One couple in the audience at Georgia Ensemble Theatre's production of "Becky's New Car" in Roswell last Saturday night was seeing the show for the 100th time and in the 21st city.
They have a good reason for acting like they wrote the play: To honor his wife Benita on her 60th birthday, Charlie Staadecker wrote the check commissioning playwright Steven Dietz in 2008. What resulted was a warm comedy about an American everywoman at a fork in the road of marriage and middle age.
Married for 27 years, the now feel married to the play that has been staged at dozens of professional and avocational theaters around the country. When Charlie Staadecker got a Google Alert last year that "Becky's New Car" had been booked in Roswell, he immediately e-mailed GET artistic director Robert Farley that he and Benita planned to travel from their home in Seattle to attend the opening.
Here's the back story: Charlie had given his wife birthday presents as glamorous as heirloom jewelry and as practical as a Shop-Vac over the years. For her 60th, however, he knew he needed to think significantly outside those boxes.
With his commercial real estate business going well before the recession, he asked Benita what special gift she would like. She replied that life was so great -- with three kids out of school, the mortgage paid and their health good -- that she didn't lack for anything.
"I even uttered a sentence that I've since totally obliterated from my vocabulary: ‘I have all the jewelry I could ever need,'" Benita recalled with a chuckle. "So I said, ‘Just surprise me.'"
Charlie did exactly that, commissioning the play in her honor through Seattle's ACT Theatre, where she served on the board. "Becky's New Car," playing at the Roswell Cultural Arts Center through Jan. 22, is the ultimate gift that keeps on giving.
At a time when arts groups are looking more than ever to individual donors to help them stay afloat, the Staadeckers have embraced their role as patrons with rare passion. They relish every opportunity to help promote "Becky's New Car" and to encourage the concept of commissioning. As with the other 20 cities they've visited, they paid their own travel expenses during their long Roswell weekend.
"Boy do we need ambassadors like that," GET managing director Anita Farley said. "The thing that was lovely and so utterly unexpected was every time they went out, they were like pied pipers: They brought people back to the theater. It was amazing."
Perhaps more important in the long run, the Staadeckers also made a presentation to more than 40 Georgia Ensemble board members and contributors to encourage the idea of commissioning a play, which Charlie said can cost between $20,000 and $30,000. At least two couples left the meeting fired up about the prospect.
"Our lives have been so enriched and expanded," Charlie said. "This theatrical fairy dust was somehow sprinkled on us, and our repayment, and we mean it with deep humility and gratitude, is that we talk every chance we get about how you can do this too. It's one of the most important things to us."
Clearly they make a persuasive case: Because of the Staadeckers' low-pressure, informal campaign, nine additional plays have been commissioned through Seattle's ACT and 10 more at playhouses around the country.
The Staadeckers themselves have underwritten even more commissions, joining with other couples to help share costs. Since "Becky's New Car," they have commissioned three concertos from former Seattle Symphony composer in residence Samuel Jones and an untitled play still being written that Charlie refers to as "Dietz 2."
He advises those who are considering a commission that it's best to check their ego at the door and to trust arts professionals.
"Steven didn't want to hear about any thoughts we had about the play," Charlie said. "The smartest thing we did was to write a check and get out of the way."
Charlie had only one request: "Please don't make it dark -- it's a birthday present."
Fortunately, what Dietz delivered was much to their satisfaction, a work that presents rollicking laughs on the surface that help the audience embrace Becky Foster's more sobering self-questioning about her settled mid-life.
As the charming, hard-working automobile dealership clerk of the title, Wendy Melkonian leads the cast of seven that performs on a slanting set that encourages audience interaction. The play presents Becky feeling a little taken for granted not only in her job but by her roofer-husband Joe (Randy Cohlmia) and psychobabble-spouting grad student son (Jacob York). Allan Edwards plays the somewhat addled millionaire who takes a shine to Becky's regular-galness and dangles the prospect of a new life.
To Charlie Staadecker, the themes the romantic farce are forgiveness, redemption and the importance of showing love and respect to one's spouse.
To him, it's simply a bonus that because he wanted to show love and respect to Benita, actors, set designers, directors and other theater people have found work in a cruddy economy.
"We have left a footprint in the sand," he said of the commission. "Our trombone concerto and ‘Becky's New Car' are going to outlive Benita and Charlie Staadecker. And that makes you feel a little bit worthwhile. They're not going to say [in my obituary], Charlie put this and this deal together. They're going to talk about things that were meaningful and had a sense of legacy for the arts."
On stage
“Becky’s New Car”
Georgia Ensemble Theatre. Through Jan. 22. 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays, 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 4 p.m. Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Sundays. $23-$33. Roswell Cultural Arts Center, 950 Forrest St., Roswell. 770-641-1260, www.get.org.
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