Meet Quinn Cayabyab.  Our Producing Director who makes so much happen for us at Wily West.   Quinn joined Wily West for our 2009-2010 season as Production Manager.   Her contributions have been interwoven into all of our productions since then.  Quinn is now a Producer for Wily West and has produced two hit summer shows and a play and music festival.  Quinn essentially oversees all aspects of our productions.  All great theatre companies need someone like Quinn at their core to keep them going.  Every aspect of what you see on stage with Wily West Quinn has a hand in. From scouting actors, to reading plays, turning so many of our crazy ideas into something even better; from the set, to the props, from the budget to buying whatever liquid needs to be in glasses on stage - Quinn is thinking about it and making it happen.   I believe it is important for our audience to know this remarkable woman as she is key to making all the magic at Wily West happen.  She is the first person to enter our theatre and the last to leave it.  She works tirelessly with her husband, Wesley Cayabyab, to make each and every production as wonderful as time, space and budget will allow.   Here is a glimpse of her work and her life behind the scenes...

Genevieve Perdue is returning to the Wily West stage in two plays.  The multitalented artists is acting and costuming for both shows this fall.  Genevieve has a principal role in Morgan Ludlow's DROWNING KATE as Shelley and a featured role in Krista Knight's UN-HINGED both are world premieres.  We asked Genevieve to share a little bit of herself in pictures...

Here is a day in the life of Genevieve!

Colleen is delighted to work on her fourth collaboration with Wily West Productions. She recently appeared in Standing on Ceremony at The New Conservatory Theatre Center and she has assistant directed and understudied at the Magic Theatre  and SF Playhouse.  Colleen took some time away from rehearsals to talk to us about her latest role.


What other work have you done with Wily West?

Wily West has been a part of my life for a very long time. I was part of Wily West’s very first production, The Widow West in 2008. My husband (then boyfriend) was the stage manager and I was the assistant director. Since then we have acted in, assistant directed or stage managed Wily West productions. We even had a “Wily West” group photo taken at our wedding. This company is family for us.

What excites you most about this show?

I am obsessed with everything and anything spooky. Halloween is bigger than Christmas for me. It’s always been a dream of mine to act in a horror story play.  I love the ancient idea that the lighter part of the year is dying and spirits are allowed to walk more fully among the living.  I think this play is the perfect fit for this time of year.

What is your greatest challenge with this show?

Kate’s motivations are harder to express than the average, living person because, well, she’s not really alive.  Her deep love for Harry is one of the few truly human emotions that keeps her somewhat grounded in the human realm, but even that starts to deteriorate as she (literally) falls apart and moves closer to the other side. My challenge is to take Kate through the journey from life to death. You know, no big deal or anything!

SHEHEREZADE 14 nominated for 
BEST ANTHOLOGY!

Rick Homan will be creating the role of Glenn in our world premiere production of Krista Knight's play UN-HINGED.   In 2006, Rick and his wife Ann moved to San Francisco from Philadelphia where they lived for twenty-one years. There he acted with the Arden Theater Company, Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival and Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival among other companies. He was a professor of theater arts for thirty years.

Rick's Thoughts on Glenn 

When I first looked at the role of Glen in Un­Hinged by Krista Knight, it reminded me of the time I understudied Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman. Both roles are demanding: always on stage, lots of lines to learn, etc. But, as I have studied the Glen and Un­Hinged, I have come to see there are more profound similarities between this new play and Arthur Miller’s masterpiece.

Miller calls “Salesman” a “memory play.” Similarly, Un­Hinged has three, parallel time­frames: scenes in the 1960’s, scenes in the 1980’s and Glen’s monologues which seem to occur in a never­ending present tense. So, it may seem to the audience that everything which happens is simultaneously being remembered by Glen. Since this is the first production of this play, we are about to find out!

Miller gives his characters everyday language, but he sometimes tricks the ear of the audience with an unlikely word choice, as when Charley says, “A salesman is got to dream.” We would expect “has got to dream,” but for a moment we also marvel at what a salesman at is. Krista Knight sprinkles the same sort of vernacular poetry throughout Un­Hinged.

Willy Loman believes that if a man is “well­liked” he will be “loved and helped and remembered.” Of course, that is not true, and that is his downfall, but he makes us wish it were true. Glen also has a belief which guides everything he does, and which results in tragic failure. But, as Charley says of Willy Loman at the end of “Salesman,” “No one dast blame this man.”

The role of Glen looks better everytime I look at it; and I look at it every day. The playwright and Wily West have made me the first actor to play this amazing role in this great play. I am forever grateful to them.