Editor's note: In the run-up to Mother's Day this Sunday, WGCU Arts Reporter Tom Hall will be documenting several Southwest Florida moms who have had an impact on their performance-minded offspring.
Stage mom Jennifer Dick’s guiding principle is supporting her children’s passions. In the case of her daughter, Rilyn, that passion is theater. It’s been that way since Rilyn was 3.
“She was obsessed with the book ‘Pinkalicious,’ and they did the show 'Pinkalicious' at Broadway Palm,” Dick recounted. “She was 3 years old at the time. I took her to see it, and she was glued to the stage. I mean I couldn’t even talk to her. She was glued. And afterward she got to meet and get autographs and pictures. As we were driving home, she said, ‘Mommy,’ I’m like ‘Yeah,’ and she says, ‘I’m going to be on that stage someday.’ And I said, ‘Great thing to think.’ She said, ‘No, no, no, for real. I’m going to be on that stage one day.’”
The following Christmas, Rilyn made good on that promise when Paul Bernier and Broadway Palm auditioned players for the role of Zuzu Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
“So I took her back and there’s literally 60 cute, blond-haired, blue-eyed girls and then my brunette daughter. I was like, ‘This is never going to happen. How do you break a little girl’s heart?’ But apparently she went in the room and she wowed them, and she got the part.”
Since then, Rilyn’s done eight more shows at Broadway Palm, one at Florida Rep, “Spring Awakening” at Arts Bonita and more shows at Cultural Park than her mom can count. Just this year, she’s played Anne Boleyn in “Six” and racy Fastrada in “Pippin” at North Fort Myers High, as well as Olaf in “Frozen.”
In the fall, she starts a new leg in her journey to become a stage performer when she enters Florida Southern College in Lakeland.
“I went to buy a calendar, and I’m like, why? Like every single square of my calendar has been her schedule since she’s been four. What am I going to do? I have nothing to put in it for next year. I don’t have dress rehearsal, tech rehearsal, hair, vocal. Like it literally consumes you. It was my every day. Like every day we had someplace different to be to get her where she needed to go. But I loved it. I loved the hustle bustle.”
Even though Rilyn will be a hundred miles away getting degrees in musical theater and cyber security, Jennifer Dick will still be supporting her daughter’s passion to be on stage - no matter where that may take her.
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Between “Pinkalicious” and “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Rilyn actually went to Broadway Palm a third time. Jennifer Dick explains.
“So my son was in fourth grade and there was an audition for young Ebenezer Scrooge at Broadway Palm. His theater teacher was like, ‘I want him to go try.’ So I took him over and, of course, she’s in tow because she’s his little sister. He auditioned, and the guy came out, Paul [Bernier], and said, ‘I’d like to offer him the part,’ and out of nowhere my daughter stands up and she’s like, ‘Scuse me, do you have the part of Tiny Tim yet?’ I was like, ‘Oh my God, I am so sorry, sir. I am so sorry.’ He starts laughing and he’s like, ‘Oh, I like her. You need to bring her back to me one day.’
As her mom’s story intimates, Rilyn Dick is smart, funny and driven.
“She’s been through three knee surgeries in the last two years,” Dick remarked. "One of them was an elective surgery so she could just get herself back on stage within two weeks to perform three shows before undergoing major reconstructive surgery. She’s got a hard work ethic. She gives it 110 all the time.”
Rilyn’s also not one to let an “I told you so” pass by the boards without comment.
“When ['It’s a Wonderful Life' closed] and she was saying her goodbyes to everybody and crying because she just loved every part of the adults and the whole professional atmosphere. She was like, ‘I told you I was going to be on that stage one day.’ I said, ‘Yes, you did, and two years after, you were there.’ And now she’s done nine shows at Broadway Palm.”
After performing in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” Dick enrolled Rilyn in “Broadway Babies” at Cultural Park with Gerrie Benzing. During the four-week camp, Benzing wrote scripts for each child to perform based on their individual skills and interests.
“[Gerrie] came to me like a week into it and said, ‘She wants to do a solo. She’s 4. Do you think she can do a solo?’ ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what she can and can’t do.’ Gerrie’s like, ‘Well I’m giving her a solo.’ And she did ‘On the Good Ship Lollipop’ and with the cutest little lisp. She was 4, you know. And she loved it. But she kept telling Gerrie, I’m going to be on that stage, on that big stage over there one day.’
Rilyn doesn’t have a theatrical pedigree. Although Jennifer did dance in high school, a career in theater was the last thing she ever wanted for herself.
“I can’t sing,” Jennifer confessed.
“In fact, people would pay me to stop singing.”
I didn’t ask and she didn’t offer corroboration.
“When I was in high school, I was a dancer. I started dancing when I was 2 and I was in the shows. In my senior year, [the director] said, ‘I’m going to give you a line.’ ‘I was no, no. I refuse to speak. I will go dance, but do not ask me to talk. Keep me in the background.’ I wanted nothing to do with theater or stage. The thought of it … I don’t know how she can do it. I literally want to throw up myself, and it’s not even me up there. I don’t know how these kids can get up on stage and do that. I don’t get it. There’s no way. You couldn’t pay me to do that — ever.”
Out of high school, Dick went to nursing school. Halfway through, she decided she hated it and switched her major to physical therapy.
“I’ve been a physical therapist for 28 years, but the only job I ever wanted to be was mom,” Jennifer confided. “I grew up with a mom who worked three jobs, and she couldn’t be there all the time and, you know, I was the latchkey child of the ‘80s. I was a nanny when I was 15. Every job I had was working with kids, literally, and then when I graduated with my PT degree, I went straight into working with kids and worked with kids pretty much until I had them. And then I became a full-time mom.”
Dick still does PRN work. Supporting a theater phenom can be expensive, even when you’re being judicious.
“There were certain things my husband and I didn’t allow Rilyn to do.”
One was the Junior Theatre Festival.
JTF brings together student musical theater troupes from all over the world for a weekend of musical theater mayhem and madness. Each troupe performs 15 minutes from a Broadway Junior show for adjudication by a panel of musical theater experts. The weekend also features professional development for teachers, workshops for students and parents, a New Works Showcase featuring new musical adaptations soon to be released and concludes with a grand finale concert headlined by Broadway’s best. Sponsored by Playbill, Disney Musicals, and Music Theatre International, there are two venues – Atlanta and Sacramento.
“I know that JTF was a big thing, but it was a super expensive trip to take,” Dick noted. “So I told her you can do it one time. Pick which year you want to do it. You’re not going every single year. Like that’s thousands of dollars to go. Like, I love you and I will support the things that you do, but you need to pick and choose.”
Some local shows require performers to pay a fee.
“She didn’t do a lot of the shows that there were fees for. She won’t do a show just to do a show. If we’re going to spend money on it, it has to be a show she has a passion for.”
Like “Spring Awakening” at Arts Bonita.
“That was a show she’d thought about for a very long time, so last summer when it came up, she’s like 'I want to do the show.' And there was a fee for that.”
Still, there are a host of other costs and expenses, including vocal lessons and dance lessons. ”Those cost money, but at the same time you have to say as a parent, if this is her forever, you’ve got to do what you need to do. And that’s why, honestly, that’s why I do PRN work. That’s why I go back every season as a therapist and work, and that was really the money that went to that kind of stuff. It was the extras, the bonuses.”
Aside from financial considerations, Dick does not provide Rilyn much guidance in terms of role selection. She doesn’t have to. Rilyn has an uncanny knack for knowing which roles suit her and which do not.
“Honestly, Rilyn is your most independent young woman,” her mom said. “She’s just always had a really good head on her shoulders.”
But Dick is always there to provide encouragement at times when her daughter fails to get a role she covets or experiences some other kind of setback.
“I always said, ‘If you are not happy, and you cannot accept no, this isn’t the field for you because you’re going to get way more no's than you’re ever going to get yeses. So you have to know in your heart like if you can’t handle it, get out. And she’s like, ‘No, how could you even say that to me? This is my passion and my love, and you’re telling me to stop it?’ I’m like, ‘I’m just saying, if you don’t love it, get out. So, that’s kind of how I’ve always done it with my kids. Do what you love. If you’re miserable, when it makes you miserable, you’re not doing the right thing.”
That’s precisely the path her son chose.
“He loved playing young Ebenezer and went on to do five more shows at Broadway Palm and all of his school shows,” Dick related. “But in eighth grade, he was getting bullied in school, which happens to boys, and so he switched to sports. He said he wanted to go into high school with a fresh start. ‘I don’t want people picking on me all the time,’ he said. It was hard because he was super talented. They loved him [at Broadway Palm]. Every time they had a show for a young boy, they were calling me. ‘Hey, does your son want to work this summer, like we’ve got a job for him.’ It just ended very abruptly. It was hard as a mom, but I always told my kids if you don’t love it, don’t do it. Like, don’t do it if you don’t love it. And he’s like I don’t want to do it. So I said OK, that’s it, we’re done. So he’s going to school for business and finance and adding on a minor this year for sports management. He loves the sports field, but he still supports his little sister.”
While there are parts that Rilyn won’t audition for, she’s generally happy to take whatever role the casting director wants to give her, even if it’s not the one she prefers.
“’Like they know where I need to be,’ she’ll tell me. ‘They know where I’ll shine.’ There’s been roles she’s wanted but hasn’t got but ended up loving what they gave her. So, because of that, she’s like, ‘I’m going to go for what I want, but if I don’t get it, I’m cool with whatever they give me.'”
Rilyn never thought she would be cast as Fastrada, the vampy, manipulative queen in “Pippin.”
“She thought for sure she was Catherine because Catherine is sweet. That’s just who she is. She doesn’t play sexy. She doesn’t play domineering. That’s just not her in real life. So she was shocked. She was like, ‘What is [Janelle Laux] thinking? I can’t be sexy. I can’t play a part like that.’ I was like, sure you can. So she said to me 'I need help with the dance. Will you get me a private lesson.' No problem. I did some research, found somebody. I said here’s a couple of options, which one do you want? She chose and I put in a phone call and got her a couple of dance lessons to get her better with her kicks and her jumps.”
Still, Dick wasn’t prepared to see her daughter as Fastrada.
“Fastrada was very hard because she’s always played these young, innocent comedic characters, and then all of a sudden, she went from looking like a young … If you know her face, she has a very young-looking face … And when she put on that costume as Fastrada and this hiked up short red outfit with nothing but legs, she looked like a grown woman on that stage. It was hard to swallow. Like it was hard to see her as a woman versus as a little girl that had that cute little lisp.”
When asked to describe what she experiences when watching her daughter perform, Dick responds with two words. The first is astonishment.
“It’s amazing. She astounds me every time she gets on stage, ‘cause she doesn’t really talk a lot about the role. She’ll say, ‘Oh it’s fun’ or ‘The show’s good’ or ‘You’re gonna like it.’ Actually, I don’t really want to know too much about it because I like to see it for the first time too. But she surprises me every time. It’s like seeing her for the first time every time. It’s weird because she’s mine, but it’s like she surprises me every time with what she can do with the role.”
The second word is pride.
“I’m proud,” said Dick. “I’m so proud of her. I know she’s going places. She’s told us since freshman year in high school she’s going to get a double major because she knows that the performing arts are difficult and the money is not always there. ‘So this is what’s going to happen: I’m going to get my degree. I’m going to get a job on a cruise line. I’m going to travel and see the world. Hopefully someone will see me out there and love me and put me in a traveling company where I can see a little bit more of the world. And then I’m going settle down, get married and have kids and then I’ll have that double major to back me up. And that’s what I’ll do for the rest of my life until I can no longer do it on stage. I want to do it as long as I can do it because it’s my heart and soul.’”
And Jennifer Dick will be right there cheering Rilyn on.
Support for WGCU’s arts & culture reporting comes from the Estate of Myra Janco Daniels, the Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation, and Naomi Bloom in loving memory of her husband, Ron Wallace.