Hello everyone and welcome to the Rapids Report for this Monday, September 15th, 2025.
Brought to you by Crockett Sceptic, a little bit different format right now.
I am Seth, your temporary host for this for a very good reason because right now we're
going to be talking to the director and one of the stars of the upcoming WRCT production
of On Golden Pond.
So first of all, sir, if you could please introduce yourself to this audience who may
have never heard you before.
Hello, James here, director of On Golden Pond.
Thank you so much for joining us, everyone.
And I am Alia Arroyo.
I am one of the stars of On Golden Pond, apparently.
Yes, you are.
Yes, you are.
If you didn't know it, now you are.
So we're going to go into a little bit about the plot of the show and we're going to talk
to the director and his actor here, talk about the process a little bit.
And any little bits they want to add in about how much fun they've been having because
we know that they've been having enjoyable time.
So James, we'll go to you first.
And if you could give us a little synopsis about the plot of the show, I want to make sure
to get this right.
I'm actually reading from the back of the script for this a little bit.
This is a love story of Ethel and Norman Thayer, who are returning to their summer home
on On Golden Pond for their 48th year.
He is a retired professor, nearing 80 with heart palpit with heart palpitations and a
feeling memory, but still a tart-tongued observant and eager for life as ever.
Ethel, 10 years younger and the perfect foil for Norman, delights in all these small things
in life.
Their middle-aged daughter and her dentist fiancé joined them along with their possible
grandchild and everything.
And you also get the character Charlie involved in this, the local mailman and local character.
All that said, in the nice synopsis of the play, but there is so much missing from that.
And so much that I think is important with this show.
It's an American classic.
This is one of our ones we hold up for us and we, hey, we are great playwrights, hey,
we have great theater.
It has so many polls to it regarding life and aging and dementia and Alzheimer's, so
many different topics there.
And I think the love story part of it is interesting and a good note, but not just your
traditional love story of man and partner, woman and man and all these things.
But so much of our love relationship with, you know, new family members or our love of
life in general, I think really comes across in this play and it's incredibly funny.
And that's the part you want to put in there because it's not just a drama.
There's very dramatic parts to it, of course, but it's also got some great comedy in it
as well.
So we'll bring a Leon here.
And if you want to talk a little bit about your character and what your role in the
show is.
Yeah.
So I play the character of Chelsea Thayer in on Golden Pond and I am playing the middle
age daughter of the elderly couple.
So aptly cast as I do happen to be a middle age daughter of an older couple of people.
Complete type casting.
I think completely type casting.
No, it's just been a really enjoyable experience.
You know, I think even more to kind of add to to the plot light plot lines without spoiling
it.
You know, it's a lot about the love story of the elderly couple, but it's also kind of
the love story between child and parents.
And you know, there's times in your life where your parents are your heroes.
There's times in your life where you see the flaws in your parents.
And this is very much that intersection of seeing your parents age and being able to
find a new love and respect for them in their golden year.
Golden years, no pun intended.
But also it's also about blending families as well.
Chelsea's character meets a new person, a new love in her life and she welcomes a child
into her life that wasn't her own child and personal experience.
I've done the same thing in my own life as well.
So it's been really fun to connect to that, but also connect to being a middle aged
person and being able to play these different relationships with different people, different
younger people, different older people.
So it's been a really, really interesting time and part to play.
Yeah.
And if you've been to WRCT recently, well, Lee has been in many of the recent productions
of that.
But I think it's a little different from what you've been doing.
Most of the characters you've been playing recently, this one's a little different for
you.
Definitely prior to randomly trying out for a play last August, I had not been in
a play I jokingly say since the 1900s when I was in high school in college.
And me and my husband tried out for a play last August and then subsequently were cast
in every single play in the last season.
And I didn't intend on actually, I was going to take a break and I wasn't actually even
going to audition for this one.
And I was like, eh, what the heck.
And James saw something in me that I didn't even know I was capable of, so I'm very grateful
for that.
Nice.
I had never done a drama before.
So this is a, this is a stretch.
And now my children at home who are teenagers and preteens are telling me, okay, mom, the
next thing you have to do is play a villain.
So I'm going to need the board of the WRCT to come up with a juicy villain for me to play
in the future.
Oh, that's, that is fantastic.
James, this is your first director experience since you were very young.
So this is kind of a new thing for you.
So you know, I think a lot of people out there know this is a very famous play and it
became a very popular and very successful movie back in the 1980s.
So when you were approaching, you know, how you're going to do this, what, what, how are
you going to not only kind of maybe take something from the other productions, maybe from
the movie, but how do you make it also your own move or your own show?
I normally, especially with an as an actor, I'll approach a character that has been done
a bunch of times.
And I'll, oh, I'll watch it after.
I don't want to, I don't want to be influenced by their performance, their work.
I don't want to try to copy or any of those dangers that we worry about as actors and
lots of people are like that with some things like when I played Sherlock, well, I had been,
I grew up with Sherlock.
He's been a part of my, literally my whole life.
So I kind of went the other direction with it and it welcomed the influence and impressions
and everything and tried to make it a part of my own creation of him.
I felt that way with this where I've watched this play, you know, I've seen the movie
since I was a little kid, I knew this one inside and out.
It was a favorite of my non-emphapas who I watched a lot of movies that were going up.
But when I thought about it, I was like, well, I watched this with my grandmother, grandfather,
my mom's parents as well.
And I think it's the only movie or only bit of entertainment like that where I watch
it with all four of my grandparents.
And in losing my four grandparents in recent years and everything, it got me to like not
only approach this play differently, but at times, and I don't mean this in a wishy-wash
way or in any kind of like weird way or anything.
But for me, who doesn't experience this kind of stuff very often, I was surprised by how
many times I felt like it wasn't my hands on the wheel.
How many times I felt like I felt an influence from one of them directing me and pushing
me in one direction or another.
Sure.
So that helped.
But I really, I preach this, and funny, we were just talking about this because it came
up with a student a while ago, like it always does.
This comedic character person who has really got a lot of life in them and really, I think
it's going to be exciting.
And then they all suddenly hit a wall and they're like, how do I tell a joke?
How do I re-invent comedy?
How do I do something that nobody's ever done before?
And I tell them, you know, you already are.
There's never been a you.
So as long as you're being true to you and telling it like you would, nobody's heard
how to chicken cross the road before like you will.
I don't know if it'll be funny, but at least there's different and original and trying
to take my own medicine for once and do that with the show because I was incredibly worried
about that.
I didn't want to do that to our cast or our audiences.
I didn't want to have them try to live up to or have some idea of something that has
been done already.
I watched a bit of the Broadway show that is available online with James Earl Jones and
lead role.
And so what I took from was a lot of the sets and a lot of the setting and a lot of those
things.
I leaned into that a little bit.
I felt that the actors would do their own work when it came to the characters.
I would not have to really tell them where to go.
More so guiding things.
I don't know that I've directed anybody.
It's been more of a guidance thing or an extra set of eyes.
I'm seeing stuff that they can't because they're in too, they're either too close to it
or they're doing it.
So I can give that.
And I noticed in the doing those things really early on, oh, nobody's ever seen this show
before.
You know this play.
You know this movie, but you've never seen it before.
Not like this.
Especially in 2025 where I feel like we have more grace with certain things and
availability to a certain topics.
At the time this first came out and even during the Broadway production, we weren't talking
about mental health the way we were.
We weren't.
So here where this play was originally in many ways designed to talk about something
that we weren't talking a lot about, here we're able to add more context and more data
to a topic that we're already talking a lot about and we should talk more about.
Right, right.
That's a great point to bring up, especially that's what makes it more relevant still
where some things might be considered a little dated, but for that part, it's certainly
very much in the forefront.
So you're both kind of doing new stuff on this show, James, you're directing the first
time, Alia, you've not really had much experience with drama.
So for you, what's it been like?
I mean, it sounds like a little bit you were a little uncomfortable when you started with
it.
How has the process been as you've gone along here?
It's been a lot easier than I thought it would.
Maybe if it was a different play, I would have had a harder time, but I connect so much
to Chelsea and jokingly behind the scenes, James and I have talked about me going method
with this because, again, I am a middle-aged woman, I am in my second marriage, I've got
my own children, I've got step children, I had a kind of a tough relationship with my
dad sometimes.
So I'm able to kind of bring that and it's been a very healing experience for me to play
this part because when I'm dedicating my performance to my father because we did sometimes
butt heads because we were so much alike, much like Chelsea and Norman in this play are
just pretty much exactly the same person in different formats.
So it's been very healing experience for me and just a really great way to honor my dad's
memory and yeah, it's just, it's been really, really fun to bring something new to the
stage and challenge myself in ways that I haven't challenged myself before, difference
with a comedy or a musical, that's old hat to me.
This was new and so really appreciating, I know James says he hasn't really directed anyone,
but sometimes it's not about directing the actors, sometimes it's about like he said helping
them see parts of their performance that they didn't know and turning it into a learning
performance so that maybe the next time you come up across a similar role, you're even
better.
Yeah.
Oh, that's fantastic.
I mean, this is, but theaters all about for me anyway, it's about, it's not only having
fun like you said, but it's about learning maybe more about yourself that you didn't even
know was out there.
So James, since this is your first production, what's it been like for you now being on
the other side?
Like you mentioned, you know, you've almost, you've always been on the, on the stage,
doing that part.
What's it like to having your fingers basically in everything?
Hmm.
Um, little nerve wracking, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little, a little
even early on intimidating.
And real quickly after that, once giving into the moment and everything, incredibly exciting,
incredibly rewarding, I would encourage anybody, even if you're not interested in the arts
to direct.
Like, honestly, a lot of people out there that might not think that they'd want to act
or do a lot of these different tasks in theater.
This is one that I would recommend.
It's been a learning experience, it's been a, made me a better actor, but all those things,
I didn't expect it to be so much darn fun.
I, I've really enjoyed it and I've really had a great time.
I wanted the drama to be on the stage, not with the cast, but I got really lucky there.
Everybody's played nicely together and done a really good job with that.
I, I'm so, we're still doing it.
So it's right.
I'm going to answer this question.
I'm going to be honest with you, man.
I didn't want to leave you like, I don't get, no, that makes sense because you, you, you,
you don't know what it, you haven't wrapped it up yet.
This is, you're still in the process of doing it, which, I mean, it's, it's, it's a
whole thing when you, when you get to finally see the, you know, the finished product and
all that sort of thing, having directed a show myself, I can totally understand it.
Everything you're saying and, and what James says is true.
It's one of those things that give it a try.
I mean, you never know what you're capable of, capable of until you get a chance to do
it yourself and get ready to wrap up the, wrap up the show here today, except James is
not ready to be done yet.
No.
I really, if you don't mind, I know by, you are the, you're the interview king.
So here we go.
I, I just wanted to mention the rest of the cast.
Oh, absolutely.
I really wanted to note them because we've got such a cool cast as Alia mentioned, she
is Chelsea Thayer Wayne and doing an amazing job as it.
We've got Daniel Blood, so it's Charlie Martin does a great job, fantastic.
We really appreciate Daniel jumping into the game.
We have our Billy Ray as Madeline Southworth.
Yeah.
Madeline has been so much fun to work with.
It's had such a great energy and what she's bringing to this character is some of the
most unique work with the character that has been done so much before I really appreciate
what she is.
She's super cool.
She's so much fun.
She's been so great.
Great.
And doing a really good job too.
Our Billy Ray is Andy Klekner, another name and face that you might be familiar with.
You're right.
Andy, if you've been to shows before.
Yeah, I've been in a couple of things.
I've really, I've seen Andy work and I really like his work.
I feel bad typecasting him in some ways, but I also, I also know that he's doing some
different stuff with this role that he's done before.
That's very cool.
And I have to say one of, one of, just a joy to work with.
He's been so much fun to work with.
Yeah.
I really enjoy him.
And then our Ethel Thayer is Susan Egret.
Her familiar name and voice to the WRCT theater crew family out there.
I have said this to her.
I've said this to others.
And Susan has an incredible, eclectic career.
She has, she has got nothing to prove.
She has done it all.
I think this will be her, the performance of her career.
I think.
And especially when I'm seeing, and somebody who's been on stage with her, both directed
by her and on stage, I have no, I don't blink when I think her say that and she's doing
it.
We're seeing it in rehearsals.
It's incredible work.
And new to our community and to our stage, Jamie Jester.
And Jamie, you can mispronounce my last name all you like.
He is our Norman.
And you know, nobody around here has seen him yet, but you are going to remember him.
It is an incredible performance he is giving for this role.
And I cannot wait for the audience to get to see what we have gotten to see for the
last month or so.
Yeah.
Everyone is so delightful and so giving.
And I mean, it's a small cast.
So it's given us the ability to just really, you know, kind of gel and play around with
different things.
And it's just, it's been such a great experience.
And fantastic.
Oh, that's so great.
Well, on Golden Pond, we'll be premiering coming up next week.
Let's see September 25th, September 25th, that's the first day at seven o'clock, same
time on Friday and then two o'clock matinee on Saturday.
And the next week, they're going to do it all over again.
Get your tickets right now.
You are see theater.org can pick your seats or better yet get a season, get season tickets
everyone.
You can do it.
You can do all four big main stage shows that are coming up this season.
So James and Alina, thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you, Seth.
Nice work.
And that's it for Rapids Report today brought to you by Cronk It's Septic.
We'll see you later.
