The great DJ Sullivan came into my life in 1979, when I was a troubled teen. My buddy Bill Simmons and I were the terrors of San Diego Junior Theatre that year. None of the teachers could put up with us, no one liked us and in fact all of the teachers and administrators (those administrators being the powerful duo of Don and Bonnie Ward) were meeting about kicking us out when DJ spoke up and said, "I'll take 'em."
Well, take us she did. DJ showed us so many things we'd never seen before. Chiefly among them what a real acting class looked like and what an audition was all about. At age fourteen (and Bill at 15), we had taken all the other classes Junior Theatre had to offer and, though we didn't know it at the time, had outgrown all but the most advanced classes.
DJ was a working actress so she came to class with great stories about the great people and things she was doing in LA, who she was working with and what she was learning.
She was taking classes at the time with Michael Shurtleff and taught us all she and he knew (and a little bit more) about the Audition technique.
I also met some famous people in DJ's class. She was out of town for three classes that I remember and the substitutes were almost as fascinating as she was.
Don Victor was a fantastic improv artist and a great performer who came this close to becoming famous. A headache sidelined him from a performance. His partner Caryn Elaine Johnson went on to some small fame. She goes by Whopie Goldberg now.
Another great substitute was Kim McCallum (who would later found the Bowery Theatre and do some fantastic stuff in San Diego). We learned a lot about text; getting the text in you so you have it and can do anything with your emotions.
The third was an actor by the name of Bill Brinsfield. Bill had a solo show where he played Mark Twain and did so better than Hal Holbrook. Bill's claim to fame in the 80s was that he was Jack Nicholson's stand-in for The Witches of Eastwick and got to cavort with Cher, Michelle Pfeifer and Susan Sarandon.
Later, after we'd got our driver's licenses, DJ did something bor Bill and me that she rarely did for her young students. She invited us to take her adult class. A class she has been teaching until recently. Then, I got the pleasure to work under her kind, powerful and altogether fantastic method of directing. Here's a video of my darling DJ telling us how she blocks scenes using her daughters' 1960s era Barbie stage and toy soldiers.
See for yourself how wonderful she really is!
