01 47:57

But can't do it now.

SPEAKER_00 47:59

Yeah, we can't probably can't get away with that now.

SPEAKER_01 48:02

But uh, so the guys were in combat boots, uh, and camel, yeah, and the what big long white tutus, and they were the four ballerinas, Taglioni, and all the four.

SPEAKER_00 48:19

They were like taking poses and everything.

SPEAKER_01 48:21

And and Osama had his white one, and the other four guys. So Carl is one of the guys.

SPEAKER_00 48:27

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 48:28

He's he's like a big teddy bear. He reminds me of Carson a little bit. Yes, yeah, and just sweet guy. So um, I have two on him, but uh he's over on the side and he goes, Cheryl, I forgot my preset. I don't have my wig and my turban. I'm like, he starts running back. I think, stop, you there's no time for this. So I'm looking around. There's a black sweater on the prop table. And I grab it and I wrap it around his head, and I say, put this in your mouth. And this is the sleeve. And he off he goes. He's on.

SPEAKER_00 49:11

He goes on stage and I watch and I said, What's wrong with his beard?

SPEAKER_01 49:15

I said, How did he look out there? His beard looked a little weird. And all of us are dying. Like there is literally someone on the floor on the side laughing so hard. And all the four Burqa girls are just like they're laughing, shaking, laughing. And he's just giggling underneath Yeah, just so that was a black turban in his oh gosh.

SPEAKER_00 49:40

And offing the other one happened a couple of years ago with Devin.

SPEAKER_01 49:46

Right.

SPEAKER_00 49:47

Yes.

unknown 49:48

I was there.

SPEAKER_01 49:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 49:49

Yeah, you were there. And I have the video, I'll share it with you.

SPEAKER_01 49:53

So Devin is we're at the Taylorsville place, and so there's a long haul to go back to the dressing room. So, and he had notoriously been not making all his costumes. Yeah, he was notorious to get to the Roxy big number.

SPEAKER_00 50:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:08

And they're in their white jackets with their nice pants.

SPEAKER_00 50:14

Yes, and and their tuxedo with a tuxedo look and and all this stuff.

SPEAKER_01 50:19

So I'm helping him. And I'm like, we'd practice and he's he's getting it. And we had everything, and now he's learned, okay, I've got to underdress. So I've got my circus strongman unitard, one side, gray blue to here, to his just above his knees. Then he's got his shoes with his socks with the little. garter for your socks to keep your socks up. He's got those on. And then he has he's he's got his shirt over it, and he goes, Cheryl, I left my pants. I don't have my pants. And so I'm like, I'll go get them. So I'm and Boston's there too. And she's like, so she's like running the two. She's faster than me. I'm slow now. So I'm going and I meet her in the hallway. She's got his pants. I get up and I'm right there at the curtain. And he's and I'm like, put them on now. No, I gotta go. And off he goes out with his jacket on, and you just see these gray-blue bikers and the black his bare knee and his garter with his socks. And but he had his ja his shirt on. The shirt had the little gusset, the little oh yes, and it had the the diaper, the crotch. I forgot about that. That wasn't even funny. No pants, just those strong man pants on.

SPEAKER_00 51:56

So he goes out there and does the whole Roxy number. He's the only one with no pants on, the entire number. And I I'm out I'm out in the audience and I'm just going, oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 52:10

And I'm just mortified. Just mortified.

SPEAKER_00 52:13

Of course, he was the one, he's the one that she grabs their buttons at the very end. So he's there. I mean, his buttons are just out there. And she and so we did that. He did that number.

SPEAKER_01 52:28

I mean, we're so close. He could have gotten that on and still made his lift. Because he was like, I missed, I missed a lift because there's one of those.

SPEAKER_00 52:35

There's a couple of lifts, you need all four guys.

SPEAKER_01 52:37

I have to be there. I have to go. What's funny is my brother and his wife came to that performance and they know Daryl and the humor. And he goes, He did that on purpose, right? Put the guy out there like that. No, they did not. They're like, Well, that's even funnier.

SPEAKER_00 52:58

Yeah, I mean that was funny that they thought I had done that. That you had tried to pull it up. That I said, okay, let's let's have one guy go out without pants. But no, I I hadn't thought of that.

SPEAKER_01 53:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:10

I'm still not thinking about doing that.

SPEAKER_01 53:12

No. No.

SPEAKER_00 53:14

But there's all kinds of little stories of what happens backstage and just the the mayhem that happens sometimes in terms of getting people out there.

SPEAKER_01 53:24

And the injuries. I'm the one that has to deal with all that.

SPEAKER_00 53:27

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 53:28

You know? So I had that you guys have heard this story probably. But we're in Germany and um I'm sitting there and I'm crocheted. I always crochet a blanket on the bus tour. And so I hear the voice and it says, go backstage, someone might get hurt. So I'm across the hall in the bathroom. There's a little seat there. And I'm I keep crocheting and I hear it again. Go backstage, someone's gonna get hurt. So I start walking down the hall, here comes Lydia. And somebody kicked her in the nose and just kicked slutty nose, just all down her white shirt. We're doing um Prince. Prince member, yeah. So they all have the white ruffle shirts. She's oh crying, oh my costume. I said, Don't worry about your costume. We gotta get your bleeding stopped. It's gonna be fine. Look, we're gonna take it off. See, it's coming right out of the water with the water. And she's calming down, and now we can, you know, you can't stop a bloody nose when you're so upset. So we finally get her stopped, and we put the I see, see now it's cooler. It's all still red, but it's white, and now you can go and you cooled off. So out she goes. And then here comes literally, as I'm sending her off, here comes Ergy. Go check on Ryan. He fell during the tap number.

SPEAKER_00 54:46

Yeah, Ryan.

SPEAKER_01 54:46

He did an amazing tap number. And he fell.

SPEAKER_00 54:50

He slipped and fell.

SPEAKER_01 54:51

And landed on his hand. And here's his wrist, like over here. So I go over there, and his he's standing in the hall with his wrist over here. His hands over here.

SPEAKER_00 55:03

His his whole wrist was like.

SPEAKER_01 55:06

And he's like, I said, Oh, you've broken your wrist. And he goes, Yeah, it's but you know, blank happens. And so I got him a chair, and he's sitting there, and I'm like, We need some ice now. And they don't have ice in Germany.

SPEAKER_00 55:20

They don't have ice in Germany.

SPEAKER_01 55:21

I had one of those old quick packs. I stuck that on him, you know, and I know all my first aid, and and uh so they sent him to the hospital that got an operation and we we caught with him a couple days later. A couple of days later on the train going somewhere else to Germany.

SPEAKER_00 55:37

Yeah, we we were traveling. We had a couple other shows we had to do, so we left him basically in Germany, and then he had an operation, got it fixed, and he met us on the train. We had to go stop at the train station to pick him up, you know, because he was he had been gone for a couple of days, and we picked him up and he came with us. He didn't do anything else on the tour at that time, but he was fine. I mean, that was just bad.

SPEAKER_01 56:03

His wrist was like it was bad, and he finished the number.

SPEAKER_00 56:07

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, he did. He finished the number and then uh so yeah and then came off. It was like, ooh.

SPEAKER_01 56:15

I've dealt with a lot of injuries.

SPEAKER_00 56:17

This is this is not good, is it?

SPEAKER_01 56:20

And one of them was our daughter. So we were doing dances in the um, we were doing the dance, Richard Paul and his book, and he read the book with the orchestra halfway down.

SPEAKER_02 56:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:34

So you could still see him, but the so the pit was halfway down at the Capitol Theater. And the we had all these little girls in the first part, and they were just darling, and Elizabeth was four, I think. And she's she didn't have her shoes on. I said, um, go get your shoes on because it's slippery. She was just in her socks. So they turn at the end of the rehearsal, they turned off the lights. It's black. There's no glow tape, there's no nothing, but they turned off the lights as the kids are still off the stage, and she goes running off and falls into the pit. So she's unconscious, she's laying there, and her arms like this, and Daryl's starting going over to pick her up. I said, Don't pick her up, don't touch her. We don't know how she fell. She could have broken her neck or something. So he sets back, and then she's starts having a seizure, convulsing. And um so the paramedics come, she's she's coming out of the seizure, and they start talking to her. What day of the week is this? She's four years old. Ask what color your shirt is, or you know, I'm like, I and I looked at her and she'd broken her arm before. I said, I I know she's broken her arm. I I knew that's what it was. Because she was scared, these strange men are asking her what day of the week it is, you know. I said, She's okay. Um well, but she has a concussion, and at least, you know, so anyway, they got her stable, got her in the ambulance, I went with her. That was uh a show I missed. But I'm like, why do you not have glow tape or something? Don't turn the lights off with a whole group of people out there until they get off stage.

SPEAKER_02 58:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:36

You know? And of course the police were involved because they were worried. But I said, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna sue or anything, but you need to be more aware of when you turn the lights off.

SPEAKER_00 58:47

Because dancers are it's well, needless to say anyway, that was my our lives have been an odyssey. And you know, we've we've been working together for years, and uh it's kind of like we kind of read each other's minds, or at least well we we we think a lot alike.

SPEAKER_01 59:09

We think a lot alike. But I'll have crazy ideas too, you know. I mean, she's so we're we're at Tuokon and we're doing the pirate number, and we've got the two ships that year. It was the most fun number ever, and uh uh for the finale of Thriller. And so I said, Well, let's do Captain Hook versus because they'd just done um Peter Pan. So they had the Captain Hook stuff and against Jack of the Pearl, we'll make the ship into the Pearl Jack Sparrow and Jack Sparrow. So then they're like, Oh, we're gonna fly him in, and we're having all these ideas, and then I'm like, uh always happens. We had a had a ship come on stage, had cannons, shooting cannons, then another ship across the back 40 that came out, cannon shot at it, it fell apart, and then we did uh it was it was it was so then they were gonna fly Captain Hook in to do the big sword fight. It was amazing. Everybody on stage having this big sword fight dance, really cool. Girls, guys, everybody. And they're like, Oh, well, we can't do the fly thing. I said, Well, I know what this means, but we just have a double. So we have a double, another guy that's Captain Hook down here, ready to go, but that means I have to make another coat. And they had a coat from their show, and I had my uh Crystal Denton, she was my um helper, and she made a coat. Took them two weeks to make it at Tugon. She made a coat in five hours, exactly like the one they had there. That's how fast she was. Yeah. She moved to Texas, but but uh she was really fast. So then we did the that's how we did it.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:58

But that happens all the time because way away I know what I have to do to make it work.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:04

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:05

So he just disappeared and then he came up over here.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:09

So I have to I all the time come up with well, this is gonna be hard for me, but it'll make it work. She's made a seven-foot hammer for Maxwell's silver hammer in my living room with a turkey carving knife, pig costumes.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:28

I mean, you name it, she's made it blows up on stage.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:32

You know, those were at the beginning, too, and I was like, and it was just uh praying all night, okay. How do I do this? How do I do this? How do I make the pigs? Yeah, how do I make the pigs, giant pigs?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:43

Veronica standing in the middle of the bit living room like wrapping stuffing and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:51

And they took turns, and then it was Andrew. Andrew stood there for the guys, and he and then it was six of them.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:57

It was always it was always a family affair.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:59

Yeah. Every holiday our kids were helping us wrap things up, move things into trucks, load up the giant Egyptian head.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:09

Yeah. There's there's been there's been lots and lots of things.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:13

And a lot of ideas from our kids and uh the whole family, too. Oh, I've got this idea for a thriller, you know. Some are good and some are not.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:22

Some are not so good. But uh you know, I mean it's been it's been a really an amazing time working with you. And it never ceases to amaze me how you can make something out of nothing and how you figure it out.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:40

And uh, you know, it's well I'm lucky that my I helped my dad a lot with woodworking and with I mean, I had to make a wood part in that hammer, but then make it so it didn't kill somebody whether I hit in the head with it.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:57

It was it was just she's made all kinds of things besides costumes, you know, big props. You know. Um she's done a wonderful job all these years, and it's been a wonderful Odyssey with you.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:09

Thank you. You too.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:11

She was an amazingly talented dancer that was my my uh favorite partner all those years, and did became an amazing partner in this crazy thing we call dance and Odyssey Dance Theater, where we just do a show, we do shows and we put them together, you know? Yeah, we are the ultimate mom and pop operation.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:34

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:36

But I've gotten better and I've learned a lot, and uh but I can always turn to her to say, what do you think of this?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:44

He has crazy ideas.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:45

I have crazy ideas, and you know they come at the weirdest hours, you know. But uh, you know, she's my partner.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:54

Yep, we're partners.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:56

So with that, we will close with this uh edition of Odyssey Unscripted.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:03

That's for sure. Soon it's gonna be all right, wouldn't want to be yeah. Thank you. Bye.