Longtime lovebirds relish singing together on stage
RON BROWN
JENAVENE HESTER
A
18
Spring 2011
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AC U TO D AY
CU’s candlelight devotional during Welcome Week brought Seth Bazacas (’09) and Jenavene (Hester ’09) Bazacas together in 2005. It hasn’t been the only matchmaker since then. While standing for a song during the traditional freshman devotional, Seth and Jenavene found themselves caught up in the praise, simultaneously realizing upon opening their eyes that they were the only ones still on their feet in the packed Beauchamp Amphitheater. The moment stood out in other ways as well. After a week spent together in their Welcome Week group and the shared moment of spontaneous praise, Seth felt compelled that night to write down the feeling of having met his future wife. She also happened to be the daughter of Department of Theatre professor and chair Adam Hester (’77) and his wife, Donna (Vickers ’88 M.A.), an adjunct faculty member. From a young age, Jenavene was a veteran ACU actor, having performed in several roles for her father’s productions since she was a middle schooler. The two had a lot in common, and they spent the next four years together in the theatre program, taking many of the same classes or performing alongside one another. But it didn’t take all four years for Seth’s prediction to come true. “She caught my eye right away,” Seth says. “That night at the candlelight devo I thought, ‘You know, I think I’m probably going to marry that girl.’” Four-and-a-half years later, at a restaurant in New York City, in the presence of both of their families, Seth re-opened his journal, read aloud the words he had written that Welcome Week night, and made a move to turn the hunch into a reality as he proposed to Jenavene. The occasion of the dinner was one highlighting another unexpected and opportune pairing of the two: the opening night of Lincoln Center’s production of Babes in Toyland in which both were performing. Just months after graduating with degrees in theatre from ACU, where both had significant roles in productions throughout their four years, they moved to apartments near each other in New York City, auditioned for Babes in Toyland and were both cast for the show. The newly engaged couple completed the Christmas run of Babes in Toyland together, and Seth was soon cast in the Nickelodeon Presents Storytime Live Tour and was on the road while Jenavene stayed in New York. After returning from that tour, a previous audition connection landed Seth an appointment for the casting of a national tour of Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical. “It went great, and I told Jen, ‘I feel really good about this. You should probably go in,’ ” Seth says. “She didn’t have an appointment like I did; she just went to an open dance call. I thought, ‘We have to at least try.’ At this point, we thought, having just married, if only one of us got it, we would pass. Our agents didn’t like that, but they understood.” The offer for Seth, who was cast as Max, the Grinch’s dog, came first. “I was excited because it was a big deal, but there was a part of me that could only get so excited because I didn’t know yet about Jen. I was trying to be excited but guard myself,” he says. Seth waited tables at the time, and Jenavene worked at Starbucks. Both also were waiting anxiously to hear back about her casting audition, but the call didn’t come for a couple of weeks. “She was at Starbucks, and I was at the restaurant,” Seth says. “I got her voicemail message on my break; they had just called her and she had been cast. I told the manager I had to leave. I was in tears, jumping up and down, excited, and I ran out of the restaurant and all the way from Wall Street to Midtown where she