20 Questions with ...

As a means of introducing some folks who are active in the local theater scene -- and as part of what I hope will be a sporadic series of local theater profiles -- here's the first of Bobo's 20 Questions features. In this initial installment, we're highlighting the second-year artistic director of the Lake City Playhouse in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, TRACEY VAUGHAN.

Vaughan, 32, was born and raised in CdA. She went to CdA High and has both a bachelor's degree and an MFA from the University of Idaho -- where her favorite theatrical experience was directing The Laramie Project in 2002. In July, Tracey married Brian, who's a long-distance truck driver.


1. What books are you currently reading?
I am rereading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

2. What's your first theater memory?
I was five years old in the church play - I played the lead Sam, the good Samaritan, and I had to sing a song about a coin!

3. What's the worst job you've ever had?
That would have to be working at Planet Hollywood as a server in Orlando, Florida. Imagine a two-hour wait in line for patrons from 5 pm until 11 pm. These were people who had been in the hot Florida sun attending Disney World all day with their kids. Oh, and one summer I worked there, the air conditioning was broken.

4. What's the most important thing you've changed your mind about?
Staying in the area where I am from - I always wanted to get away, but I am happiest in the Northwest.

5. Why is it assumed that if you're a theater person, you're politically liberal?
The people who assume that everyone in the arts are liberal folk also tend to see the world as black and white and like labels.

6. What's your favorite drug?
Wine is my "drug" of choice, I suppose!

7. You're at a dinner with a choreographer, a set designer, a costume designer and a lighting designer. You've never met any of them before. What questions do you ask?
I would ask questions to determine our artistic compatibility. The designer-director collaboration is pretty key to the success, at least visually, of a production. It's hard if you don't see eye-to-eye.

8. Who are the greatest American playwrights?
Kushner, Williams, Kaufman ...

9. What does the Average Joe in the street not understand about community theater?
That it takes a tremendous effort on all levels to mount a production.

10. What's under your bed?
Cat toys

11. What kind of audience behavior drives you nuts?
Candy wrappers

12. What's your idea of comfort food?
Sushi

13. Which of your relatives is most like one of your friends? Why?
My brother, because we share similar interests and both are theater artists.

14. How is your life different since 9/11?
I'm more aware of national issues. I pay more attention to what is being said and done about everything.

15. The Inland Northwest has a four-season climate, but you've been given the power to make just one of the four seasons hold sway all year round. Which do you choose and why?
Fall - for the beautiful colors and for new beginnings

16. What play or musical has the American stage produced way too often, thank you very much?
Oklahoma!

17. What vice holds little or no appeal for you?
Use of hard drugs

18. Describe the last time you looked up something in an encyclopedia or dictionary and got lost browsing some other subject altogether.
I was looking on stuff for 9/11 for the play I'm directing, The Guys, and I got lost in all the info about New York in general

19. What part does exercise play in your life?
Minimal, right now -- I'm too busy. My husband and I like to take walks.

20. It's word association time!
turtles: pets -- I used to have them as pets.
chihuahuas: cute
NASCAR: stupid
opera: classy
Shakespeare: brilliant
Andrew Lloyd Webber: briilliant, again
directors: Spielberg
critics: [laughs} well, Michael Bowen
yoga: exercise -- I had a class in yoga once
sumo wrestling: [laughs] large
Gwyneth Paltrow: OK
Colin Farrell: Also OK. I'm not crazy about either one of them. I don't think he has much talent, really. But I'm looking forward to seeing her in Proof, which I just directed for Lake City.