By all accounts, La Jolla’s Dominique Salerno has an exquisite singing voice. The recent Bishop’s School graduate has studied at an exclusive Northwestern University theater camp. She’s done time at the La Jolla Conservatory, Carnegie Hall, the Chicago Opera House and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the world’s largest arts fête. And she just dissed Stanford, USC, Cornell and a litany of other schools for New Jersey’s Princeton University, where she’ll start classes this fall (major undeclared).
The thing is, her own father doesn’t even care.Well, strike that. Of course he does. It’s just that he was determined she was going to land her latest role “” as Sarah Siddons in Christopher Durang’s “The Actor’s Nightmare” “” without any help from him, her impressive credentials notwithstanding. And since he’s the director, he’s also the final arbiter, thanks.
He’s La Jollan Robert Salerno, artist in residence at San Diego’s Vantage Theatre, and his show is one of 35 plays to be featured at the 16th annual Actors Alliance of San Diego (AASD) Actors Festival, set for July 19 through 30 at downtown’s Lyceum space.
“Nightmare” is Durang’s homage to all performers and the machinations they suffer in preparing for a role. Accountant George Spelvin (Taylor Henderson) awakes to find himself on a stage, where he’s told he has to sub for a performer who’s been in a car accident. He doggedly wings it, predictably falling apart when his co-stars exit. All the while, the show’s fanciful side chides several theater genres and parodies literary criticism “” but a universal theme colors its bottom line.
“Anybody can relate to a person having a nightmare,” Robert said. “That’s why I think people can like it without having any sophistication whatsoever about theater itself. They don’t have to know all the intricacies to be able to appreciate how crazy and wacky this nightmare is.
“It’s like the ocean. The jokes can be very deep and arcane, but everybody can have a good time at the shore.”
Dominique plays multiple roles, including Amanda and Gertrude.
“I was really hesitant about doing this play, because I like to keep artistic things separate from family,” added Dominique, 18. “I try to stay away from that. But when I went to the audition, the fun I had convinced me that, OK, it’s good to do this.”
“I was uncertain about how it was going to work out,” Robert said. “I told her I don’t want anybody else to feel like we have this secret communication system. I think that’s working out. It’s not as if we haven’t had issues that are contentious in the house in the past, but we’ve handled them on a very professional level.”
And it’s not as if he hasn’t gotten along without her before ” like at last summer’s festival, when Charles Ludlam’s “The Ventriloquist’s Wife,” which he directed, won awards for best ensemble, actor and actress. Then there was 2003, when he himself won the top director nod for Jean Cocteau’s “The Wedding at the Eiffel Tower.”
“The Actor’s Nightmare” also features Taylor Henderson, winner of the Judith Haxo Award at The Bishop’s School, who is a freshman at New York University. He portrays George, an accountant who stumbles onto an empty stage with actors who spout lines from plays by Noel Coward, Shakespeare and Samuel Beckett. Others in the company are Andrea Maida, John Martin and Sara Beth Morgan.
AASD, founded in 1987, is a nonprofit service organization dedicated to the advancement, exposure and education of the theater artist in San Diego and community enhancement through the medium of theater. It has about 530 members, and its annual budget topped $100,000 for the first time in 2004.
For Vantage producer Dori Salois, its performer-intensive festival is a crucial tool in the evolution of San Diego theater.
“It gets back to the most important part of theater, which, truthfully, is the actor,” she said. “You can write terrific words, but if you don’t have somebody to make it come alive, it’s not gonna work. There aren’t a lot of big production values at the festival. Give me an actor, a light bulb and a chair, and we’ve got a play.”
Salois’ minimalist tastes often counter Salerno’s tendency toward bells and whistles. But outside the festival, the pair have the time and means to reconcile their differences. As it happens, they’re married “” and this year, they have some pretty tight connections with one of the festival’s stars.
“The Actor’s Nightmare” plays at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Saturday, July 20 and 22.
Information on tickets and festival passes is available at the Lyceum box office, (619) 544-1000, or from the Alliance, (619) 640-3900.
The Alliance’s Web address is www.actorsalliance.com.
” Charlene Baldridge contributed to this story.