Getting in on the act
Dec. 8—Jeannette and Mark Kolokoff moved to Northern New Mexico about four years ago after long careers as producers and directors in Colorado, then surveyed the Santa Fe theater scene to determine where they might find a niche.
The result is Family Theatre of Santa Fe, a nonprofit company founded by the longtime educators that primarily features adult actors in family-friendly shows. Its first production, You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, begins Friday, December 8.
"We have noticed that a lot of the theater in Santa Fe is very oriented toward adults," says Jeannette Kolokoff, a former musical theater program director at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley. "We don't want to do any toe-stepping on other theater companies here. There are a couple of companies that only do shows featuring children, and we want to do something different.
"We want theater that anyone can go to and have a good experience and laugh a lot, or it might have a message that people talk about later. It's not really focused on children, per se. It could be seniors; it could be anybody."
Family Theatre had been set to make its debut at Theatre Walk Santa Fe in late September but had casting issues, Kolokoff says, adding that all performers are paid. Charlie Brown, based on the long-running Peanuts comic strip, features faces familiar from other companies' 2023 productions, including Hannah Machado as Snoopy (seen in Tri-M Productions' Kinky Boots), Riley Samuel Merritt as Charlie Brown (Santa Fe Playhouse's Santa Fe Fiesta Melodrama), Miles Blitch as Linus (Santa Fe Classic Theater's Much Ado About Nothing), and Ali Esmeralda Marin as Lucy (Tri-M Productions' A Grand Night for Singing).
details
Family Theatre of Santa Fe presents You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown
7:30 p.m. Friday, December 8, and Saturday, December 9, as well as December 15-16; and 2 p.m. Saturday, December 9, and Sunday, December 10, as well as December 16-17
$7 to $27
New Mexico Actors Lab, 1213 Parkway Drive
The production serves as a trial balloon for Family Theatre; Kolokoff says the company will gauge response before planning any 2024 productions. Charlie Brown will be staged at the New Mexico Actors Lab. She's aware that while most theater companies hobbled by the pandemic have reopened, some key venues remain closed.
"You've heard it over and over again: The big issue for theater companies in Santa Fe is venues," Kolokoff says. "I think there are 23 theater companies and essentially three venues. So we're all vying for space in those venues and trying to create theater in other spaces when possible. It's a big challenge. So we're not planning too far out. We want to see how this goes."
Family Theatre also is vying for donor contributions. Kolokoff acknowledges it's a challenge for a new company.
"You're faced with the [Santa Fe] Playhouse, which has been here 100 years," she says. "They have their group of donors who have been with them for many, many years. I came from an orchestra that was 60 years old, and some of our donors had been with us 60 years."
The Kolokoffs have two adopted children, both now adults. Jeannette Kolokoff will focus more on musicals in any future company presentations, while Mark Kolokoff's specialty is plays, she says.
Charlie Brown is more her bailiwick.
"I expect people, when they're leaving, to feel incredibly happy and joyous about a great musical experience," she says. "The music in the show is very integrated. There are very few scenes that don't have some music under the speaking."
While Charlie Brown isn't exclusively a holiday show, Jeannette Kolokoff says, it's appropriate for the season because "the message is so positive."
Merritt has a thick head of hair, while the character he plays is famously bald. Kolokoff laughs when she's asked if he dons a flesh-colored skull cap for the show.
"He asked me, 'Are you going to make me shave my head?' I would never do that," she says. "I mean, if this were a touring Broadway show, maybe. But no."
Kolokoff spoke with Pasatiempo more than two weeks before the production's opening night, as actors were starting to fine-tune their performances.
"We are to the point now where I really have fun," she says of preparations. "We're to the point of running scenes, and that's when I really get to direct and the actors get to play. I believe in theater being a very cooperative art form, so I encourage the actors to try things. If they don't work, we won't use them, but sometimes they have better ideas than I do."
