the CBS reality show “The Amazing Race.” Before heading for the East Coast, Spangler did theater in the Bay Area with Peninsula Youth Theatre, Children’s Musical Theater in San Jose and other companies. As for Rouleau, he sang a cappella with the quartet Pulse at Sacred Heart during his four years there. After graduating in 2005, he went on to study musical theater at New York University, where Spangler also studied. An agent signed him on after seeing him in a student production his junior year. Rouleau, a blond, 6-foot tenor, then worked in summer stock theater in New London, N.H., where, he recalls, “We made $40 a week, we built all the sets, made all the costumes, rehearsed during the day, and performed at night.” After college, Rouleau spent a year playing Woody in “Toy Story” for Disney Cruise Line. The following year he toured the country playing Emmett in “Legally Blonde.” A year ago he won a ticket lottery to go see “The Book of Mormon,” and remembers walking out and telling a friend he wanted to be in the show someday. Then, he says: “It really happened quickly. I was in the right place, at the right time, and knew the right people.” He auditioned and landed the part of standby. “I always have to be alert and ready to go on,” he says. One night he learned at 11 p.m. that he was going to be making his Broadway debut the next day. He notified his parents and they took a red-eye flight cross-country to make it there in time.
Recently, when Menlo School drama teacher Beth Orr took a group of 30 students to see the show, Rouleau went on as Elder Price. “He was really, really entertaining,” says freshman Rebecca Shoch of Woodside. “The best part about him was his facial expressions; they were very exaggerated.” N Kate Daly writes for the Almanac, one of the Weekly’s sister papers. Weekly arts editor Rebecca Wallace contributed to this story.
A&E DIGEST FILM ON OBESITY IN KIDS ... A documentary produced by Louise Pencavel at the Midpeninsula Community Media Center in Palo Alto is soon to be shown on national television. “The Parents’ Survival Guide: Childhood Obesity” is a one-hour program looking at the reasons for obesity in kids and proposing solutions for addressing the problem. “Childhood obesity is an incredibly multi-layered and complex problem with biological, psychological, social, cultural and political facets and I have found it an infinitely fascinating subject to explore,” Pencavel said in a press release. Locally, the program is currently set to be shown on June 13 at 7 and 10 a.m. on KQED World, but Pencavel encourages viewers to check their local listings as times can change. For more about the documentary, go to parentssurvivalguide.org.
Buddhists Just Want to Have Fun: Joy, Compassion, and World Peace An afternoon with New York Times best-selling author
Chade-Meng Tan speaking on the role of meditation in the world’s great religions.
Sunday, May 20, 2012 4:00 pm Spangenberg Auditorium at Gunn High School, 780 Arastradero Road, Palo Alto Presented by
The Thomas Merton Center of Palo Alto Tickets are available at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/246736 or by calling 1-800-838-3006
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