Dakin Matthews (a memorable Dick Cheney in Stuff Happens at Mark Taper Forum) has just received another award (from Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle) for his work as a Featured Performer in Water & Power, also produced at the Mark Taper Forum.  Dakin’s name is synonymous with “Los Angeles Theater,” even though he just returned from New York (where he once taught students such as Kevin Kline and Patty LuPone at Juilliard, and starred in award winning Broadway productions) after teaching a series of Shakespeare Master Classes to eager artists. 

Dakin is the Artistic Director of the Andak Stage Company, the Founding Artistic Director Emeritus of The Antaeus Company and a founding member of John Houseman's Acting Company.  He has produced or co-produced all seven of Andak’s productions, acted in four of them, written three of them, and translated two. He is a member of both the Motion Picture and Television Academies with over 40 years of acting experience and is also a director, dramaturge, Shakespeare scholar, acting teacher, and Emeritus Professor of English from California State University East Bay.

 What advice would you give to someone just starting their acting career?
If you're talking about stage acting: Read, read, read. Become familiar with good writing and good speech. See good stage plays, especially those which are richer and deeper than average television shows. Go to the classics. Watch good actors work and try to figure out how they do it. Go to college, not necessarily to study acting but to get a good grounding in the liberal arts, English, Art, History, Psychology--and while you’re there try out for every play--even if you’re not in the Drama Department. If you get cast over some drama student, you know you probably have what it takes. 

How did you start your acting career?
Almost completely by accident. I was not a drama student. I studied philosophy and English, and then did plays at school extra-curricularly. Then someone dared me to audition for a Shakespeare Festival and I got the role. I started acting summers while I was teaching college. Then I started acting year round while I was teaching. Then I started teaching part-time and acting fulltime. Then I moved to L.A., and eased into TV and movies. It was something I never meant to do or trained to do, but i think my liberal arts education was an enormous help--especially with the classics. 

What accomplishments in your career do you cherish?
My time in NY, in the late 60s and early 70s, leaving my university teaching job to be with my wife Anne McNaughton (who was in the first class at Juilliard), to work there with John Houseman, helping to train some of the finest actors of our generation. Being a founding member of The Acting Company and of The Antaeus Company. Founding or running theatre companies, four so far, because I was able to give work to wonderful actors and stage wonderful plays. Helping to save the Berkeley Shakespeare Festival from bankruptcy in the 1970s with the help of a core of actor/directors known as "the Sharers." Acting with California Shakespeare Festival in the 1960s, because we were all young and didn't know any better, and I formed there lifelong friendships with men and women, many of whom went on to become very successful actors. Working steadily at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego; my first job there, after many years of trying, was playing Bottom in Jack O'Brien's spectacular A Midsummer Night's Dream, which for me began a long and tremendously rewarding association and friendship with Jack, culminating our the multiple-award-winning production of Henry IV at Lincoln Center. Meeting and working with someone I consider the finest actress in America, Kandis Chappell, peaking with our playing opposite one another in Shadowlands at South Coast Repertory. My first TV series (Down Home) with Judith Ivey and a wonderful company of actors. A small TV film shot in Mennonite country in Pennsylvania called A Silence at Bethany--maybe my best film experience ever. Writing and producing my verse play The Prince of L.A. on corruption in the Catholic Church. Working onstage with the mad geniuses of Culture Clash not once but twice. Appearing as Dick Cheney in Gordon Davidson's swan song production of Stuff Happens at the Taper.

What type of training does an actor need to be on Television and in Film?
Training in patience. Training in cold reading and auditioning, because getting the job is the hardest thing. 

Can an actor be trained in theatre and still be ready for Television or Film?
Yes, of course. I still think it's the best training, but it will take adjustments, not the least in attitude. 

What is the difference between being a New York Actor and a Los Angeles Actor?
Very few actors come to or live in L.A. to do stage work, and those who do are hardy and committed souls. Most of us are here for the financial and career rewards of TV and film. If we can keep anything like a stage career going at the same time, that's a bonus. N.Y. actors are there, I think, more for the stage--and of course the Law and Order. It doesn't mean they're better at it, by the way, except perhaps for the fact that they do more of it and I think they are more aggressive about the stage careers, because that's their primary focus, than an L.A. actor is about his or her stage career. 

What made you decide to open NewPLace Studio Theatre in the NoHo Arts District?
Well, you know, this is my second NewPlace Theatre in the district. The first was built primarily for the Antaeus Company and was part of a whole complex of offices, rehearsal rooms, shops, warehouse, and an intimate studio theatre. I chose that location because 1) I live in North Hollywood; 2) I believed than--and still do, perhaps less naively--in the vitality of the NoHo Arts scene; 3) the space was available and had real possibilities--for parking and even a rather lager theatre than the one my wife and I eventually built. About two years ago, because the financial burden was growing unbearable--Anne and I don't do this as a profit venture but as a way of supporting small, especially classical, theatre--and because Antaeus, our primary tenant, signaled that it no longer wished to produce in the studio theatre, we were forced to sell the complex to a developer to try to recoup our staggering losses till then. About the time we had to move out, a small brick warehouse behind Mark's Paints became available for lease--in fact it was a property I had looked at 12 years earlier--and though small, it seemed workable; it meant I could just wheel all my stuff and equipment down the alley for the move. Terry Evans and Dean Cameron and I planned and executed the remodel, the design and decoration, and the result, I think, is pretty spectacular. 

What show is playing there now? What made you choose this play?

While working with David Hare on Stuff Happens, I started re-reading some of his earlier plays and fell in love with this--rarely produced—one….THE BAY AT NICE.   It seemed a very good match for the space--small cast, one set--and for the actors I wanted to work with--two spectacular roles for mature women. It's quite a break for us, and a happy one. Since Antaeus stopped producing with us, we had focused exclusively on our own scripts--originals, translations, adaptations. It's nice to hear another, powerful voice in the theatre and of course the play is in part about the difficulties of doing one's art in a society that is not always supportive. That appealed to us as well.

The Southern California premiere of THE BAY AT NICE runs from April 14 to May 20. Starring Anne Gee Byrd, John Combs, Charlotte Di Gregorio, Annie La Russa.

Directed by Anne McNaughton & Produced by Dakin Matthews.

Sets & Costumes by Dean Cameron, Lighting by Peter Strauss & Stage Manager Katie Graham
For more info about THE BAY AT NICE visit:  www.andak.org